The Lodgz Podcast

Arpit “Paradox” Manaktala is the Founder of Paradox Customs. He’s taken the industry by storm this year building custom PC’s for streamers, content creators, esports players, professional athletes and even those in the music industry. Since quitting his job in early 2020 to pursue Paradox Customs full-time, he has built a team of 5+ employees around him to produce some of the most impressive and creative PC’s in gaming.

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Chris Lamarucciola is the President of Parabellum Esports, a Canadian based esports organization. At its inception, Parabellum Esports was first known as Shattered Dreams (SxD). After two years of growing the team and its brand, SxD was acquired by YDX Innovation, a global leader in the commercialization of immersive new technologies. After the acquisition, SxD was then rebranded to their current name, Parabellum Esports. They field rosters in Valorant, Fortnite, Rocket League, iRacing, Rainbow Six and others.

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Drew "Frozone" Bienusa is a Twitch Partner and Warzone content creator. He is ranked top 5 in the world for total kills and also ranks in the top 5 for total Warzone event earnings. This includes winning the Nickmercs MFAM Gauntlet main event in April and finishing second in the Toronto Ultra Warzone $100K event.

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David is an investor in FaZe Clan, President of the NA Collegiate Gaming League, Podcast Host, ex-Deloitte Partner and Founder of his own private equity firm. After spending 10 years with big four firm Deloitte, David embraced his entrepreneurial spirit and founded two different venture capital firms. In 2018 he became an investor in FaZe Clan and quickly contributed by getting FaZe into a Super Bowl Commercial. David is also the President of the North American Collegiate League (NACL). NACL is a non-profit collegiate gaming league in 220 Universities across 20 different countries. David’s podcast, “Pandanomics”, is the NY Weekly #1 Podcast.

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Bobby Solez is a full-time Facebook Gaming Partner, content creator and entrepreneur. Recently, Bobby signed with Ford Models to their “Esports and Gaming Division”, where the world-renowned modeling agency is now representing talent within gaming and esports. He is also Co-Founder of NYC Console Kings, a video game truck that hosts birthday parties, fundraisers and other private events.

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Sweat is the owner of Sense of Quality, an internet and stream optimization service. He is partnered with Net Gear Gaming. He provides numerous services in addition to internet and stream optimizations including PC build recommendations, free tutorial guides for “do it yourself” optimizations and product reviews on affordable quality products for streamers and content creators. Sweat has worked closely with numerous CDL teams and other professional esports players.

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Pavan Lakhat is a professional Madden player. He was the 2019 Madden Club Series Champion, winning $100,000. He is ranked #6 on the all-time Madden Championship Series money list with nearly $150K in tournament earnings. Pavan is also a streamer on Twitch and content creator on YouTube where he has over 3,000 subscribers. At the age of 20, he has a bright future ahead of him.

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Mark Cai is a Junior at Arizona State University majoring in marketing & computer information systems. In addition, he is currently an esports brand partnerships associate at Powerspike. He’s grown relations for Powerspike with some of the top names in gaming including Loaded, Evolved, Cloud9, Misfits Gaming and others. If that isn’t impressive enough, he’s also amassed more than 100,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel over the last 7 years. We chat about all this and more.

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During this episode we welcome the members of the Tampa Association of Gaming to discuss gaming & esports in Tampa Bay. Our guests include Derek Watford (Co-Founder of High Point Gamer), Chris Green (Founder of Game Drive LLC) and Marcus Howard (Founder of ProjectMQ). We discuss how to engage the Tampa community about gaming & esports, why Tampa is the perfect esports destination, how a future gaming facility can benefit the city, and the overall economic impact a strong gaming presence could bring to the local communities.

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Last week Ford Models announced the creation of their gaming & esports talent management division. Justin Jacobson, entertainment & esports attorney in NYC, is the manager of the division. Founded in 1946, Ford Models has been one of the most prestige modeling agencies to date. Outside of working with models, Ford had already been working with digital influencers. Adding gaming & esports seemed like the perfect addition. Justin shares the details behind the new division as well as his role and what you can expect to see.

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• Article on Ford Models entering esports

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