eSports Professional Meets Outdoor Influencer

Magdalena Kalus runs the outdoor blog @youareanadventurestory on Instagram together with her friend Anja Kaiser. With their content about outdoor, mountaineering and adventure, the two have already been able to inspire more than 45,000 followers. Opposite her is Kevin Reiser. Kevin is a professional FIFA player under contract with 1 FC Nürnberg. On his Instagram and Twitter channel @thisiskev1n, the eSportsman gives a total of over 5,000 fans an insight into his life as a FIFA professional.

It quickly becomes clear - the everyday lives of the two could hardly be more different. Magadelna is outdoors a lot for work, Kevin a lot in front of the console, and in the interview with ISPO and Contentkueche the influencers talk about their everyday life, the topic of eSports and what role sport in general plays for them.

ISPO.com: You are both very experienced in your field. What do you think are your similarities as sports and eSports influencers?
Magdalena Kalus: I think the similarities between me as a classic outdoor blogger and someone who is an eSports influencer are that in the end we both inspire and somehow encourage people to do things.

That means getting really good at a PC game or maybe doing a certain sport, going out, experiencing things and trying things out. Simply this point of inspiration: "Want to do, want to have, want to be able." These are, I think, the points of contact one has.

Kevin Reiser: I can only agree in principle on the subject of common ground. This is the main point. With eSports, purely physical exercise is of course missing. That's the difference.

Kevin, unlike Magdalena, movement is not part of your typical Influencer's everyday life. Against this background: What do you both do to keep yourselves fit?
Magdalena Kalus: What is important - when it comes to what we do to keep ourselves fit - is that we are not athletes. You have to differentiate that there are classical athletes who are under contract with a fire or with a club, who then have to perform.

And influencers are in the end masters of themselves and do as much as they want to do. We are not classic athletes who train to get fit in a game, but we train on the mountain we want to climb. Or to a certain trail run. There the training is super different. Sometimes we go skiing for a season when we have a certain ski project. Sometimes we go running a lot because we have a multi-state race. But primarily we want to spend as much time as possible outside and on our feet.

Kevin Reiser: I go to the gym four times a week and also jog from time to time. This is very important for me before big competitions. I have a ritual. I go jogging for an hour before the competition to clear my head, be able to concentrate fully and have full focus. And with me, that is only possible by jogging. If I really had to go through the whole day completely, I would miss the creativity. I'd play badly someday. In order to be fully efficient, I need the sport.

Magdalena Kalus: To be honest, one doesn't exactly expect If you think of eSporters as an average consumer, you'd rather think of them sitting in an armchair all day long and only using the mouse. So that's why: Good stuff.

Kevin Reiser: Yes, of course there are examples, as you just said. But at least as far as the FIFA community is concerned, I can say that they are actually quite sporty by and large because there are also many ex-footballers and many people who are interested in football and have played for a long time themselves.

The topic of eSports is generally becoming more and more present. What do you think about eSports being integrated at ISPO Munich 2020?
Kevin Reiser: I think it is very good that eSports is represented at ISPO Munich because the whole topic is growing and becoming more and more present. And that is of course in the interest of all of us. It's quite simple. The subject is growing.

Magdalena Kalus: At first I was surprised that eSports is represented at the ISPO Munich because I have never really dealt with this topic before. I simply have no points of contact in everyday life. But I think it's actually quite good that people talk about it and that you can perhaps also bring about a certain change in people's thinking. Because I believe that this prejudice still exists: You are sitting at the computer and everyone who is sitting at the computer is not doing any sports.

But at the same time, there are things like chess, which is a sport. That's why it's actually quite nice that people have the opportunity to present themselves in a different way and to get rid of prejudices. I think it's cool.