Ex-military trained players and made 700,000 thousand dollars

Mark Neace, a former Army intelligence sergeant, trains people on how to play the video game “League of Legends”the most popular game played at a competitive level around the world, writes the New York Post.

While eSports is steadily gaining ground – even as an Olympic event – the pool of coaches is still small and the 33-year-old ex-military man jumped at the chance. He estimates he made $700,000 last year!

“I’m one of the first video game trainers so I don’t really have to fight to keep my clients, as silly as that soundssaid Neace, who was in Afghanistan during a four-year military career. “If a fitness person heard this, they’d be like, “That’s amazing,” because this is such a competitive industry and everyone on Instagram is a fitness influencer these days».

Charging $250 to $300 for 90-minute online sessions, Neace trains more than 1,000 clients a year. He became obsessed with gaming in the era of dial-up Internet access when his father let him play “Command and Conquer,” a military strategy game. Eventually, he became so good that no one bothered to try to beat him.

In 2010, at the age of 21, he enlisted in the US Army. Although he never saw combat, his work directly affected the lives of his fellow soldiers. “While I was on assignment, there was sleep loss, stress, and there was always that sense of responsibility. Did I do enough for these guys to make the right decisions on the battlefield?“, he says.

Neace’s journey to becoming a successful game coach was a ten-year journey filled with financial hardship, long hours of YouTube content creation and humility, especially when he and his wife had to move in with her parents.

His wife encouraged him to start his own website, where he initially charged $100 for a training session and quickly took off. Over time and with a constant stream of customers, he managed to triple his prices.

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