Jonas Martensson: Minecraft guru on new role with LIV Golf and Cleeks GC
Having swapped Minecraft for LIV Golf, Jonas Martensson discusses how he is going to revolutionise his Cleeks GC team.
Picture the scene: you wake in random grassland with nothing to your name. Then you forage for resources and food, build yourself a house – then a town, city and kingdom – and fight monsters who blow up like a stick of dynamite (yes, really).
For many adults, this simulation could depict anything from a nightmare to a conversation at the Hacienda during the height of acid house, but for kids it is the unmistakable pathway that characters enact in Minecraft.
Minecraft is the block-based video game that became a global sensation, in which avatars explore and build, create adventures, and fight friends and foes for what they believe is a better solution to a long-held problem.
A stretch perhaps, but one could compare the trials and tribulations of Minecraft to the warring between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf tour, where disagreements once threatened to blow the sport apart and still cause problems.
LIV Golf’s outward look
LIV is controversial, there’s no getting away from it, but it has been able to amass a pool of popular players, taken high-level golf to previously neglected areas, signed HSBC in a major multi-year sponsorship deal and hired some top talent from business to run its teams.
One of those is Jonas Martensson, former CEO of Minecraft creator Mojang Studios, who has become general manager of Cleeks GC, the team captained by former world No1 Martin Kaymer.
“My first experience of LIV was a tournament in Bangkok, close to two and a half years ago,” he tells City PM, ahead of LIV Golf’s UK leg at the JCB Club in Staffordshire this weekend.
“They invited me over there to play in the pro-am just to experience it. It was never really a discussion of me starting there, I was still working with Minecraft, so I experienced my first tournament there and I met [former LIV CEO] Greg Norman and others in the management and had a good time.
“I later flew down to Valderrama [two years later], had a long lunch with Greg, and he stood up after the lunch and said, ‘Welcome to the team’. So that’s how it all started.”
Aside from German Kaymer, Cleeks GC features Englishman Richard Bland, Poland’s Adrian Meronk and Dane Frederik Kjettrup on its roster.
Martensson admits that with an average age of 37, which rises to 41 when you exclude 25-year-old Kjettrup, this team won’t be around in its current iteration forever.
Team building
“My approach has been to build this properly ground up, and I’ve been focusing quite a lot on the brand itself, because that’s what’s going to stay with us,” he says.
“We know that in 10-20 years, the four players we have today are most likely not going to play on the team. So we will have new players over time and we need to be consistent with a brand and build something that people can relate to.
“We had at least one top 10 player on the European tour who reached out last year.”
LIV Golf operates a two-pronged structure, with big-money solo events played at the same time as team events, which build up to a major team finale at the end of the season.
Some argue that the team element of LIV Golf is in fact its USP, and that the grouped nature of the team event could offer golf a year-round Ryder Cup experience.
Martensson, who co-founded Happy Socks before joining Mojang, agrees that it is the long-term future, with a calendar featuring core fixed locations and supporting one-offs or rotational hosts.
Martensson homecoming
“We would love to see an event in Northern Europe. It’s quite a broad statement but let’s say Germany. That would be great for us,” he adds.
“It’s wise to have 10-11 fixed destinations. We can have returning fans and really tap into those markets and grow them over time, and then have a couple of rotating and new market events.
“The team concept is going to be stronger – it’s going to be more prominent – and we might see even more than one team event over time. I am just speculating now.”
Other general managers include Martin Kim – formerly of the LA Dodgers – and Richard Glover of the ATP Tour, but Martensson represents a venture into a world beyond sport.
LIV is clearly investing in expertise away from the fairway, and gaming seems like a smart sector to look at for brand building aimed at a new generation.
Martensson helped turn a block game into a $3.5bn revenue cash cow for Microsoft, so it’s intriguing to see what he’ll be able to do with living, breathing humans.