PapaSmithy’s grand plans for FlyQuest presence in Australia — starting with IEM Melbourne

It’s home soil for FlyQuest and Aussie president Chris "PapaSmithy" Smith this week in IEM Melbourne… well, sort of.

The North American organization with roots in Florida and California expanded Down Under in 2024 with the acquisition of the Grayhound CS2 roster.

It’s not quite the same as the States, but home is something PapaSmithy is hoping to make in Australia through the org’s huge investment into IEM Melbourne — both on the server and outside of it.

FlyQuest brought more than just the team to the Victorian capital. From a dedicated booth in the expo hall next door to afterparties at local gaming venue Fortress, plus their run of Australian cricket-inspired jerseys, PapaSmithy is all about giving back to the region.

“For me as a proud Australian who came up casting community tournaments even in the pre-ESL Australia era back in 2013, the only way that it made sense to pick up the boys was to lean in and support them,” PapaSmithy said to Esports.gg.

“There's a lot of different ways that support comes. One of them is just paying salaries, which I wish there were more teams in Australia doing, but it's also kind of serving a really under-served community. I was an Australian esports player, then esports commentator. I'm speaking to an Australian writer.”

PapaSmithy and FlyQuest want to avoid the idea that they’ve swooped on a vulnerable region for revenue, particularly given the chance for stickers at a CS2 Major. 

“There's always this impression that, you know, a North America-based org picks up an Australian team, it's a cynical Major sticker-max exercise or something inelegant like that, and I totally get where that comes from.”

“The way I look at a CS sticker is that Valve is basically sending over a stimulus check to recognize the commitment that those orgs have made to play in the scene,” he said, adding that teams are now rewarded for “playing an active part” in the seasonal circuit.

While it does mean the dream of open qualifier to Major champion in one go is dead, PapaSmithy would rather see teams reap the reward of a long, hard slog throughout the year. Such opportunities, however, are hard to come by in Australia — and not just in Counter-Strike.

“It's really, really hard to get recognized and to get opportunities outside Australia in esports,” PapaSmithy said. “Fans will naturally flock to other more popular products like the LCK if we’re talking League of Legends. I'm sure there's lots of fans of G2 and now Falcons from those who follow NiKo and m0NESY.”

Stickers aside, FlyQuest is all about maximizing fan engagement through the limited on-site opportunities they can get. While they’ve already done a lot more than their predecessors, PapaSmithy says FlyQuest has only just “cracked the surface,” adding that the first year of the project was devoted to understanding CS and the scene.

“I think a lot of this past year — year one — was us understanding CS and getting the right people on the staff side. I'm hoping that once performance levels start to equalize, we can start to really focus on creating fan first content and supporting the wider community.

“I don't want to take for granted the fact that we are kind of putting our own money into coming out here to run a booth, but I find that a very little first step towards hopefully a bigger push to building up Australian CS. I love what they've been doing locally at DFRAG and I love what we're seeing out there — I just want to make sure that we commit to that as well." 

Running a team so far away from HQ has its challenges, PapaSmithy explains. It’s easy to operate when everyone in the project shows up during business hours — but what happens when those business hours stretch across a 17-hour gap? 

“Multi-game esports orgs in one region are a lot more straightforward than multi-game esports orgs across multiple regions. In our case, there’s no language barrier, which is a big plus!” he said. “For sure, there's frustrations and annoyances like scheduling business meetings — someone's getting screwed, right?

“But because I came from Australian esports, I feel like I'm a good barometer to kind of sand over some of the rough edges and kind of make sure to let the staff know what to expect.”

The ultimate solution, FlyQuest has found, is to ensure the office at the far end of the project is staffed by the right people — hence the immediate pickup of tenured manager Chris “GoMeZ” Orfanellis.

GoMeZ is a veteran of Australian Counter-Strike, operating as team manager (and occasional coach) for the Vox Eminor core back in 2014. He stuck with the core through their transition to Renegades, then 100 Thieves before returning to helm the ORDER project in 2020.

“I think generally if you are an org and you're like investing in a remote project, make sure that you get the right staff there,” PapaSmithy said. “GoMeZ is our manager and he was a very important first domino. We're just making sure that we have a collection of people who can work with the challenges.”

From there, it was about analysis and research into what the new followers of FlyQuest want to see content-wise. PapaSmithy explained that not every Twitter post about the LTA LoL team will resonate with the Aussie fans or their female arm, FlyQuest RED — or vice versa.

“Whether it's language or how direct you can be or what you're playing towards, we've definitely taken some time to listen, he said. “It’s not enough just to know the numbers, you’ve got to do some talking and listening to the fans — that’s important.

“One thing I try to do is I try to get out personally to a couple events every season, even if it means the meetings for the week are gone due to time zones. 

“There needs to be a human connection to the org, because obviously we'll, you know, loop them with some of our partners and things like that. They'll play a part in some of our bigger campaigns that we do at FlyQuest. Otherwise, it's going to end up just ringing hollow.”

Esports is still in a trying time, but PapaSmithy isn’t about throwing the term “esports winter” around, believing FlyQuest and the industry has matured beyond the super-investment days of the late 2010’s.

“There isn't the kind of Monopoly money of 2018 and 2019 anymore,” PapaSmithy said. “If you come in blind to esports and just think that you can apply traditional sports mechanics and kind of make a quick buck, that doesn't apply at all in 2025.

“Coming in and over-promising and under-delivering 10 years into an industry… it's a much more mature industry, you can't do that anymore,” he said. “You have to be a lot more specific about the audience and how you engage with them and sell yourself as the best ambassador for that.

“Everybody involved in esports, by and large, has kind of understood the inputs and outputs of esports teams. There's no way to speculate or over-represent what you are.

“People now kind of understand how things move and what outputs are realistic. And so, when it comes to sponsors, which obviously is still the main monetary contributor outside of developer support (e.g. CS Major stickers), they're a lot more sophisticated about what esports teams are and aren't.”

PapaSmithy said a major strength of FlyQuest was that many of its staff knows what rock bottom looks like — and they know how to rebuild from the ground up.

“We have all learned how to move in the right way and try to zig when it's time to zig rather than move into oncoming traffic like some organizations have. 

“It's a different time. It's a mature industry. What works for us, works for us. Still, revenue is tricky to find, so you just have to be creative and show what you're about rather than just boast about things.”

Even if the CS2 team’s campaign is cut short at IEM Melbourne, you’ll be sure to see plenty of FlyQuest in and around Melbourne this week — and in everyone in Australia going forward.

For more CS2 esports news, stay with us at esports.gg.