Football has dominated the American sports landscape for the last 150 years. It is consistently one of the most watched, most well-funded institutions in modern sports. We watch it on TV, we wear the jerseys, we clad our children in pads and helmets, and send them to the field as soon as they can walk.
It follows that football would also have a hold over another type of athletics: esports. And why not? There’s been a football video game for as long as there’s been video games. And as esports gain popularity with shooters and fighters and competitive Tetris, it makes sense that football would follow suit.
One of the vanguards of the growing competitive football esports scene is a young man by the name of Pavan “Pavan” Lakhat –pro Madden NFL player and Oakland Raiders superfan.
Give us a sense of who you are and, more importantly, what you do for people who might not be familiar with the Madden Championship Series?
I’m a 19-year-old East Indian kid from Yuba City, California. Typically you don’t see a lot of East Indian players in esports, their parents are more traditional, and want their kids to become something else besides a gamer. I’m lucky my parents are really supportive of me. I’m taking a year off college to focus on the game, pursuing all the opportunities I have playing Madden NFL.
Can you rewind a little bit and tell me what first inspired you to become an esports athlete?
You get something from each of your parents right? My dad is a very competitive person, and I realized I inherited that competitive drive when I started playing Madden. I’d lose and I would get so salty. It made me think “what’s the best way to never lose?”
I would spend so much time in the Practice Mode, getting better until I found out about online tournaments and started playing in them just to see how far I could get. By then, I knew I had the talent. That competitiveness in me, it made me realize I could do anything.
Playing Madden you get to choose an NFL team. What is your team?
I’m a huge Oakland Raiders fan. I’m from the Bay Area so I wouldn’t feel right representing any other team. I’m lucky, I got to represent them three years in a row now.
Do you have any pro Madden players you look up to?
There’s Joel “JoelCP” Crooms-Porter; he’s really good. Shay “Young Kiv” Kivlen; he actually won the 2018 Madden Bowl. And there’s Drini “Drini” Gjoka; he won the 2019 Madden Bowl. All three are very young competitors, around the same age I am, and I would watch them on Twitch and think, “I want to be like them.”
So even though you don’t have explicit teams in Madden, do you have a favorite moment of playing with someone on a team or with a friend?
One of my friends, Alan Gibson, I’ve played with him for years now. At the last Madden Club Championship he was there competing with me. He got knocked out in the round of 32 but he stayed there supporting me the whole way and rooting for me as I won the whole thing. That was my team moment.
Can you talk about the moment when you realized that Madden was going to be your game?
I realized Madden was my game when I started streaming. On Twitch people would play for money — nothing serious, like $10, $15, $20 a game. I would play some of these money matches and people just started to show up. With these games, my viewer count went up to 200-300 people. I don’t think Madden gets the kind of numbers it deserves, so 200-300 viewers is huge for a Madden streamer. And my stream wasn’t anything special. It would just be me, sometimes without a face cam or without a mic, on my shoestring budget PS4 stream, zoned in, playing these matches, barely talking and people would still flock to see them. Seeing viewer counts like that, encouraged me to keep going. That’s when I knew Madden was mine.
Have you been able to level up your streaming setup since then?
I’ve got it set up now; all the essentials.
Do you have a favorite piece of equipment or tech that makes the game more fun or comfortable to play?
Any streamer has the comfy office chair. I’m a PS4 player too, so I have my trusty controller. When I’m in a super serious game, and I want to concentrate I’ll break out some noise cancelling headphones.
What about superstitions? Have any of those you participate in before a match or tournament?
I have a few. I have a lot of success in my games when this one barber gives me a haircut. Whenever I win, it’s after this guy cuts my hair. Also, when I won the Club Tournament, I had been playing in a pair of white Nike shoes, they’re my lucky shoes now. I won’t always wear them because they’re kind of beat up and if I’m on camera for a tournament I have to look good, but I’ll always bring them even if I don’t wear them. I’m also a very spiritual person, I always pray before I play.
Do you have a favorite strategy you like to employ when you play?
I have a very balanced strategy. I’m really pass-heavy; I like to pass a lot, but I can still run the ball too. I like to keep it even so if an opponent can’t stop my pass, I can keep passing. Or if they can’t stop my running, I can keep running the ball. Defensively, I prefer to make my opponent make a mistake I can exploit.
In Madden, I know there are teams you can pick but can you pick individual players too? Is your player pool limited to the team you pick?
That’s actually the best thing about Madden, any player can go on any team.
What’s the one thing you love the most about Madden that only other Madden people will get?
The meta; the way the game is played. It comes down to discussions about what offense people are running, what defense, the plays and the players in general. We love to talk about when people aren’t playing the meta, cracking jokes and talking smack like, “Oh, what’s this guy doing?” or, “this guy’s not that great he’s running trash.”
Madden releases new players every week. Players will come out that’ll spark conversation about whether they’re good or not good or why are they even in the game it’s so bad. People like to compare their favorites and boast about how they’re favorites are better than other people’s favorites. That kind of thing.
What’s a moment that has impacted you the most?
I have another Madden friend, Henry, he’s the person I’ve known the longest in the Madden community. He’s like my best Madden friend even though he’s a few years younger than me. We met through Instagram where we would trade player cards, and just do fun kids stuff while we grew in the game.
He and I went from that to competing together in tournaments. Henry went to his first tournament, the Madden Classic, and made it to the finals out of so many people. And the Madden Classic is a tournament I struggle with, so to see Henry come up and beat up on a bunch of people to make it to the finals, I was just so proud.
What do you love most about your Madden community?
I love Twitch chat. People are always talking smack to each other but at the end of the day we love the game and the Madden community always comes together as one. We have a little community hashtag #wearemadden that came out of the horrible shooting that took place last year. The way the community bounced back and supported each other during that time was amazing to see. People are always going joke and argue but at the end of the day we all realize that we are Madden.
