Good afternoon, and welcome to the Enthusiast Gaming Holdings Inc. conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. If you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press Star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press Star then two. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would like now to turn the conference over to Mr. Eric Bernofsky, Chief Corporate Officer of the company. Just one second. You may go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining Enthusiast Gaming's Third Quarter 2022 Financial and Operating Results Call. My name is Eric Bernofsky, the Chief Corporate Officer of Enthusiast Gaming. With me today is our Chief Executive Officer, Adrian Montgomery, our Chief Financial Officer, Alex Macdonald, and joining us on his first quarterly conference call since becoming president is Bill Kara. We'll begin with some prepared remarks from Adrian, Bill, and Alex before opening the floor to questions. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone today's presentation contains forward-looking information that involves known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events to differ materially from current expectations. These statements should not be read as assurances of future performance or results.
Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. More complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties facing the company appear in the company's management discussion and analysis for the three-month period ended September 30, 2022, which are available under the company's profiles on SEDAR and EDGAR, as well as on the company's website, enthusiastgaming.com. You're cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this presentation. The company disclaims any intention or obligation, except to the extent required by law, to update and revise any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events, or for any other reason.
Now, with great pleasure, I'd like to turn the call over to Adrian Montgomery, CEO of Enthusiast Gaming. Adrian.
Thank you, Eric. Good afternoon, and welcome to our Third Quarter 2022 Financial and Operating Results Conference call. I'm pleased to share with you the details of another strong and record quarter, proving the continued strength of our diversified business model. Despite the macroeconomic headwinds, we are on the cusp of reaching profitability. On today's call, I want to reiterate why our business model and strategic plan is the right one and sets us up for sustained profitability in 2023. Just two years ago, after completing the acquisition of Omnia Media, Enthusiast Gaming was largely a programmatic advertising revenue company with a gross profit of $4.1 million and a gross margin of 16.8% in Q3 of 2020.
In just eight quarters, we have become an integrated media and entertainment company for gamers rooted in communities, content, creators, and experiences. Our flywheel model has separated us from the pack. Our diversified model makes us less reliant than ever on the price fluctuations of programmatic ad units. Today, Enthusiast Gaming owns some of the largest fan communities in the world. We own the largest gaming platform on YouTube. We own and make our own games like Little Big Snake, Mope.io, Apes.io, and EV.io. We create our own desktop apps with millions of users. We sell subscriptions across a number of our properties, and we create our own content that we distribute on multiple platforms like Snap, Twitch, and TikTok. We also host sold-out events all over the world through our Pocket Gamer brand from London to Toronto to Seattle, Helsinki, Jordan, and beyond.
We are the company that some of the world's largest brands turn to to execute their gaming and esports strategies. Names like Lego, State Farm, HBO, Netflix, Disney, the United States Navy, Amazon, RBC, Nintendo, DoorDash, Hasbro, Fidelity, Mattel, Procter & Gamble, and more. As I said, we are on the cusp of sustainable profitability. We have ample liquidity to get there, and we are a dominant player in the gaming and esports world. Despite the macroeconomic pressures on advertising prices, we have grown our gross profit over the last eight quarters by more than four times to a record high of CAD 16.6 million this quarter, while nearly doubling gross margin in that same time frame to 32.7%. When you have a business with a 33% margin, you need much, much less scale to become profitable. How have we done this?
We've been laser-focused on developing a diverse and sustainable model that could stand the test of time and build a leadership position within the gaming and esports entertainment industry. We have continued to focus on the following key strategic business priorities that have all pushed Enthusiast Gaming further and further away from being a lower yield, lower margin business focused on programmatic revenue and into that diversified media and entertainment company that again is on the cusp of profitability. These strategic priorities are one, invest in a direct sales team. From laying the foundation with our first direct sales hire two years ago, today we have a sophisticated sales, marketing, customer success, and talent team that counts some of the largest companies in the world as its customers. These customers are not simply buying advertising from us.
They are coming to us to solve a very important problem, which I loosely define as an age or demographic issue. They need to reach younger audiences to convert new customers, but do it in an authentic way and at scale. Very, very hard for businesses to do. This is exactly what our direct sales, customer success, and content teams deliver day in and day out. When delivered right, it leads to higher conversion rates for our customers versus plain old programmatic advertising. They pay more for it, and it drives higher margins for our business. Number two, grow a vibrant subscription business. We have long held the belief that video game fans will pay for content that they find valuable. This belief has proven to be true.
We have grown both organically and through strategic acquisitions our subscriber base from under 100,000 in early 2020 to 260,000 at the end of this past quarter. Today, our subscription business is an annual run rate revenue business of $15 million and counting and a meaningful driver of margin growth across the company. Number three, focus on product-based services. We know our audiences consume content in many different ways. Much of this variety underpins our flywheel strategy we have built that caters to the diverse entertainment needs and habits of our Gen Z and millennial gamer audiences. Another data point we have learned is that the retention and engagement rate on a product is far greater than on an editorial piece of content. Let me explain.
Last year, we acquired U.GG, one of the largest stats and analytics communities for League of Legends players. Late last year, U.GG launched a desktop companion app for players to use while playing League of Legends. This app, or what we are referring to when we say product, has been downloaded over 1.2 million times and has become integrated into daily and weekly habitual use. This level of engagement extends the life cycle of our product base or of our product-based services significantly beyond a written piece and in many cases, some video content. This life cycle extension is also driving higher margins in our business. Other examples of growing high-margin products within our flywheel are Addicting Games, The Sims Resource, Icy Veins, and TabStats. Number four, live event experiences.
While we have certainly all become too familiar with living in a remote world as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the gaming community has never lost its desire to connect in person. After a two-year hiatus, we resumed running live events earlier this year within our Pocket Gamer vertical. Pocket Gamer Connects runs a series of live global gaming events in places like London, Seattle, Toronto, Helsinki, Finland, and most recently in Jordan this past weekend, a key location in the rapidly growing Middle East gaming market, showcasing how the world's largest game publishers and developers come together to learn, share, and grow the business of gaming. Not only have we resumed live events, but we are seeing record attendance and increasing participation from across the gaming industry, including some of the world's largest game developers, publishers, media, and investors.
Our Q3 Pocket Gamer Connects in Helsinki saw more than 120 industry speakers across 17 themed tracks sharing insights and knowledge on a wide range of relevant topics. Sponsors of the event included Meta, Agora, AppsFlyer, Huawei, Xsolla, AppLovin, and more. Companies represented by featured speakers and panelists included Electronic Arts, Humble Bundle, Miniclip, Unity, Square Enix, and Tencent. Again, the theory holds true with events as it does with subscriptions that if you can deliver a valuable experience, gamers, and in the case of these Pocket Gamer Connects events, industry participants and experts are recognizing the inherent tremendous value. As you can see, the above strategic priorities have meaningfully reduced the business's dependence on programmatic advertising while shifting the revenue mix, which has had an outsized positive effect on margin growth over the past eight quarters.
We are on the right path, and we will continue to drive the financial performance of this business forward as we have always done. Despite market valuations being far from optimal, we will continue to build long-term shareholder value while the market corrects itself over time. During Q3, we delivered strong results again, with revenue increasing 17% to $50.6 million. The year-over-year increase in revenue was driven by increased direct sales, including both new and repeat customers, higher subscription revenue, the acquisitions and growth of the Addicting Games and U.GG properties as well. This quarter, revenue was impacted by the macroeconomic pressures on advertising rates. As I highlighted in my opening remarks, our continued revenue diversification strategy pushed Q3 to a record gross profit of $16.6 million, up 64% from $10.1 million last year.
Q3 gross profit was not just a record high for any Q3, but for any quarter in Enthusiast Gaming's history, and we still have the seasonally strong Q4 to come. Gross margin expanded 270 basis points to 32.7% in the quarter and expanded 930 basis points from 23.4% in Q3 of last year. The increase in gross margin continues to be driven by the strong performance of higher direct sales and subscription growth and M&A contribution. On direct sales, I am pleased to report another strong quarter. Direct sales grew almost 50% to CAD 10.1 million in Q3 compared to CAD 6.8 million last year. Renewals and additional business with existing customers accounted for 65% of that number.
Again, a strong validation of the return on investment we are delivering to our customers. If you remember the list that I highlighted at the beginning, these are very sophisticated customers who have demonstrable ROI needs to validate their spend, and this has them coming back again despite macroeconomic pressure. Turning to subscriptions, revenue grew 51% year-over-year to CAD 3.8 million in Q3. The increase in subscription revenue was driven by an increase in paid subscribers and pricing optimization. Paid subscribers were 260,000 as at September thirtieth, almost 26% increase versus paid subscribers of 207,000 as at September thirtieth of last year.
I'd now like to pass it over to Bill Kara to speak, our new President, to speak to one of the most exciting parts of the quarter, our first of its kind content partnership with the National Football League, as well as some other exciting trends that has us optimistic about the business.
Thanks, Adrian. First off, as this is my first quarterly conference call since being appointed president, I'd like to say hello to our shareholder, shareholders, analysts, and other stakeholders for joining today. Adrian is right. The NFL deal we announced in August and launched in September, called Tuesday Night Gaming, is truly an exciting and transformational moment for Enthusiast Gaming. For some background, the NFL put an RFP out in 2021 looking for a partner and big idea to help execute a first-of-its-kind gaming strategy. After a long, almost 18-month process from RFP to executing an agreement, the National Football League chose Enthusiast Gaming as its partner to launch Tuesday Night Gaming. It is an exciting and new content platform for brands and agencies to connect with a younger audience through bespoke custom content, talent integrations, including owned moments, featured segments, social activations, and more.
It is important to recognize two points here. The NFL recognized that a path to a younger audience leads directly to gaming and esports. Second, the NFL chose Enthusiast Gaming as its partner to execute this crucial strategy. We want to be in business with the NFL full stop. We expect this multi-year partnership to be profitable on a standalone basis, but it has another equally powerful benefit. A large reason why we are on the cusp of profitability is that, as Adrian summarized in his remarks earlier, we created a direct sales and customer success function from scratch two years ago and that this quarter contributed north of CAD 10 million in revenue at a target 50% margin.
Now, alongside the NFL, we have signed new direct sales with Hulu, the Food and Drug Administration, Nickelodeon, Disney, and Universal Pictures, with more to be announced in the near future. Continued growth in direct sales will underpin our sustained profitability. The halo effect of being in the company of the National Football League is substantial. We signed the deal at the end of August, and it was important to launch in conjunction with the start of the football season, which meant we had little to no lead time to pre-sell, but we wanted to be a good partner and demonstrate that we can move quickly. Already, we have done big deals, as I mentioned a moment ago, and because of the NFL, we are speaking to brands we have never spoken to before. We are already locking up deals in Q1 2023 worth close to $2 million.
We have received inbound requests from two other major professional sports leagues who have reached out to us to talk about doing something similar with them, which will allow our business to scale even further. Not only are we excited about the NFL deal, we showed the business case to our lender and described the opportunity. They were incredibly supportive, seeing how this enhances our path to sustained profitability and increased the size of our debt facility by an additional CAD 10 million. Here are some early audience metrics for the NFL Tuesday Night Gaming show. Since the September launch, we've generated 3.9 million total views on YouTube across the TNG channel, VOD content, and live streams, with a cumulative 1.4 million total hours watched. 1.7 million organic impressions on Twitter and 8.5 million views on TikTok.
One other example of an activation we launched in the quarter was the work that we did with Fidelity, where we created the Fidelity Minecraft Safe Room Challenge. In order to create a meaningful connection with the next generation of investors, Fidelity tapped into gaming to position the brand as a resource to help investors achieve success. A custom-made Minecraft map featured weekly challenges. If players were unable to complete them, they'd be taken to the Fidelity Safe Room, where they could find Fidelity tips and tools to help them complete the challenge. The program was supported and promoted by Luminosity Talent and amplified through custom videos and social posts to maximize awareness and engagement. Again, another example of a high-margin flywheel activation that brings together different assets to create a custom solution for brands.
Subsequent to the quarter, I'm excited about some of the recent work we started with Netflix. Netflix recently launched a live animated series named Geeked: Tune In. As Netflix came to us for advice on talent and how to promote the series across our network of TikTok channels, giving viewers a glimpse into the animated series that is set to air on Netflix. We are thrilled to partner with Netflix. This new partnership provides a unique opportunity for Netflix to reach out to their non-subscribers on other platforms like Twitch. We are constantly striving to deliver new and quality content and experiences to our community of gamers and esports fans across the world, and this partnership marks another powerful vote of confidence in our platform of digital media assets and our unique ability to reach Gen Z audiences.
It's just another unique example of the flywheel in action, where sales, content, and talent come together to deliver a bespoke solution to a client. While on the topic of things subsequent to the quarter end, I'm particularly bullish on a few trends in the gaming industry that have a positive read-through for some of our fan communities in Q4. Last weekend, the League of Legends World Championship took place with record-high attendance. This demonstrates the continued strength of the League of Legends franchise, which bodes well for U.GG. Second, Electronic Arts transitioned late last month its long-running successful franchise, The Sims, to a free-to-play game. As owners of the largest Sims fan community, The Sims Resource, we have seen a marked increase in activity, both in free and subscription offerings. Finally, World of Warcraft will be releasing its next expansion pack, Dragonflight, later this month.
The last expansion pack, Shadowlands, saw engagement numbers rise on our site, Icy Veins, and we are watching for a similar impact with the release of this next pack. I will now turn it back to Adrian for additional remarks.
Thank you, Bill. Now that we've discussed the quarter, I do want to reiterate that the search for a new CEO continues and remains a top priority of the company. Immediately following the AGM in July of this year, the board struck a committee of independent directors and hired a fabulous firm, Russell Reynolds Associates, an L.A.-based executive search firm with the mandate being run by the head of their CEO practice based in California. We have an excellent list of candidates, and we're confident we'll have a new CEO shortly who will take this business to the next level and carry the momentum we have established. In closing, I do wanna reiterate that we do not need to raise additional capital on our road to profitability.
We have substantial liquidity to achieve sustainable profitability in 2023, with close to CAD 21 million on the balance sheet by virtue of the increased facility and untapped line of credit with our lender. Additionally, we seized an opportunity in the quarter to sell a small cluster of legacy fan communities, which were not profitable, for a sale multiple of 4.5x revenue. Think about that in the context of our current valuation. We sold a small cluster of money-losing communities, representing almost 0.5% of our revenue for close to CAD 7 million. The combination of these two moves bolstered the balance sheet and gave management and the board unanimous confidence to proceed with our NFL partnership, which we expect will further drive the business towards increased profitability in 2023 and beyond.
I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Alex Macdonald, for further commentary on our financial results. Alex.
Thank you, Adrian. Certainly, it was a dynamic quarter, our third quarter of 2022, which I'll speak to shortly. Briefly, here are my usual notes. I note that our results are presented in Canadian dollars. I note that the significant majority of our revenues and expenses are measured in US dollars and are translated into Canadian dollars for presentation in our financial statements. The exchange rate between the US dollar and our presentation currency of the Canadian dollar should be monitored and considered when analyzing or forecasting results.
I note that our business is affected by seasonal trends in digital advertising, with sequential increases each quarter throughout the year, driven by increasing ad prices and demand, which peaks in Q4. This seasonality is isolated to our media and content revenue streams. Now back to the quarter. Q3 revenue was CAD 50.6 million, up 17% from Q3 2021 revenue of CAD 43.3 million. Q3 revenue by source was as follows. Media and content, CAD 44.5 million, subscription, CAD 3.8 million, and esports and entertainment, CAD 2.2 million. The Q3 media and content revenue of CAD 44.5 million compares to CAD 38.7 million reported in Q3 2021, an increase of 15%. The increase was driven largely by the following. Number one was more direct sales.
Direct sales were CAD 10.1 million in Q3 versus CAD 6.8 million in Q3 last year, with the majority of direct sales being recognized in media and content. Number two was the continued strong performance in our two larger acquisitions from 2021 in Addicting Games and U.GG. These increases in media and content revenue were offset by a decrease in CPMs with a resulting impact on our RPM. Our web RPM was 12% lower in Q3 2022 as compared to Q3 2021, caused by macro headwinds in digital ad prices, particularly in the second half of Q3. Q3 subscription revenue was an all-time record high of CAD 3.8 million, up 52% from CAD 2.5 million in Q3 last year.
The increase was largely driven by an increase in paid subscribers, which were 260,000 as at September 30, 2022, compared to 207,000 as at September 30, 2021. This was also paired with a higher yield on a per subscriber basis. Q3 esports and entertainment revenue was $2.3 million, up 8% from $2.1 million in Q3 last year. The company's entertainment division continues to benefit from the return of live events. In Q3, an inaugural Pocket Gamer Connects Toronto event was held, along with a very successful return of Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki. Entertainment revenue accounts for $1.5 million of the $2.3 million esports and entertainment bucket, with esports accounting for the remaining $800,000.
Certainly for the first time, the company's business model is being tested against macro headwinds, particularly in the digital advertising market. For over two years, we have been diversifying our revenue, with our focus being on higher margin revenue streams, including direct sales, subscription, and more recently, our product portfolio, including U.GG and Addicting Games. The higher margins of these revenue streams make them inherently better positioned to absorb pricing fluctuations, and this is enabling the business to succeed despite the macro headwinds. This is most evident in gross profit. Gross profit was an all-time high of CAD 16.6 million in Q3, up 63% from CAD 10.1 million in Q3 last year. This propelled the gross margin to an all-time high of 32.7%, which is up 930 basis points from 23.4% in Q3 last year.
We are hyper-focused on that gross profit number of CAD 16.6 million, particularly when comparing it to the cash operating expenses of the business. Total operating expenses were CAD 26.6 million, up from CAD 21.3 million in Q3 of last year. Operating expenses in Q3 include non-cash items of amortization and depreciation of CAD 4.1 million, share-based compensation of CAD 0.8 million, and a non-recurring expense for AGM legal and advisory costs of CAD 1.1 million, as well as a foreign exchange gain of CAD 0.5 million. Also included in Q3 content expense is CAD 2 million of investment into our NFL partnership, which Adrian and Bill spoke of earlier. The remaining CAD 19.1 million of operating expenses are the recurring cash-based expenses of the core business and are down approximately CAD 900,000 from Q2.
While gross profit continues to rise, we've taken additional steps to propel the convergence of these two numbers. At the end of Q3, in September, we sold a number of legacy editorial properties for gross consideration of $6.8 million, which will result in a net annual savings of approximately $2 million, most of which is in the first half of the year. Also, subsequent to the quarter end, we eliminated additional Opex well exceeding $1 million per year, and we expect further efficiencies in Opex will be found within the quarter. The remaining convergence of gross profit and cash-based Opex being our path to profitability will be driven by. Number one is the continued success of our high-margin revenue streams leading to increasing gross profit. Number two was the sale of the editorial assets and the net savings realized.
Number three are the efficiencies found in Opex. Number four is our NFL partnership, which has signed material amounts of revenue to be recognized over the coming quarters. In summary, gross profits are increasing, costs are decreasing, and this combined will lead us into a profitable 2023 and beyond. We have the resources to make it happen. During Q3, we expanded our credit facilities by CAD 10 million, resulting in cash of CAD 15.8 million as at September thirtieth, 2022. In addition to that, we have a line of credit available to us for CAD 5 million for total available cash of CAD 20.8 million as at September thirtieth, 2022.
There are two other material income statement amounts which are notable in calculating net loss and comprehensive loss. In Q3, due to a combination of rising interest rates, high inflation, and contracting equity valuations, indicators of impairment were present and the company performed interim impairment testing across its seven CGUs. The results of this testing were a goodwill impairment charge across two of the company's CGUs for a total of CAD 31.3 million. This is a non-cash adjustment and the details and assumptions surrounding this expense are disclosed in note 10 to the financial statements. In addition, as I mentioned earlier, the company had sold certain legacy editorial web assets for a gross consideration of CAD 6.8 million. The company derecognized a $2 million dollar carrying value relating to these intangible assets in connection with this sale.
This resulted in a gain on sale of intangible assets of approximately CAD 4.8 million. These items had a material impact on net loss and comprehensive loss, which was CAD 30.2 million in Q3, resulting in a net loss per share, both basic and diluted, of CAD 0.25. I remain grateful to the analysts for their continued work on the company. I also wish to thank my team for their hard work on this busy quarter led by the VP Finance, Nathan Teal. To our shareholders and other stakeholders, including our lending partners, thank you for your continued trust in us as custodians of Enthusiast Gaming. Finally, to the members of the Enthusiast Gaming family, my fellow employees, thank you for your continued hard work. They remain, in my judgment, our most valuable asset.
We take pride in this quarter because our model has been tested and it is standing strong, and there is continued success both now and in the future to be found in our business. Of course, ladies and gentlemen, our business is the business of gaming. Operator, I kindly turn it back to you.
Thank you. We'll now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we'll pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Robert Young with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.
Hey, good evening. I just wanted to dig a little more into the seasonality for the next couple of quarters. Q4, as you noted, typically stronger Q1, a little bit weaker sequentially. If you could just talk about, you know, what you see given, you know, maybe some heightened headwinds. I think you said in the prepared remarks that you'd seen a larger impact from, you know, the macro later in the Q3. How does that trending into Q4 and then Q1?
Rob, how are you? This is Alex. Yeah, no, it's certainly there. The typical seasonality, as we know, would be increasing ad prices and demand peaking in Q4. I'm still remain fully confident that prices will continue to rise. The most of that seasonality is still ahead of us. The Black Friday weekend, Cyber Monday leading into the holiday season and the flushing of the annual budgets that occurs in the back end of December, that will still cause an increase per my judgment. The question will be, you know, how much of an increase will we see this year? Will it be a little muted in comparison to a normal year? Similar to, yes, how we saw a muted seasonality in the back half of Q3 because these types of patterns also exist within quarters.
I think that what this quarter is showing, though, is we are seeing an example of the P&L and the business model being stress tested and the gross profit is holding up strong. I would want a stronger seasonality. We still derive gross profit from the programmatic channels. However, they are much lower margin, so there is some insulation there and gross profits is more and more fueled by the higher-margin streams which are less affected. It remains to be seen, though. The big movements are still ahead of us in the quarter, and the results remain to be seen.
Okay. Is there an argument for a tightening macro leading the average ad buyer to save a little more ammunition for Q4? Like, are they taking a hit to a Q3 budget so that they have more to deploy in Q4 because that's such an important, you know, period?
Yeah, this is Adrian. Anecdotally, I would agree with you and, you know, we saw some shift on the direct side, even from Q3 to Q4. I would agree with you. There's obviously, you know, big events in Q4. Think about Hollywood Studios. Think about, as Alex said, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. That is an encouraging trend, I think, for us quarter-over-quarter.
Okay. I wanted to ask the same seasonality question around your expectation of breaking through EBITDA profitability. I'm not sure if that's still possible in Q4, but I was curious if you still expect it, you know, to improve in Q4 and then weaken a bit in Q1.
We have a shot at EBITDA profitability in Q4 despite macroeconomic pressure, and it's because we're really growing our higher margin diversified revenue streams. Certainly the world has changed from an external perspective. We still do have a shot at it, and that bolsters our confidence. I think that we expect to have substantial sustainable profitability in 2023 as well. We really, in many ways, remain on track for that. I think it's a result of the business that we've built since the purchase of Omnia Media. Again, you know, being able to double gross margin in only eight quarters has us on that cusp of profitability.
Okay, thanks for taking the questions. I'll pass the line.
Thanks, Rob.
Thank you. The next question comes from Scott Buck with H.C. Wainwright. You may go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. First one from me, I'm just curious if you could give us a little color on who the incremental subscriber is and how you grow that business from a $15 million run rate business to a $30 or $50 million run rate business.
Hi there. This is Bill. I'll take this call. I think the biggest growth that we've had has largely been organic on our subscription base. Going forward, it's gonna be a continuation of how to optimize that organic growth, but also layering it onto a user acquisition strategy that's typically found in other gaming companies. We have a lot of area of expansion that hasn't been tapped into. User acquisition is a major one, and of course, continued organic optimization is gonna get us there as well. Primarily through user acquisition, and that'll be a major effort of our teams in 2023.
Great. That's helpful. My second question, curious if as you look across the business, whether there's any other potential divestitures that you're looking at?
Not at the present time.
Okay, thanks. Just one more quick one. You know, should the macro environment continue to deteriorate, you know, what kind of levers do you have on the Opex side to help offset that?
Well, we have a number of levers on the Opex side. I think that really our commencement of cost-cutting initiatives started really in Q1, the back part of Q1 and Q2 of this year. We've made substantial reductions, as you can see, without affecting the gross profit line. Certainly there have been some headcount reduction. Certainly, we've eliminated a number of positions in an advantageous way through the sale of our editorial sites. Bill has done a tremendous job with this, we've really started to get aggressive on our tech costs, our engineering costs. We are very, very focused on the cost line.
As Alex said, you know, Opex went down almost $1 million quarter-over-quarter, while at the same time margin grew substantially. Costs are going down. They're gonna continue to go down. We expect sequential margin improvement, but really no stone is being left unturned on the cost side. We're, you know, benefiting from the fact that, you know, we got out in front of this, you know, starting in March of 2022.
Great. I appreciate the added color, guys. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one. The next question comes with Gianluca Tucci with Haywood Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Good afternoon. I just want to ask in terms of Q4, given that the World Cup is in Q4 for the first time ever, how your customers are positioned for that incremental ad spend, and how exposed is the company to capturing a portion of that incremental ad spend that's caused by the World Cup every four years?
Gianluca Tucci, how are you doing? This is Alex . I mean, exposure is a good thing in that circumstance, and certainly we have a number of places for us to capture it. Two come to mind immediately. One is, you know, you may recall in April we acquired FFS, Fantasy Football Scout. We see a convergence between sports lifestyle and gaming lifestyle, and FFS was an entry point for us into that football or soccer world, and we do have partnerships with the Premier League. There are campaigns coming out of the EMEA region, which is a region we've established a sales team in at the beginning of this year. Not to mention, of course, our NFL partnership. We're fairly well-positioned.
Adrian often looks at markets and industries. He's spoken about the movie industry and other industries we've targeted. Sports is clearly something we're after as a next big driver for direct sales. I think, you know, particularly on properties such as FFS and on NFL, we're likely gonna be benefiting in Q4 from that spend.
Okay, that's great. Thanks. I'm impressed by the continued gross margin uplift there. How much of that is caused by direct sales growth, and how much of it is other, I guess, optimization efforts that you guys are working on?
A large part of it is direct sales growth. Effectively, direct sales is a 50% margin business that we created from scratch in 2020. It's now turning over meaningful volume and gross profit and continues to grow. It's really the great outward example of how we stitch these assets together and make the whole greater than the sum of the parts, and it results in this high-margin vertical. Direct sales plays a substantial role as we've taken the business, again, away from that programmatic-heavy business to this, you know, almost 33% margin integrated entertainment company. Again, when we create these campaigns through the direct sales channel, Bill talked about Fidelity Investments, Netflix, Disney, adidas, et cetera. We're not just selling media.
We're selling bespoke solutions that drive specific KPIs and ROI criteria of these sophisticated companies. It is a huge part of the profitable growth of our business, and it's driving a lot of that margin. Again, other examples, subscription and the continued growth of subscription through number of subscribers added and pricing optimization has driven margin expansion as well. Our desktop app on U.GG, which now has over 1.2 million downloads and generates meaningful revenue on a weekly basis. That's another example of us branching out into products. You know, the new game titles that we have through Addicting Games, the in-game advertising that we sell, the integrated sponsorships that involve those game titles, increased subscription on the AG profile, or platform. You know, these are all levers. Don't forget Pocket Gamer.
Look, we were growing this business substantially during COVID, and we lost, you know, that left hand, which was our live events business. It's now back in full force. Helsinki was a massive success for Pocket Gamer. We're in Jordan in the Middle East. We're going to Saudi Arabia at the end of the month. London, which is our flagship event, highly profitable, is coming in January. That live event business is back in full force. Pocket Gamer is selling out all over the globe, and that's yet another lever to drive substantial margin improvement.
Okay, that's great. It sounds like you guys continue to expect gross profit growth to outpace overall sales growth. Is that fair to assume?
Yes.
Okay, great. Thanks, guys.
The next question comes from Drew McReynolds with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks very much. Good evening. Just two for me. I guess first, maybe for you, Alex, just on FX, what kind of dynamic there was in terms of gross margin in the quarter on that one? Maybe one for you, Adrian, just bigger picture. Every company is obviously going to revisit some strategic initiatives, their cost structure at this juncture, and it sounds like, you know, you're fully on top of that.
Do you feel that you're constrained at all, in terms of, you know, still continuing and tackling the real important strategic priorities for the company? You know, given the uncertainty in the environment or, you know, are you pretty comfortable you can, you know, kinda trim costs, deal with that choppy macro environment, but still, obviously invest where you wanna invest? Thank you.
I'll let Alex handle the FX first, and then I'll answer the second part, Drew. Go ahead.
Hey. Hey, Drew. Yeah, FX gave us, and particularly in gross profit, it did give a small bump. I think the average FX rate Q3 over Q2 was up about 2.5 cents. You can imagine that multiplied over just north of CAD 16 million. Although there was an offsetting factor to that, and that's in the GBP. The GBP versus CAD declined and this quarter with Helsinki event out of our Steel Media subsidiary, which has a functional currency of GBP, and the books are in GBP, that we lost some FX on. There's an offsetting. It helps. I enjoy the strength in the US dollar, but there were offsetting factors.
In the end, it didn't have a huge net material impact 'cause we also have a lot of expenses in U.S. dollars. Not too material, but there was a little bit of impact there from those movements.
Okay. Got it.
Then as it pertains to being constrained in the environment, I think we're very disciplined about what our growth drivers are. Our growth drivers are increased direct sales, increased subscription, increased growth through products. That's really where we've been focused on. Those teams are intact, and those teams continue to deliver. As I said earlier in the call, you know, we started attacking the cost structure in February, March of this year, with some upcoming redundancies and other headcount reductions that we made quite effectively early. We've gotten more and more aggressive in terms of cost reductions. We're also in a situation where Opex is going down. It will continue to be attacked. Margin is growing at the same time.
Really, we got out in front of this. We continue in this world to be very, very judicious about our spend. The teams that are driving the organic growth are intact and don't need expansion. At the same time, we had a lender that was sufficiently impressed and supportive of the growth profile of the business to give us $10 million of additional debt financing. I think one of the things, particularly in this environment, Drew, that the team deserves a lot of credit for, was a very, very advantageous sale of some money-losing web communities to the tune of almost CAD 7 million. The impact, the cumulative impact of all of that, has put us in a position where we continue to grow where we need to grow.
Again, we will continue to turn over every rock in the cost structure. The times warrant it. I think we got on top of it early, and we continue to stay on top of it.
Okay. That's great. Great context. Thanks.
Thank you. It seems we've got no further questions, so I will be handing back to the management for closing remarks.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thanks to everyone for coming in to this call. The team remains resolved as we stay very, very focused, very disciplined on our path to sustained profitability. The delta is shrinking. Costs are going down. They will continue to go down. Margin is going up. It will continue to go up. The delta is shrinking. We are very, very focused on the task at hand to build that sustainable, profitable business which we are on the doorstep of. I would be remiss if, in my last parting comments here, I didn't again to echo what Alex said, reveal who is entirely responsible for all that hard work and all those results, particularly in a very tough environment.
That is the hardworking enthusiasts that show up every day, that give their all, that obsess over this business, that share their passion and their love for all things gaming and e-sports. They truly are, and you enthusiasts who are listening on the call, you truly are responsible for our ability to continue to show resiliency and growth, particularly at a time like this. Hats off to all of you. Thank you for everything that you do. Thanks to our shareholders. Thanks to our analysts. Thanks to everyone who is part of the Enthusiast Gaming story. As always, we'll continue heads down to deliver for you. Thank you.
Thank you. This conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.