• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 03:40
CEST 09:40
KST 16:40
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Tournament Spotlight: FEL Cracow 20255Power Rank - Esports World Cup 202576RSL Season 1 - Final Week9[ASL19] Finals Recap: Standing Tall15HomeStory Cup 27 - Info & Preview18
Community News
Google Play ASL (Season 20) Announced20BSL Team Wars - Bonyth, Dewalt, Hawk & Sziky teams10Weekly Cups (July 14-20): Final Check-up0Esports World Cup 2025 - Brackets Revealed19Weekly Cups (July 7-13): Classic continues to roll8
StarCraft 2
General
Tournament Spotlight: FEL Cracow 2025 #1: Maru - Greatest Players of All Time I offer completely free coaching services Power Rank - Esports World Cup 2025 What tournaments are world championships?
Tourneys
Esports World Cup 2025 $25,000 Streamerzone StarCraft Pro Series announced $5,000 WardiTV Summer Championship 2025 WardiTV Mondays FEL Cracov 2025 (July 27) - $10,000 live event
Strategy
How did i lose this ZvP, whats the proper response
Custom Maps
External Content
Mutation #239 Bad Weather Mutation # 483 Kill Bot Wars Mutation # 482 Wheel of Misfortune Mutation # 481 Fear and Lava
Brood War
General
BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ BW General Discussion Google Play ASL (Season 20) Announced Flash Announces (and Retracts) Hiatus From ASL Dewalt's Show Matches in China
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues [BSL20] Non-Korean Championship 4x BSL + 4x China CSL Xiamen International Invitational [CSLPRO] It's CSLAN Season! - Last Chance
Strategy
Simple Questions, Simple Answers [G] Mineral Boosting Does 1 second matter in StarCraft?
Other Games
General Games
Nintendo Switch Thread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Total Annihilation Server - TAForever [MMORPG] Tree of Savior (Successor of Ragnarok) Path of Exile
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread UK Politics Mega-thread Stop Killing Games - European Citizens Initiative Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine Russo-Ukrainian War Thread
Fan Clubs
INnoVation Fan Club SKT1 Classic Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
[\m/] Heavy Metal Thread Anime Discussion Thread Movie Discussion! [Manga] One Piece Korean Music Discussion
Sports
2024 - 2025 Football Thread Formula 1 Discussion TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 NBA General Discussion
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Installation of Windows 10 suck at "just a moment" Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
TeamLiquid Team Shirt On Sale The Automated Ban List
Blogs
Ping To Win? Pings And Their…
TrAiDoS
momentary artworks from des…
tankgirl
from making sc maps to makin…
Husyelt
StarCraft improvement
iopq
Socialism Anyone?
GreenHorizons
Eight Anniversary as a TL…
Mizenhauer
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 656 users

SC2 on TV

Blogs > Dial
Post a Reply
Dial
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Canada10 Posts
November 26 2011 08:46 GMT
#1
I want to preface this by saying that I've been away from SC2 for quite a while, both from playing and from the community as a whole. As such, this has probably been discussed to death multiple times. I get that. But, in my defense I just watched SotG Ep. 52 where they talked about MLG on ESPN2 - I'm way behind. Hence why this is a blog, and not in a forum thread (or creating one lol!). Also, I'm not an expert by any stretch so... keep that in mind.

Great, now that that's out of the way...

SC would work on TV. It's that simple. When the discussion comes up, we aren't *really* talking about SC on TV, what we're talking is SC on TV in the foreign scene. Why? Because in the Korean scene its already there. Naturally, then, it can work anywhere else. Yeah, I know Korea =/= NA, EU, etc., the cultures are different, blah blah. That doesn't actually matter, the idea is still the same. So then why isn't SC2 on TV already? Probably a lot of reasons. The better question is, how does it get there?

Let's first look at some major concerns:

1) Commercials
2) Dumbing the game down to reach a wider audience
3) Quality of the games
4) Risk for picking it up

The first three are obviously community concerns, with the third naturally being a concern that rises out of #1 and #2. The fourth is a potential industry concern that I can see.

In order to address these I am going to think about the NFL on TV as a comparison, which I will make apparent why later.

1) Commercials
Naturally, commercials are a pretty big issue. In any sport on TV this issue arises. Where do you put the commercials? In sports, such as football, you get "TV timeouts", which works because there is always an opportunity without seriously disrupting the game. In the NFL there are a huge number of opportunities, field goals, possession changes, etc. This doesn't really exist in SC2, you can't just pause in the middle of the game to take a 2 minute commercial break. It seriously disrupts the flow of the game. The only feasible solution is before/after each game in a series. That's it. Moving on...

3) Quality of the games
"Whoa what happened to #2?" - Don't worry. I'll get to it. I understand that the quality of the games is deeply tied into #2, but I just want to say - it won't matter. As already said on SotG, the game already gets dumbed down for the audience it currently reaches. Is furthering dumbing this down really going to hurt? It won't. Trust me. I will explain more later. Just trust me. This is a complete non-issue. Other game quality issues will happen inevitably. Sometimes watching the NFL is just pitifully painful, people still tune in. As long as the entire scene isn't complete garbage, a few misses here or there is fine.

2) Dumb the game down
Yes, the game will need to be dumbed down for it to reach the widest possible audience and thus turning the project into a success. The question is, how do we go about doing this? The answer is simple: follow the model of the NFL in Europe. I don't know how much of a success this is, broadcasting the NFL - but it's enough of a success to still be going on, so... it's doing well. The European broadcast of the NFL is the exact same as the American broadcast, with one major difference. The EU broadcast includes this incredibly dumbed down segment which breaks down whats going on during breaks. Yes, commercials still get played during breaks, and its entirely possible that you miss some action. But it explains the most basic fundamentals of the game. I was watching the other day, and during this segment, they explained what the flat was. Anyone who watches football probably just facepalmed and said "Who doesn't know what the flat is?" - Yeah well, who doesn't know what a Warp Prism is, and what it can do? You add this in before a broadcast of SC and after, explaining some basic ins and outs. And you just always do that. Not always an exact re-hash, but I'm sure this community is bright enough to get the basic idea.

So there you go, community issues solved. So what's the next step.
A network to pick it up.

4) Risks
There are several risks. Time issues, game quality (i.e. cheese vs. macro), commercials ($$$), etc. And to be honest, I don't have a solution for existing networks. These are serious issues that are hard to contend with. Timing issues factor into the NFL, but there is some control over this because the game itself is specifically timed. Unless you add some kind of a no-rush rule, you will probably get a bunch of broadcasts then end far quicker than expected. You might get a series of insane macro games that go way over. You have to worry about viewership when game quality is lower.

I could probably go on about this last section, but my solution bypasses it.

SC2 needs its own network. I'm thinking an exact replica of the NFL Network. As the game grows, the available shows will grow. Day9 dailies, Replays, Live Games, Expert Analyst shows, State of the Game, Inside the Game, Top 10s etc. etc. There is more than enough in the community to fill a network running 24/7. You could even expand this to E-Sports in general, and then you have probably way too much content, which forces competition between content providers to get the best of the best out there (if necessary, I really think SC2 could take off with it all by itself). The question is, would the community get behind this, and would sponsors get behind this? It could work. It would work.

Will it happen?

--

Thanks for reading the blog (if you read it...). This is my first blog (ever, I'm not just talking TL, since that much is obvious) so I hope formatting and coherency are okay/good. Let me know what you think both about the blog as a whole, as well as the specific content/

-Dial

*****
Probe1
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States17920 Posts
November 26 2011 08:55 GMT
#2
Almost all youtube casters already "dumb down" commentary by explaining what how and whys. My only other thought is having SC on Spike/VS/ESPN OCHO- a channel that isn't solely devoted to Starcraft- would be essential to it's spread. Having it's own channel would not be sustainable unless it was universally available for purchase and a large percentage of viewers who currently watch for free decided to subscribe at cost.

I like blogs that are shorter and more direct. Not everyone has time for a thousand words and I find that unless it's a compelling story or a very detailed concept, brevity is always the victor.

Oh well, good blog, nice to read your thoughts.
우정호 KT_VIOLET 1988 - 2012 While we are postponing, life speeds by
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 1h 20m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
WinterStarcraft793
Nina 243
ProTech55
StarCraft: Brood War
Sea 4029
Hyuk 3609
Larva 661
Backho 408
Hyun 184
zelot 104
scan(afreeca) 66
sSak 40
IntoTheRainbow 9
Sacsri 7
Dota 2
XcaliburYe278
League of Legends
JimRising 634
Counter-Strike
Stewie2K928
Heroes of the Storm
Khaldor204
Other Games
summit1g7420
SortOf108
Organizations
Other Games
gamesdonequick1417
StarCraft: Brood War
lovetv 9
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 12 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Berry_CruncH274
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• lizZardDota2144
Upcoming Events
FEL
1h 20m
Krystianer vs sOs
SKillous vs ArT
MaNa vs Elazer
Spirit vs Gerald
Clem vs TBD
uThermal vs TBD
Reynor vs TBD
Lambo vs TBD
BSL20 Non-Korean Champi…
6h 20m
BSL20 Non-Korean Champi…
10h 20m
Bonyth vs Zhanhun
Dewalt vs Mihu
Hawk vs Sziky
Sziky vs QiaoGege
Mihu vs Hawk
Zhanhun vs Dewalt
Fengzi vs Bonyth
Sparkling Tuna Cup
2 days
WardiTV European League
2 days
Online Event
2 days
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
3 days
The PondCast
4 days
Replay Cast
4 days
Korean StarCraft League
5 days
[ Show More ]
CranKy Ducklings
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

CSLPRO Last Chance 2025
Esports World Cup 2025
Murky Cup #2

Ongoing

Copa Latinoamericana 4
Jiahua Invitational
BSL 20 Non-Korean Championship
BSL 20 Team Wars
FEL Cracov 2025
CC Div. A S7
Underdog Cup #2
IEM Cologne 2025
FISSURE Playground #1
BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025
ESL Impact League Season 7
IEM Dallas 2025
PGL Astana 2025
Asian Champions League '25

Upcoming

ASL Season 20: Qualifier #1
ASL Season 20: Qualifier #2
ASL Season 20
CSLPRO Chat StarLAN 3
BSL Season 21
RSL Revival: Season 2
Maestros of the Game
SEL Season 2 Championship
WardiTV Summer 2025
uThermal 2v2 Main Event
HCC Europe
ESL Pro League S22
StarSeries Fall 2025
FISSURE Playground #2
BLAST Open Fall 2025
BLAST Open Fall Qual
Esports World Cup 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall Qual
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2025 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.