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On December 26 2011 16:12 Primadog wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2011 16:03 Itsmedudeman wrote:
It has little to do with marketing, and a lot to due with the fan base just not being interested in sc2. I don't get what's so hard to understand. BW is still very big, and SC2 side by side in every aspect is just not as interesting.
I don't mean to offend sc2, but it's like the XFL. Flashier, seemingly newer, but it's just a poorly redone hash with better graphics. It's made up of seemingly "failed" pro gamers, and the original game has all the money, players, and history to make it a much bigger and more attractive game.
If you're a sponsor for a big corporation in korea, WHY would you ever sponsor a SC2 team over a SC1 team that gets much, much more coverage? I think korea knows that the foreign scene has a majority of the fanbase right now, and that's why they're trying to reach out overseas to gain fans/sponsors/money.
PS: The teams DO do outreach stuff. Perhaps even more than foreign teams in some ways. You just haven't looked or heard of them because you don't live in korea. This is not a BW vs SC2 issue. This is about why SC2 Korean teams fair poorly business-wise than SC2 Foreigner teams. It got to the point where half the korean teams are now financially dependent on Foreigner teams. The one that is most financially sound (and performed substantially better on field) is the one sold off to a foreign held company (FXO).
An argument you could make is that they do poorly because BW exists in Korea. Foreign SC2 teams don't have to compete with other games because SC2 is arguably the largest game. Even other popular esports like counter strike and LOL are in a different genre whereas Brood War competes directly with SC2. If you owned a Korean company, it would be better to invest in Brood War since it is bigger, more popular, shown on tv, and more localized whereas if you were a company outside of Korea, you would invest in SC2 since it is the most popular esport currently.
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Osaka27155 Posts
I think it is because sc2 teams cannot adapt out of the bw model that was so successful for so long. One giant parent company sponsor who is happy enough to have their name attached to a uniform on cable tv. However, in the new market with a game that is not yet on tv (no gom player doesnt count) the same companies arent going to jump. All these same esports people that operated under one model for ten years cannot or will not change to an aggressive marketing strategy. Some teams are, such as slayers, others arent, like startale.
Combine this with the fact that the korean managers and teams squandered their chance of exclusivity with the foreign market in the ten years of bw, and they are all starting from scratch, with the language barrier preventing in their way from competing with the big foreignboys. Team partnerships are a small small start.
I could go off on this for a while, so ill stop...
Boxer gets it man. July doesn't. Golden mouse doesnt mean anything in sc2 worlds.
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What are ways to quantify your team's exposure / reach / etc? There are several metrics that pretty easily come to mind:
- twitter...
- facebook
- website traffic
- stream statistics
These metrics work in the west. Do they apply in Korea? Do you even know for sure?
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On December 26 2011 16:37 jenzebubble wrote:Show nested quote +What are ways to quantify your team's exposure / reach / etc? There are several metrics that pretty easily come to mind:
- twitter...
- facebook
- website traffic
- stream statistics These metrics work in the west. Do they apply in Korea? Do you even know for sure?
of course they work anywhere, its a form of exposure
if its worth their time getting views/etc is a different topic altogether
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Pretty interesting discussion. I was wondering though Xeris, are there Korean website alternatives like cyworld that the teams might be more active on? Just wondering if you knew.
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On December 26 2011 16:39 Subversive wrote:
Pretty interesting discussion. I was wondering though Xeris, are they Korean website alternatives like cyworld that the teams might be more active on? Just wondering if you knew.
I'd imagine some have that? But I don't know for sure !
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
almost all of the Korean teams don't seem to have popular or regularly updated websites, and little social media presence. Do companies in Korea not care about these things?
I can tell you that companies in Japan don't care about these sns metric things, fwiw.
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Did anyone already say that their target consumers are not Koreans or that you can get a wider scope of western consumers and Europeans by getting someone who attends more events and achieves relatively high to gain a minimum of exposure (being in interviews to thank the sponsors and mention their name so the association of: "This company supports E-Sports" is publicly made and established.
That being said, all the Korean sponsors are tied in Brood War and all the new sponsors are seeing the shift in popularity go towards English-speaking and foreign countries, not their own. It's only fair to sponsor the westernized teams and then have the KR players transfer over rather than sponsor a Korean team and potentially never get out of the country (especially when during interviews or chatter, they are less verbal or able to say what they want without an interpreter nearby).
So: give it to the western teams, have them do all their work and advertising, reap exposure and namesake.
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On December 26 2011 16:39 johnnywup wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2011 16:37 jenzebubble wrote:What are ways to quantify your team's exposure / reach / etc? There are several metrics that pretty easily come to mind:
- twitter...
- facebook
- website traffic
- stream statistics These metrics work in the west. Do they apply in Korea? Do you even know for sure? of course they work anywhere, its a form of exposure if its worth their time getting views/etc is a different topic altogether
Oh, so any exposure is good exposure. So the local mom and pop music shop in town should take out a 50 foot tall billboard in the middle of Time Square, right?
More to point, do you think Team EG should be all over Cyworld and RenRen? Do you think the number of followers they have on each would impress SteelSeries or Monster Energy Drinks?
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do you think language barrier and korean culture has something to do with this?
Remember BW pro teams has never operated in the multiple sponsorship model. Most teams just belong to a major corporation and run with it. They dont have to find a guy who run around and do PR stuff. Good players will get exposure to fans once they win vs some better players and then they will have fan cafe( afro toss is a good example). The point is: They have never thought that they will have to operate like EG. In fact, i dont even think they know such a huge amounts of sponsors is available outside of korea.
Their english isnt that good either. Even thought cella english is really good, its no where close to the level that you could do business with and he is on of the best english speaker among the korean pro-scene. Even GomTV have trouble in communicating with MLG i dont see a pro team such as startale can just sent and email to pepsi and ask for sponsorship. Recall how only very recently they know about the streaming for money system, I bet that they really dont have a clue on how the sponsorship model exist outside of Korea.
It would be great for somebody to stand between and link sponsors with koreans pro team together and do all the PR for them. Thats what the partnership model is all about: Slayers-EG Liquid-oGs Quantic-IM or now Startale...
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On December 26 2011 16:51 jenzebubble wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2011 16:39 johnnywup wrote:On December 26 2011 16:37 jenzebubble wrote:What are ways to quantify your team's exposure / reach / etc? There are several metrics that pretty easily come to mind:
- twitter...
- facebook
- website traffic
- stream statistics These metrics work in the west. Do they apply in Korea? Do you even know for sure? of course they work anywhere, its a form of exposure if its worth their time getting views/etc is a different topic altogether Oh, so any exposure is good exposure. So the local mom and pop music shop in town should take out a 50 foot tall billboard in the middle of Time Square, right? More to point, do you think Team EG should be all over Cyworld and RenRen? Do you think the number of followers they have on each would impress SteelSeries or Monster Energy Drinks?
way to take what i said out of context lol
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On December 26 2011 16:46 thedeadhaji wrote:Show nested quote +almost all of the Korean teams don't seem to have popular or regularly updated websites, and little social media presence. Do companies in Korea not care about these things? I can tell you that companies in Japan don't care about these sns metric things, fwiw.
This.
Asian business in general haven't started ultilizing this whole internet phenomenon yet
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Canada1637 Posts
On December 26 2011 16:30 Manifesto7 wrote:
I think it is because sc2 teams cannot adapt out of the bw model that was so successful for so long. One giant parent company sponsor who is happy enough to have their name attached to a uniform on cable tv. However, in the new market with a game that is not yet on tv (no gom player doesnt count) the same companies arent going to jump. All these same esports people that operated under one model for ten years cannot or will not change to an aggressive marketing strategy. Some teams are, such as slayers, others arent, like startale.
Combine this with the fact that the korean managers and teams squandered their chance of exclusivity with the foreign market in the ten years of bw, and they are all starting from scratch, with the language barrier preventing in their way from competing with the big foreignboys. Team partnerships are a small small start.
I could go off on this for a while, so ill stop...
Boxer gets it man. July doesn't. Golden mouse doesnt mean anything in sc2 worlds.
I agree, its an entirely different playing field and most of the Koreans teams aren't adapting, I think this has some overlap and helps explain some of what Diamond says, but I think what Diamond says is more of the symptoms, not so much the illness.
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On December 26 2011 16:07 Xeris wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2011 16:05 UndoneJin wrote:
I sometimes feel that the SC2 teams feel inadequate in comparison to the BW teams and thus "turtle," and sort of accept this little brother status that they have placed upon themselves. Now to be clear, BW teams are currently of much higher quality and value than SC2 teams. That said, everything you wrote is almost purely common sense/basic business thinking, things the managers of these teams MUST understand. Clearly, there is some kind of disconnect, either in yours and my understanding of how things work in Korea, or on the part of the teams in how they actually go about becoming "valuable" to sponsors. It's unfortunate that a team like ST with several amazing players (several in the top 20) can be so obscure.
Great post Xeris Right, this is exactly my point. It seems like these things are very logical... but Korean teams still don't really seem to do them or market themselves in the way I think is standard. This makes me wonder: does business work differently in Korea? What other reason is there? I don't know the answer... hoping someone can help!
From what I've read I think its mostly KESPA's influence. KESPA handled all the funding for all the teams for so long, that the western model of individual teams searching for individual sponsers never fully developed. So while we have guys like you and Sir Scoots who have been chasing sponsers for funding for years, Korea doesn't have any equivilents. SC2 Korea managers like Coach Lee and Slayers Jessica started off with 0 experience, and didn't have anyone to get advice from.
They are getting better though. Nobody was really sponsered on SC2 release, but now when you look at player uniforms most players are walking billboards just like in the west.
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makes no sense. you're talking about international companies...why would they ever consider sponsoring a korean team over an international team...unless you're stating the obvious?
there is absolutely no reason to sponsor a korean team as an international company simply because the main focus of those players will always be GSL. A korean broadcast.
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On December 26 2011 17:34 hyptonic wrote:
makes no sense. you're talking about international companies...why would they ever consider sponsoring a korean team over an international team...unless you're stating the obvious?
there is absolutely no reason to sponsor a korean team as an international company simply because the main focus of those players will always be GSL. A korean broadcast.
Yea because Koreans don't ever go to international comps. Like maybe MLG, IPL, Homestory Cup, IEM, Dreamhack, etc right?
Koreans are ultra popular and short of EG or Liquid any Korean team besides ZeNEX will offer much more exposure for the money then a international team. Plus the GSL exposure alone is more then most events.
Edit: This assumption is based off the fact that Koreans were not asking way too much money for said sponsorship, which they seem to be.
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BW is more popular that SC2. From memory airlines and banks sponsor BW, it is essentialy a national sport. SC2 is no where near that status in Korea.
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On December 26 2011 16:03 Itsmedudeman wrote:
It has little to do with marketing, and a lot to due with the fan base just not being interested in sc2. I don't get what's so hard to understand. BW is still very big, and SC2 side by side in every aspect is just not as interesting.
I don't mean to offend sc2, but it's like the XFL. Flashier, seemingly newer, but it's just a poorly redone hash with better graphics. It's made up of seemingly "failed" pro gamers, and the original game has all the money, players, and history to make it a much bigger and more attractive game.
If you're a sponsor for a big corporation in korea, WHY would you ever sponsor a SC2 team over a SC1 team that gets much, much more coverage? I think korea knows that the foreign scene has a majority of the fanbase right now, and that's why they're trying to reach out overseas to gain fans/sponsors/money.
PS: The teams DO do outreach stuff. Perhaps even more than foreign teams in some ways. You just haven't looked or heard of them because you don't live in korea.
hooly shit you really hit the nail on the head here.
things like appealing to the foreign market through social networking/fan videos are trying to reach toward foreign sponsors that have already given their support to korean teams as well as foreign ones. (beyond steelseries, intel, etc.). who else is left? what big or well known company is going to sponsor a non top 3 team (they all already have well known sponsors) in a foreign country for a 2nd banana game (in that country)?
Xeris, what makes you think these korean teams don't have any money? The ones that seem to be struggling, TSL for one, are out due to internal problems that might be a result of lack of money but we can't say for sure.
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I just think koreans are horrible at PR.
We had tasteless casting bw matches for years with the majority not noticing it.
Than there was the ESportsTV thing were suddenly youtube vods got blocked and no one knew what was going on and the scene had to investigate what was going on only to find out that these guys want to provide streams for for foreigners...
Maybe it is also a problem that almost no one speaks decent english so it is of course a problem to interact with foreign teams and international sponsors.
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On December 26 2011 17:42 TylerThaCreator wrote:
The ones that seem to be struggling, TSL for one, are out due to internal problems that might be a result of lack of money but we can't say for sure.
Who said TSL is struggling?
Sure, they don't have a huge player pool like SlayerS does, but there's really no ground to say they're struggling financially.
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EPT
