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On December 26 2011 17:48 VirgilSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +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.
Quite the contrary even, the pickup of Polt shows they are one of the more well off teams. However there is only so far one team can go when one guy handles every single thing from talent scouting to marketing. TSL seems to have hit that glass ceiling and it can't compete with Western teams.
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I appreciate the kind words Xeris, but I can take no credit for Sales within EG, that is all Alex, Colin, and Brandon.
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On December 26 2011 17:37 Diamond wrote:Show nested quote +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.
yes but foreign teams will always get more players to international events. many of those events are invite only and those with qualifiers only send 4 koreans max usually. the exposure at international events will always be more for foreign teams.
Take a look at SlayerS a team that has an international sponsor. Their exposure at international events includes roughly 5 players across 7 events. They won one of those events. Compare that with mouz, a smaller european team. They team has some of the bigger names in the scene (even white-ra at one point) and have sent 5 players to dozens of events. Holding victories for at least 2 and top 3 placings for many others. Obviously the situation with SlayerS is a bit different, with famous players and all, but I'm looking at the exposure side of things. In international events mouz has had better exposure if you're looking at it from a sponsor's perspective. Korean teams seldom go to international events in comparison to foreign teams even when the are monetarily stable.
and if we're talking about exposure streaming would be a large factor in it and foreigners that aren't EG/Liquid consistently get substantially better numbers than koreans. players like dimaga,sen,thorzain,destiny,mana get quadruple the viewers of greats like july, bomber, and the winner of the last GSL jjakji.
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On December 26 2011 17:51 Diamond wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2011 17:48 VirgilSC2 wrote: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. Quite the contrary even, the pickup of Polt shows they are one of the more well off teams. However there is only so far one team can go when one guy handles every single thing from talent scouting to marketing. TSL seems to have hit that glass ceiling and it can't compete with Western teams.
Coach Lee is quite the man though.
(P.S. Coach Lee if you're reading this, you can totally hire me to do......something)
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On December 26 2011 18:00 hyptonic wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2011 17:37 Diamond wrote: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. yes but foreign teams will always get more players to international events. many of those events are invite only and those with qualifiers only send 4 koreans max usually. the exposure at international events will always be more for foreign teams. Take a look at SlayerS a team that has an international sponsor. Their exposure at international events includes roughly 5 players across 7 events. They won one of those events. Compare that with mouz, a smaller european team. They team has some of the bigger names in the scene (even white-ra at one point) and have sent 5 players to dozens of events. Holding victories for at least 2 and top 3 placings for many others. Obviously the situation with SlayerS is a bit different, with famous players and all, but I'm looking at the exposure side of things. In international events mouz has had better exposure if you're looking at it from a sponsor's perspective. Korean teams seldom go to international events in comparison to foreign teams even when the are monetarily stable. and if we're talking about exposure streaming would be a large factor in it and foreigners that aren't EG/Liquid consistently get substantially better numbers than koreans. players like dimaga,sen,thorzain,destiny,mana get quadruple the viewers of greats like july, bomber, and the winner of the last GSL jjakji.
However how many televised games did those players receive? How often at an MLG is the game with the Korean in it picked and the ones with a coL player skipped? Same with every event that does not do 100% coverage. People watch Koreans, they follow them, and they have a genuine interest in them. Every event has figured out the trick, if you have Koreans, they get stream priority (aside for some matches like IdrA/Jinro or something of that scale). The same foreign teams that send out a lot of players often only get several overall televised games (short of a player making a deep deep deep run). It's something that has been bitched about every MLG is how you see all these impressive foreigner runs but instead you are watching Puzzle play some drunk Diamond level Protoss. Although that very game was hella cool, there was probably 4-5 skipped foreigner matches of higher quality overall, but lacked the Korean X factor.
The proof is the Korean Weekly, small ass prize pool, huge viewership for the prize scale.
Even events like Playhem daily's and TL Opens are won by Koreans with great frequency now, they are far from isolated anymore.
I guarantee any company that sponsors a team like TSL will get more ROI then most foreign teams, but not all of course. Again however this is all moot as there's the inflated self worth issue that means that a sponsor cannot sponsor said team for a price that would generate an ROI.
It's all a mess, but it's something I have observed in my time working with the teams, and I am not the only one that has seen this inside of Korean E-Sports with this opinion.
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On December 26 2011 18:10 VirgilSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2011 17:51 Diamond wrote:On December 26 2011 17:48 VirgilSC2 wrote: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. Quite the contrary even, the pickup of Polt shows they are one of the more well off teams. However there is only so far one team can go when one guy handles every single thing from talent scouting to marketing. TSL seems to have hit that glass ceiling and it can't compete with Western teams. Coach Lee is quite the man though. (P.S. Coach Lee if you're reading this, you can totally hire me to do......something)
Coach Lee is without a doubt my favorite coach I have spoke with and is sooooo awesome. I can not give him enough praise for what it's worth.
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While what you've said is wise and mostly true, there is a bigger reason for it.
As someone who has dealt very closely with two large teams Korean now, I like to think that I've been given unique insight - along with people like Diamond, Xeris, etc. - into the situation over there.
The problem, in my opinion, is this: many Korean teams are using Brood War/Korea-centric marketing philosophies in a significantly different StarCraft 2 world. Manfesto7 said it well: teams in Brood War were blessed with secure, constant exposure on cable TV. This audience is so large that other PR/marketing efforts were flat out unneeded most of the time. To this day, most Brood War teams don't use social media much at all.
Now, whether through denial or ignorance, a lot of StarCraft 2 teams don't take heed of the fact that the GSL audience is significantly smaller, but also more global. To say Korean sponsors aren't interested in SC2 at all due to its small size isn't really the main point (it's not "all or nothing"; sponsors are often more than happy to give less money for smaller exposure). The point is, I've seen Korean teams only try to market their Korean GSL exposure/results and nothing else at all.
Now, granted, a lot of Korean companies have literally no interest in reaching global markets, so you could say that selling one's global exposure to these companies would be fruitless. This is somewhat true, and instead, Korean teams should be trying to secure deals with American/foreign companies. The problem is, none of them are.
So yeah, while poor social media coverage is no doubt hindering the Korean scene's effort to get out of massive debt, it's not their biggest flaw. The bigger issue is that these teams see foreign events and viewer numbers as a 'nice bonus', when in reality they are the foundations of the entire SC2 scene right now.
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Korea (South)17174 Posts
what manifesto said
also korean sponsors in general are still very cautious before investing into sc2 because they aren't sure how it's going to end up or if it will continue to grow (compared to sc1 etc)...there are countless ways for companies to throw around their marketing budget efficiently, its up to sc2 teams to convince them not the other way around...
as far as the foreign world who has seen the sudden explosion of 'e-sports' with sc2, all the events, streaming etc,etc and all the $ these big companies have to throw around its not a surprise to see everyone wanting to jump into it
theres a bit of luck involved to, as it's hard to quantify marketing value precisely...sometimes it's just one high-up in the company who a team wants to sponsor them being a sick nerd having a random passion for the 'e-sports scene' to push a deal through
also getting a big sponsorship in korea is extremely difficult. i am unaware how hard it is for non-koreans but from what i've seen so far for sc2 teams it's a very long drawn out difficult detail oriented process that even after months of good talks the plug could randomly be pulled for whatever reason just because of the whim of a ceo (the process of filling small sub-sponsor roles for limited amounts is obv way easier)
all that is common sense
what might not be common sense, is that the vast majority of people 'in charge' and who are in the position to be getting sponsors for their teams in korea are all complete retards with no experience, people skills, and know how to make it happen
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Korea (South)17174 Posts
On December 26 2011 18:14 Diamond wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2011 18:10 VirgilSC2 wrote:On December 26 2011 17:51 Diamond wrote:On December 26 2011 17:48 VirgilSC2 wrote: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. Quite the contrary even, the pickup of Polt shows they are one of the more well off teams. However there is only so far one team can go when one guy handles every single thing from talent scouting to marketing. TSL seems to have hit that glass ceiling and it can't compete with Western teams. Coach Lee is quite the man though. (P.S. Coach Lee if you're reading this, you can totally hire me to do......something) Coach Lee is without a doubt my favorite coach I have spoke with and is sooooo awesome. I can not give him enough praise for what it's worth.
it's worth nothing
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On December 26 2011 18:36 Rekrul wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2011 18:14 Diamond wrote:On December 26 2011 18:10 VirgilSC2 wrote:On December 26 2011 17:51 Diamond wrote:On December 26 2011 17:48 VirgilSC2 wrote: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. Quite the contrary even, the pickup of Polt shows they are one of the more well off teams. However there is only so far one team can go when one guy handles every single thing from talent scouting to marketing. TSL seems to have hit that glass ceiling and it can't compete with Western teams. Coach Lee is quite the man though. (P.S. Coach Lee if you're reading this, you can totally hire me to do......something) Coach Lee is without a doubt my favorite coach I have spoke with and is sooooo awesome. I can not give him enough praise for what it's worth. it's worth nothing
Thanks Rek!
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I figure I add this to the discussion, foreign teams don't really need to invest in a teamhouse and the PCs to bring into the house (FXOBoss has mentioned that those can be really really expensive), food, etc.
Also Korean teams tend to be a lot bigger than foreign SC2 teams.
But yeah, it's surprising that with how popular the GSL is, there aren't really many foreign sponsors going to Korea.
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On December 26 2011 17:48 REDBLUEGREEN wrote:
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.
I just think Germans are horrible posters (see what I did there).
Define: Majority, because I assure you majority that were interested in BW at the time has noticed it.
In all seriousness, BW to Korea is what is American Football is to USA; there are people who enjoyed BW, many but in comparison to the large fanbase in Korea, it was virtually none. I would say Americans are bad at PR regarding spread of American Football as an international sport. However, that statement sounds silly because Americans do not need to spread internationally because they can do whatever (sponsor and so on) in USA. I'd also like to add, I do think there is a communication issue, but not something you cannot get around.
I see the problem being, the teams are very small. If you look at EG, FXO or any other company, they don't just do SC2, they are a company based on many game genres and other business ventures. If you look at the Korean teams now, they are pretty much from scratch, or from the dead WC3 scene, or non-pro BW clan. They do not have the resources, nor is it any easier to get one because of BW's dominance in the esports industry in Korea. They have to reach out to the foreign market, unless SC2 in Korea becomes the or one of major esports game.
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I just think it's an issue of Korea vs Rest of World. Foreign team has a chance to be sponsored by international corporations but a lot of Koreans just have Korea to work with. I would imagine that a lot of sponsors prefer to sponsor foreign teams because foreigners identify more with foreign players so the target audience will be better advertised to if you put your logo on something they're familiar more familiar with.
TL;DR Foreigner team = foreigner target audience = more money
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On December 26 2011 18:13 Diamond wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2011 18:00 hyptonic wrote:On December 26 2011 17:37 Diamond wrote: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. yes but foreign teams will always get more players to international events. many of those events are invite only and those with qualifiers only send 4 koreans max usually. the exposure at international events will always be more for foreign teams. Take a look at SlayerS a team that has an international sponsor. Their exposure at international events includes roughly 5 players across 7 events. They won one of those events. Compare that with mouz, a smaller european team. They team has some of the bigger names in the scene (even white-ra at one point) and have sent 5 players to dozens of events. Holding victories for at least 2 and top 3 placings for many others. Obviously the situation with SlayerS is a bit different, with famous players and all, but I'm looking at the exposure side of things. In international events mouz has had better exposure if you're looking at it from a sponsor's perspective. Korean teams seldom go to international events in comparison to foreign teams even when the are monetarily stable. and if we're talking about exposure streaming would be a large factor in it and foreigners that aren't EG/Liquid consistently get substantially better numbers than koreans. players like dimaga,sen,thorzain,destiny,mana get quadruple the viewers of greats like july, bomber, and the winner of the last GSL jjakji. However how many televised games did those players receive? How often at an MLG is the game with the Korean in it picked and the ones with a coL player skipped? Same with every event that does not do 100% coverage. People watch Koreans, they follow them, and they have a genuine interest in them. Every event has figured out the trick, if you have Koreans, they get stream priority (aside for some matches like IdrA/Jinro or something of that scale). The same foreign teams that send out a lot of players often only get several overall televised games (short of a player making a deep deep deep run). It's something that has been bitched about every MLG is how you see all these impressive foreigner runs but instead you are watching Puzzle play some drunk Diamond level Protoss. Although that very game was hella cool, there was probably 4-5 skipped foreigner matches of higher quality overall, but lacked the Korean X factor. The proof is the Korean Weekly, small ass prize pool, huge viewership for the prize scale. Even events like Playhem daily's and TL Opens are won by Koreans with great frequency now, they are far from isolated anymore. I guarantee any company that sponsors a team like TSL will get more ROI then most foreign teams, but not all of course. Again however this is all moot as there's the inflated self worth issue that means that a sponsor cannot sponsor said team for a price that would generate an ROI. It's all a mess, but it's something I have observed in my time working with the teams, and I am not the only one that has seen this inside of Korean E-Sports with this opinion.
So essentially
- no business sense
- failure to grasp the value of social media
- arrogance/inflated self-worth
- stubborn/ refusal to move from the BW model
If these factors are correct (a big if), is Korean SC2 condemned? Are we gonna see a second wave of mergers and acquisitions in a few months when the only independent korean team is the SlayerS?
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On December 26 2011 18:13 Diamond wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2011 18:00 hyptonic wrote:On December 26 2011 17:37 Diamond wrote: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. yes but foreign teams will always get more players to international events. many of those events are invite only and those with qualifiers only send 4 koreans max usually. the exposure at international events will always be more for foreign teams. Take a look at SlayerS a team that has an international sponsor. Their exposure at international events includes roughly 5 players across 7 events. They won one of those events. Compare that with mouz, a smaller european team. They team has some of the bigger names in the scene (even white-ra at one point) and have sent 5 players to dozens of events. Holding victories for at least 2 and top 3 placings for many others. Obviously the situation with SlayerS is a bit different, with famous players and all, but I'm looking at the exposure side of things. In international events mouz has had better exposure if you're looking at it from a sponsor's perspective. Korean teams seldom go to international events in comparison to foreign teams even when the are monetarily stable. and if we're talking about exposure streaming would be a large factor in it and foreigners that aren't EG/Liquid consistently get substantially better numbers than koreans. players like dimaga,sen,thorzain,destiny,mana get quadruple the viewers of greats like july, bomber, and the winner of the last GSL jjakji. However how many televised games did those players receive? How often at an MLG is the game with the Korean in it picked and the ones with a coL player skipped? Same with every event that does not do 100% coverage. People watch Koreans, they follow them, and they have a genuine interest in them. Every event has figured out the trick, if you have Koreans, they get stream priority (aside for some matches like IdrA/Jinro or something of that scale). The same foreign teams that send out a lot of players often only get several overall televised games (short of a player making a deep deep deep run). It's something that has been bitched about every MLG is how you see all these impressive foreigner runs but instead you are watching Puzzle play some drunk Diamond level Protoss. Although that very game was hella cool, there was probably 4-5 skipped foreigner matches of higher quality overall, but lacked the Korean X factor. The proof is the Korean Weekly, small ass prize pool, huge viewership for the prize scale. Even events like Playhem daily's and TL Opens are won by Koreans with great frequency now, they are far from isolated anymore. I guarantee any company that sponsors a team like TSL will get more ROI then most foreign teams, but not all of course. Again however this is all moot as there's the inflated self worth issue that means that a sponsor cannot sponsor said team for a price that would generate an ROI. It's all a mess, but it's something I have observed in my time working with the teams, and I am not the only one that has seen this inside of Korean E-Sports with this opinion.
This is only half true, but otherwise completely in the wrong as far as the point goes. People don't watch for koreans, they watch for korean vs. foreigners. Most of the fans want to see if the foreigners can beat the koreans as well, and when the skill gap is huge or it just becomes a stomp, that's when the viewership dies down. That's the biggest thing here. GSL has figured it out too and that's why they're bringing over foreigners, handing out free spots, and putting in bottom of the barrel code A players straight into the up and downs because they're foreigners and they want foreign attention.
What does prize pool have to do with the success of ESV and the Korean weekly? You think 5k deterred MLG fans? Prize scale means absolute shit in terms of viewer attraction, unless of course it's MUCH bigger than normal. People watched for certain key, popular players that were competing, and also because the time slot was pretty good.
Koreans are getting more exposure, but relative to their skill level it's far, far behind what the foreigners still get because of barriers. Look at the B tier koreans that went over to foreign teams and have some decent success, at least if they were compared to foreign results, yet many people don't even know who the hell they are or where they came from.
Want more proof? Look to your right at Sen's stream. 5k viewers, and always sticks around 2k-3k. Bomber on a good day? About 2k, but otherwise around 1k-1.5k average. Both are pretty exposed and well-known players, both speak a bit of english, and Bomber even talks a lot to the viewers in chat.
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I think some of the teams are incredibly short-sighted in that they are trying to market purely to the Korean market. It's borderline moronic IMO. At least GOM is smart enough to put more and more effort into the international side. Seriously though, these teams see us foreigner fans dropping $10 to $20 a month to watch the GSL and $100 lump sums, they should get a clue that there is some decent amount of eyeballs and disposable income that can be taken advantage of. The business acumen of a large number of the Korean teams seems very weak to me.
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It is in a Korean team's best interests to avoid international events and focus 100% on attaining the highest possible skill level and results in the GSL.
One day the big Korean sponsors from BW are going to switch over to SC2. It is inevitable. When that happens they will look to sponsor the best teams. And that isn't going to be the teams with the best international success. International success actually hinders progress in the GSL (travel, jetlag, lack of practice etc. etc.).
I mean look what happens to Koreans when they get a taste of foreign events? They all want to drop everything and start competing. You give that to your players and they spend less time improving.
Personally I think it is in their best interests to focus 100% on practicing within Korea and attaining the best possible GSL results.
That isn't to say that is their game plan. I firmly believe they just aren't accustomed to the way foreign e-sports works or how to deal with big international sponsors. But I don't see any pressing need to make it happen. While they can sustain their team houses and players they're in a good spot.
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Why is SlayerS put forward as such a success story in this thread? I'd hardly say a lackluster facebook page with 7k likes and no dedicated team site is impressive. They don't have dedicated writers and other content producers and don't offer anything like the amount of information a Western team do. I understand you guys jizm over boxer and jessica and yea jessica may be a good manager but she isn't doing a great job as a marketer.
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On December 26 2011 20:54 DoomsVille wrote:
One day the big Korean sponsors from BW are going to switch over to SC2. It is inevitable. When that happens they will look to sponsor the best teams. And that isn't going to be the teams with the best international success. International success actually hinders progress in the GSL (travel, jetlag, lack of practice etc. etc.).
Whats more likely is that the current teams are going to diversify into another division, CJ, SK, SKT etc will add on a SC2 team / room to their environments. Sponsors are more likely to breed their own talent than take a chance on unknowns (I imagine). Plus this all relies on Kespa getting involved with GOM, because if they don't they'll never cross sponsor.
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I actually did read all of it, what I normally rarely do ( in blogs). Nice topic, well written, Got me thinking.. Too bad I cannot contribute to this conversation whatsoever. 5/5 regardless.
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EPT
