I don't see the commercials as being a huge issue honestly. The average game length in that Playhem dataset was around 12 minutes real time. That is pretty similar to a sport like baseball. Yah there are super long innings, but on the whole it will average out. You can sell advertising on the overlay, just like advertising is sold on the boards in hockey and on the backstop in baseball.
I mean nothing can touch football as it is just build for TV, but SC2 doesn't have all that much going against it for advertising. I think the major problem is that the market for SC2 is global rather than US based.

For reference Average baseball game is 3 hours with commercials, so 20 minutes per inning and 10 minutes per half inning.

Hulavuta

United States1252 Posts

February 09 2012 00:25 GMT

#22

Isn't StarCraft already broadcasted on TV in Korea?

Rising

United States4 Posts

February 09 2012 00:35 GMT

#23

Holy balls I never thought I'd be getting any responses any time soon.

And to those wondering, I don't even know what my other two posts are. I created this account last year for some purpose I no longer remember and just decided to use it to see what kind of feedback I'd get on this post.

Now my aim with this was not to take online and make it TV only. The point is for both to co-exist. I don't even think that we need TV in order to be "authenticated" or whatever as an esport. I just think it would nice to see a different approach to things.

zhurai

United States5660 Posts

February 09 2012 01:10 GMT

#24

why do we "need" TV.

Dhalphir

Australia1305 Posts

February 09 2012 01:52 GMT

#25

The variable length of Starcraft games makes it impossible to put them on TV.

Period. End of discussion. There is no way around this hurdle. When a game can last 5 minutes or 50 minutes, you cannot possibly schedule that on TV. Even if you pre-record, you then end up having different length timeslots every week, which does not work.

Chef

10810 Posts

February 09 2012 01:59 GMT

#26

On February 09 2012 10:52 Dhalphir wrote:
The variable length of Starcraft games makes it impossible to put them on TV.

Period. End of discussion. There is no way around this hurdle. When a game can last 5 minutes or 50 minutes, you cannot possibly schedule that on TV. Even if you pre-record, you then end up having different length timeslots every week, which does not work.

You're aware that BW was a variable length game and it aired on TV for the last 10 years? I don't know exactly what their system is, but it's not hard to think of solutions. You could just set time aside for review and comments, and eat into that if the games are long, or extend it if the games are short. Or run show programs designed to fill up time, like tips or interviews or other random stuff.

StarStruck

25339 Posts

February 09 2012 02:26 GMT

#27

2nd post today from Dhalphir that's a total eye sore.

Come on man, pick it up!

Anyway, as for the OP's ideas. No, no and no.

As for Star Power. Yes, players have to work on marketing themselves. Most certainly but as for your views on the format changes. Not necessary.

I said it once before and I'll say it again. The only thing I see working in North America is a highlight show of the world circuit. Not much else.

willy001

United States89 Posts

February 09 2012 03:14 GMT

#28

What if someone was to have a cable channel for starcraft or even esports in general? Could that not work? I mean you all complain about advertising time slots but what if it was just your local tv network? You could have mlg on there to further expand the barcraft scene. Maybe In a place like LA were tons of people live?

ShaLLoW[baY]

Canada12499 Posts

February 09 2012 12:40 GMT

#29

http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/korean

?

Zren89

United States131 Posts

February 17 2012 17:38 GMT

#30

Man, sorry that no one understands what "Now before I begin the meat of this post, let me put a disclaimer out there. This piece isn’t about whether StarCraft should be on TV, but rather how it could work if it was on TV. The argument of whether or not SC2 should be on TV has beaten to death and I’m not here to kick it any further." means, I get that you are just trying to postulate how it could work but apparently not many others do...constructive comments and concerns is probably what you were looking for not the incessant whinging that goes on so often in the TL forums.

Ok so some comments on how things could be further adapted into a televised format; Instead of focusing on taditional ads, there is something that has been emerging for at least the last two decades called product placement there is the possibility that instead of using only ads and prerecorded commercials, the maps themselves could be "sponsored" by specific corporations such as MLG [map name here] by Dr. Pepper. And then there is the possibility of placing "subtle" ads and product placements into the maps themselves. Like a giant Mcdonalds doodad in the middle of the map. This may not be the traditional angle that most have approached the game with but its definitely not impossible, this also ads the posibility that when players encounter the ad in game they can try to fight in that area and maybe nuke it, put a bunch of pylons in the shape of a heart around the doodad etc. etc..

Thinking outside the box is what's needed to translate the internet phenomenon that is professional SC2 games onto the more homogenized market of television. Mass market appeal doesn't have to be a bad thing, there is something to be said for how the NFL and other professional sports organizations fit all of their requirements into an hour and change game, and still make it fast paced enough and action packed to appeal to so many fans. You don't neccessarily have to cheapen the experience to get it to "work" on TV, just streamline it in a way that won't make the die-hard fans dissappear and make it engaging enough to attract the casuals, that may or may not have ever even heard of this wacky "esports" thing they catch one day, while channel surfing. Alot of that IMO comes down to the casters. The better they are the better the game can do on TV.

Hope this helps!

Edit: Just realized that mlg already basically does the first part of what I said but with overlays. And that if you added mcdonalds doodads to the map you would probably have to pay blizzard and not mlg O.o basically rendering my entire idea useless.

Woops!