EPTThe biggest knock against MLG's Spring Arena is the player pool. To be blunt, it has evaporated -- shrinking from 32 to 8. Perhaps equally important, though, Huk is the only foreigner. While many fans dedicated enough to pay won't mind watching Koreans, others will miss the storylines foreigners create.
All that said, MLG would still dominate the computer screens on just about any weekend. Unfortunately for MLG, Dreamhack's new series of open tournaments kicks off at the same time. While MLG and Dreamhack are purportedly trying to work together, viewers will be posed with the following question:
Why should I pay to watch fewer players (128 vs 8) compete for less than half the money ($22,100 vs $10,900) in an empty office when I could watch Naniwa, Idra, and a crowd of other foreigners go to war in Stockholm in front of 2,300 screaming fans for free?
The fact that MLG is only flying in 8 players to play in it's office make me think they're experimenting to see whether their PPV buys stay up even if they slash expenses. I don't think it will work. In fact, I think MLG will lose momentum with its first Spring Arena, and negatively affect the buys of future Arenas. This Arena would be a lackluster MLG if it was free, why does MLG thinks people will pay for it?
