EPT
HiyA playing in defense of his ODT seed last night gave us a spectacle we have not seen for a long time - possibly ever: a gamer competing in a KeSPA-sanctioned tournament without a team. For almost fifteen years now, Korean competition has been held together by the authority, in some cases a practical tyranny, of KeSPA, and the teams which both fall under its rules and serve as its enforcers.Rooting Complications
Me, I root for Woongjin Stars. Why? Mainly because I liked
free[gm] as a player, and now 
ZerO and Neo.G_Soulkey are also among my favorites. Now the team counts. If hOn_sin played Stork in Proleague, I would root for hOn_sin. But If Stork played hOn_sin in the OSL - well, I would root for Stork, who is also one of my favorite players.I am not alone. Look through any live report thread. You will find these sorts of statements: "I'm rooting for STX but with Bisu winning." "KT needs this win but it sucks that that means Hydra will have to lose." - or in the starleagues, "I'm rooting for Movie but it's okay if TurN wins because GO KHAN."
Of course, this are hardly more complicated than any other sports' rooting interests: at the end of the Big Ten basketball season, for instance, as a Michigan fan I found myself rooting for Ohio State - for those of you who don't follow American sports, imagine a Real Madrid fan rooting for Barcelona for some reason - so that Michigan would get a part of the title. Whatever the intricacies of rooting bias, though, the stakes are clear and the system is structured - and because it is clearly defined, its vagaries and petty highhandedness can be tolerated, and the system endures. (Compare the apparently random nature of NFL fines for a similar instance.)
GOM vs KeSPA
Nothing illustrated this stranglehold as well as the failure of GOM's attempt to break into the market. Eventually success required cutting in on a new game - and it is both ironic and instructive to see GOM now mirroring some part of KeSPA's exclusivity in their GSL competition for Starcraft II. There is not quite the same level of organizational paranoia: GSL Code A sports players from 7 teams right now, and Code S adds another 5 - matching, in numbers, the height of KeSPA's Starcraft domination and including foreign teams such as Liquid and Complexity. GOM has shown more flexibility in working with foreign partnerships (notably MLG and IPL) than KeSPA ever did.
We remember the difficulty players like
IdrA, Ret, and NonY had getting to teams, let alone getting playing time. Of course, the foreign Brood War scene, such as it was, was minor league at best by comparison. Whatever struggles foreign Starcraft II players have had dealing with Koreans training under a strict practice regimen, there are enough results that we cannot honestly make a similar dismissal - at least not yet, though the doomsayers' ranks seem to grow by the minute.Considerations from Other Sports
I spent a year in South Korea after college, doing the ESL thing. I made it to my share of Brood War matches, but the most fascinating sports takeaway actually came not from Brood War but from the Korean baseball league. Every team had a few "foreign" players, mostly either pitchers or sluggers. Foreign players' numbers are limited - judging from current rosters the limit is two per team (though coaching does not seem similarly restricted). I believe the Japanese majors are similarly restricted, and I am almost certain that several European soccer leagues have the same sort of rule.
What is being preserved in all these instances is identity. Team identity; cultural identity; league identity. It is worth noting that in contrast most major American sports leagues have no similar restrictions - and while the NFL and NBA are largely dominated by American-born players, this is not at all true for the NHL and MLB, who draw large amounts of talent from Northern Europe and Latin America, respectively. My best guess as to why this works? American public culture is mostly self-consciously inclusive and multi-cultural - not necessarily in reality, but in goals and "self identity" - and at the same time curiously provincial. On the playing field, as in few other places in the actual culture, this comes together. "My team" - white or black or Asian, straight or gay or Dennis Rodman (I mean, even as a Pistons fan, what was with that guy?) - as long as the team is from Here, wherever here is.
Organization as Key
Now the confession. When it comes to Starcraft II, although I like and appreciate the game, I don't feel any connection to the players or teams. The only player I take any real interest is MKP - largely, I suspect, because I caught his debut, because he had a unique approach, and because he generated a storyline: silver medalist. I root for Prime a little, because it's MKP's team. I like Maru's play quite a bit. And I look at all that and say to myself, "Huh, I'm rooting for Koreans again."
But the fact of the matter is that there is not an American league to follow. The professional leagues based in North America - MLG, IPL, NASL - are, as many complain, overrun with Koreans. The only storyline is Korea vs foreigners - and as the American political mess makes clear, two-party systems make for a catastrophe. But the bigger problem is that none of these are leagues in the sporting sense or on the organized Korean model. In terms of organization Starcraft II currently sits somewhere between tennis - an individual event looks a lot like the average open - and some fighting league with its sporadic fights and sometimes almost unaccountable "players"; only with a lot less money than either.
The closest thing there is to an actual league organization is the (amateur) CSL. I have a suspicion that - like most American sports relatively recently - any professional league will grow from that foundation. Although that would require them getting some publicity first.
TL:DR - Structure, Accountability, Localization.
