EPTIts no secret that eSports and Starcraft for that matter are fringe activities, they do have large followings, but in the western world they are fringe sports, much like MMA in the early 2000's. The comparison is almost dead on, as there was and is to this day a large community figurehead in Dana White who is a tell it like it is sort of guy who holds no punches (bad pun) in any of his statements, which often contain more f-bombs than other words. In the case of Starcraft there are a few community figureheads who have similar attitudes, but there is a different reaction from the fan base.
When MMA was at the point Starcraft is now, where it was mostly sponsored by related niche companies and a few "lifestyle" sponsors, if someone had an issue with what a UFC fighter said, they would talk to Dana White who would go on about f this f that fing idiot and would straighten the guy out and have him apologize, cut him from the roster or give him some sort of penalty. Starcraft seems to be taking the other route unfortunately. There are two well documented cases of where people decided to directly forgo speaking to the management of the responsible companies about employee's in favor of directly contacting sponsors. This is the action which could result in a self implosion of this industry into obscurity in the west.
If eSports is to be a bridge that someone can travel their career path down, then these "lifestyle" sponsors are the foundations of the bridge. While I agree that there should be a time and a place for contacting them with regards to teams, I feel that there should be extreme caution when doing so. In order to keep our foundations diverse and strong we must show them that there is a return on their investment. In order to do so we must think as though we are the owner of a company and unfamiliar with the landscape.
Imagine that you own a business installing home alarms, and an MMA company approaches you for a sponsorship, they offer you a pretty darn thought out plan, and so you decide to sponsor them, after a while you get a bunch of emails about how someone bought your alarm system because they saw your company on the broadcast. This makes you happy about your investment, so you wish to stay in the industry, but another company makes you a better offer than what you get with the first guy, so you logically switch to the better offer, this results in emails complaining about your switch and many people discontinuing the use of your service because of this (read emails when grubby lost some sponsors), after this you are beginning to feel that this industry is volatile, and later emails about antics of a specific fighter for the organization would further confirm the volatility. At this point do you wish to keep your money in this industry? Probably not, unless you feel like wagering your income on one of two glass jawed heavy handed fighters with poor striking defense.
The point of the little aside above is that the volatility that we are currently displaying when it comes to dealing with sponsors of teams will be the undoing of this industry as anything more than a niche or fringe sport. Who wants to be part of an industry where you are being blackballed by a part of the industry for taking a better offer from a competing entity? Or how about being flooded with emails to police the behavior of a single person in the organization you are sponsoring because it upset some people? The niche companies are the only true answer and the answer that follows is that a niche foundation can only allow a niche bridge to be built on it.
How do we stop this possible self implosion? Letting the sponsors know that we have considered their product because of their sponsorship of team x goes a long way to helping them think their investment is showing return. The opposite is completely untrue, if you don't like that Razer doesn't sponsor Grubby anymore keep that to yourself and silently don't choose their product if you really are that petty, don't bite the hand that feeds others please. Lastly, DON'T CONTACT THE SPONSORS OVER INCIDENTS WITH ONE PLAYER THAT SHOULD BE HANDLED BY THE TEAM. If you have to overview and entire company of employee's, make sure they show up on time, are on target for their deadlines ECT, THE LAST THING YOU WANT TO DO IS MAKE SURE SOME OTHER ORGANIZATION IS RUNNING AS IT SHOULD BE. Constantly being pestered by customers to do so will likely result in the plug being pulled on the sponsorship and the money injected elsewhere. Removing that sponsor could financially threaten the team and the players who had nothing to do with the incident. Its equivalent to arresting everyone within 2 generations of someones family because one person within there committed a crime.
I sincerely hope that the path we are currently on is abandoned in favor of a more appealing path for more giant corporate sponsors so that this industry can reach its potential.
