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With the general rumblings about the lack of a semi-pro, or “amateur,” scene, I wanted to look at what drives a sustainable Semi-pro scene. It comes down to one core question for the tournament organizer/investor:
Will I have enough viewership for this event to make it worth my investment?
It comes down to a different question for Teams investing in Semi-pro players.
Can I reliably pick up and cultivate future talent?
Here’s how I will tackle this question:
1: Define the difference between Pro and Semi-pro players.
2: Explore the viewership relationships between pro and semi-pro events in a different sport.
3: Define the corollary skill tiers in SC2.
4: Extrapolate the necessary overall SC2 viewership size.
5: Discuss the value drivers of Talent Farming.
What we will find is that the overall SC2 scene is too small to support a vibrant amateur scene, and teams cannot reliably enough cultivate talent to leverage talent farming.
1: Defining “Pro” v. “Semi-Pro”- Semi-Pro+ skill tiers can be defined as follows:
- “Semi-pro+” players are inspirationally better than others. A viewer with minimal skill is awed and aspires to be that good.
- Tiers of Semi-Pro+ are differentiated by skill gaps that are obvious to a viewer with minimal skill. When I watch a game between any two MLB teams, I can’t tell “who’s better” without the score counter. However, Triple-A baseball teams make obvious enough mistakes to indicate that they are not quite “Pro.”
- Different Tiers of Semi-Pro+ can be separated quantitatively by results.
2: Viewership rates in other sports for Pro v. Semi-pro.
I will use baseball for this comparison because I know a little about it. You are welcome to present an alternative analysis with a different sport. Baseball has a clear Pro v. Semi-pro breakdown with MLB and AAA-club teams that fit the criteria above. Let’s compare their viewership for their largest events.
Pro level - the MLB “World Series” drew 16.6M viewers in 2011.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Series_television_ratings
Semi-pro - the Triple-A All-Stars event reached a broadcast audience via the MLB Network. It is not one of the top-5 broadcasted events on the MLB Network, and the 5th place event had <190k viewers. Thus, Triple-A All Stars had <190k viewers.
http://bizofbaseball.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4362:mlb-network-has-55-million-subscribers-but-low-ratings&catid=48:ei-mlb-network&Itemid=82
summary of viewership
Pro Championship: 16,600,000
Semi-Pro Championship: <190,000
Semi-pro/Pro = <.19/16.6 = <1.1%
We can assume, then, that a Semi-Pro championship event draws ~1% of the viewership of a Pro event.
3: What are the corollary skill tiers in SC2?
Let’s use Dreamhack Summer Open as our example - DHS’12 had a phenomenal breadth of skill represented with lots of Bo3 in group-play settings.
Earlier I discussed 3 distinct characteristics of “Semi-Pro+ Players”
- Semi-Pro+ are inspirationally better
- Pro v. Semi-pro skill gaps are obvious to a casual observer
- Skill gaps can be quantifiably assessed
I think, it becomes safe to say that we can draw the line for “Pro” at those who made it to Group Stage 3 at DHS’12, while those eliminated in group 2 are, on average, “Semi-pro.”
4: Extrapolating the Necessary Total SC2 Viewership Size
Let us assume that an event needs 10k online concurrent viewers to be worth running.
Target Semi-pro Viewership = 10k Concurrents
Semi-Pro/Pro Viewership Ratio = 1%
(Target Pro Viewership) = (Target Semi-pro Viewership) / (Semipro/Pro Viewership Ratio)
(Target Pro Viewership) = (10,000) / (1%)
(Target Pro Viewership) = (10,000) / (.01)
(Target Pro Viewership) = 1,000,000 Concurrent Viewers
For an investor to safely run an SC2 amateur event, major SC2 events must draw 1,000,000 Concurrent viewers.
MLG Spring Championship had ~440k Concurrent viewers. Given LoL’s viewership draw, I’ll assume that ⅓ was from SC2 => ~150k concurrent SC2 viewers. This needs to increase 800% to hit 1,000,000 SC2 concurrent viewers.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/06/14/mlg-spring-championship-posts-record-shattering-numbers-for-viewership/
5: The Relevance of Talent Farming
From ESPN about the Triple-A league:
“Winning is nice, but secondary. It's much more important for a young prospect...to get regular at-bats against lefties...than it is to take three of four from the Portland Beavers.”
http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/columns/story?id=5510887
The “Semi-pro Scene” in baseball does not provide a platform for players to win, but prepares them for Pro play. The team is investing in an unproven player, which will only happen if the future contract is lucrative to sign.
What drives that in E-sports? Teams drive revenue by having players act as brand ambassadors. They hope the player achieves visibility in the long run. In Semi-Pro players, they would look for:
Potential for fans to latch on to either
A: Your large-stage wins in the professional scene.
B: Your personality.
I did not include “current performance on ladder.” The old investing disclaimer is “Past results are not a predictor of future performance.” It takes a LOT of trust for a team to sign an unproven player and say “keep doing what you are doing.” They have no sense of his potential, and independent learning is fickle.
In Semi-Pro baseball, Coaches scout and train talent with the track record to show an investor “if I pick and train 10 semi-pro players, >50% will be Pro-level players in 3 years.”
It appears that no SC2 organization has developed a reliable scouting/training program in the International Scene, as no international team has been able to consistently convert up-and-comers into Pros. Investing in future talent is too risky until systematic scouting and training systems develop. Talent churn in Korea suggests some Korean teams might have figured it out a bit, making their scouting/training systems worth studying.
Conclusions
Championship-quality Pro events need to draw 1M concurrent viewers for SC2 before it an investor can safely run an amateur event. This is an 8x increase in total market size. This means that every one of us fans needs to convince 7 more people to watch MLG with us. SC2’s appeal must be larger and broader.
Second, current teams cannot effectively leverage semi-pro players for a predictable return on investment because none have developed reliable scouting and training systems. Until teams develop this, Semi-Pro players offer little value from a talent-farming perspective.
 
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did mlg have 440,000 viewers lol?
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There is no amateur scene because everyone can view top tier pros play, so why would you wanna watch someone not so good. There are so many high calibre SC2 events going on basically every day, most people don't even watch entirety of major tournaments as it is. Amateur scene in real sports exists because people go to live events at their local stadiums, not because X amount of people watches them on TV.
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On July 24 2012 02:14 Sethronu wrote:
There is no amateur scene because everyone can view top tier pros play, so why would you wanna watch someone not so good. There are so many high calibre SC2 events going on basically every day, most people don't even watch entirety of major tournaments as it is. Amateur scene in real sports exists because people go to live events at their local stadiums, not because X amount of people watches them on TV.
College football and basketball get VERY good TV ratings.
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Blazinghand
United States25553 Posts
On July 24 2012 02:20 L_Master wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2012 02:14 Sethronu wrote:
There is no amateur scene because everyone can view top tier pros play, so why would you wanna watch someone not so good. There are so many high calibre SC2 events going on basically every day, most people don't even watch entirety of major tournaments as it is. Amateur scene in real sports exists because people go to live events at their local stadiums, not because X amount of people watches them on TV. College football and basketball get VERY good TV ratings.
And I'm not sure if this is any good indication, but there are several players who aren't really great tournament players or people who've gotten wins or anything, who, through their personality, playstyle, or ability to make good presentations, run successful streams. I don't know what this means for tournaments or if this would translate over, but I think just "highest possible level of play" isn't the only thing people look for in esports-- there are other entertainment factors.
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On July 24 2012 03:04 Blazinghand wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2012 02:20 L_Master wrote:On July 24 2012 02:14 Sethronu wrote:
There is no amateur scene because everyone can view top tier pros play, so why would you wanna watch someone not so good. There are so many high calibre SC2 events going on basically every day, most people don't even watch entirety of major tournaments as it is. Amateur scene in real sports exists because people go to live events at their local stadiums, not because X amount of people watches them on TV. College football and basketball get VERY good TV ratings. And I'm not sure if this is any good indication, but there are several players who aren't really great tournament players or people who've gotten wins or anything, who, through their personality, playstyle, or ability to make good presentations, run successful streams. I don't know what this means for tournaments or if this would translate over, but I think just "highest possible level of play" isn't the only thing people look for in esports-- there are other entertainment factors.
These aren't the kind of people who will make good tournament players necessarily though. They're the ones more likely to get spots as casters or as a psuedo-half time show between sets because they're more entertaining than inherently skilled.
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Personally, I prefer semi-pro sports because the players are really trying to break out and make it in the pro scene. I don't think this would apply to SC2, since it's not a team sport and even the top players are doing their best to make some money. With the MLB, players are under contract and set for a while at least, no matter how well their team does.
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On July 24 2012 02:20 L_Master wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2012 02:14 Sethronu wrote:
There is no amateur scene because everyone can view top tier pros play, so why would you wanna watch someone not so good. There are so many high calibre SC2 events going on basically every day, most people don't even watch entirety of major tournaments as it is. Amateur scene in real sports exists because people go to live events at their local stadiums, not because X amount of people watches them on TV. College football and basketball get VERY good TV ratings.
The main draw here is that the people watching are for the most part drawn by the college name and loyalties than to see the actual sport. SC2 doesn't have this built in-fan base, since there is no SC2 college, and no one can say "I remember player x when he was playing with team y." There is no matriculation process as the OP has stated, and that it won't come because there's no value in developing one.
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I found the ROOT Gaming battle royale very entertaining and wish more teams would do things like that.
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the amateur league is online and is called master league.
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The reason is because we do, but we don't see them in tourneys because they have to have funds to go. There are players like CoL.Sasquatch who entered the academy, and pretty much paved his way to the pro team. There are a lot of players who aren't recognized but are good players who aren't full on pro yet, people like Maynard in the Playhems who are INSANE, but not good enough to beat stephano. The idea behind what I'm saying is that the best rise to the top, there is always space their, but the middle is full of people jockeying for position.
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the reason is cuz nobody wants to fucking watch amateurs so theres no money in it
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First off, I appreciate all the work that you put into this blog, and the thought and analysis behind it. I agree with you that having a sustainable amateur scene is pretty important, and that currently it is usually not worth investing in a amateur scene. But you can't draw conclusions from assumptions, nor can you force the baseball model onto eSports.
Just because amateur baseball gets 1% of the viewership that MLB does, does not mean that amateur SC2 tournaments will get 1% of the viewers that professional tournaments get, nor should they necessarily strive to reach that number (often times I would expect them to surpass this).
Let us assume that an event needs 10k online concurrent viewers to be worth running.
Target Semi-pro Viewership = 10k Concurrents
Semi-Pro/Pro Viewership Ratio = 1%
(Target Pro Viewership) = (Target Semi-pro Viewership) / (Semipro/Pro Viewership Ratio)
(Target Pro Viewership) = (10,000) / (1%)
(Target Pro Viewership) = (10,000) / (.01)
(Target Pro Viewership) = 1,000,000 Concurrent Viewers
For an investor to safely run an SC2 amateur event, major SC2 events must draw 1,000,000 Concurrent viewers.
The issue that I have with this analysis is that you begin by abitrarily throwing out the 10k minimum concurrent viewership number, and use the 1% ratio from baseball that I believe does not necessarily apply to SC2, which gives you a number that doesn't really make sense.
For example, the 10k minimum concurrent viewership is a number I would dispute. NASL and IPL broadcasts, while they may break 10k viewership, often fall short of these goals. Meanwhile, even smaller tournaments like the ESV fall far below the 10k mark.
Furthermore, realistically there is very little chance that SC2 events will ever reach 1 million concurrent viewers if our largest events now do not even reach half that number. The only realistic way for that to happen would be if North Korea's Kim Jong Un was secretly a massive SC2 fan and forced his entire nation to watch SC2 tournaments. I jest a bit here, but it will be very difficult to more than double viewership just like that :p
Now, my critique was pretty harsh, and I hope you don't take it personally. You did make some very good points, as well as recognize the importance of amateur and talent-development programs, and I really appreciate the effort you put into this. I also agree with your conclusion that currently investment in amateur programs is generally not worthwhile at the moment.
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The one problem is, there is a semi-pro scene, they are just hard to find. You wanna check them out watch the ISTL (I think) run by iMp. you could watch the STL run by sc2clans.org; ESEA is a good mix. The point is, every scene has a semi-pro scene, It just isn't very popular. If you are running by the 1 percent rule then 30/50 concurrent viewers is the same as 3000-5000 concurrent. Secondly, it is really hard to define a pro/semi-pro scene in SC2. Do we base it off salary, exposure, popularity? It is hard to quantify what makes a team a pro team. I think complexity, EG, and Korean teams might be pro, but that is it. The rest of us are all in the same boat compared to them.
TL;DR
Semi-pro scene exists, Check out sc2upandcoming because it covers smaller events, more teams are semi-pro then people realize.
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On July 24 2012 10:02 Bagration wrote:First off, I appreciate all the work that you put into this blog, and the thought and analysis behind it. I agree with you that having a sustainable amateur scene is pretty important, and that currently it is usually not worth investing in a amateur scene. But you can't draw conclusions from assumptions, nor can you force the baseball model onto eSports. Just because amateur baseball gets 1% of the viewership that MLB does, does not mean that amateur SC2 tournaments will get 1% of the viewers that professional tournaments get, nor should they necessarily strive to reach that number (often times I would expect them to surpass this). Show nested quote +Let us assume that an event needs 10k online concurrent viewers to be worth running.
Target Semi-pro Viewership = 10k Concurrents
Semi-Pro/Pro Viewership Ratio = 1%
(Target Pro Viewership) = (Target Semi-pro Viewership) / (Semipro/Pro Viewership Ratio)
(Target Pro Viewership) = (10,000) / (1%)
(Target Pro Viewership) = (10,000) / (.01)
(Target Pro Viewership) = 1,000,000 Concurrent Viewers
For an investor to safely run an SC2 amateur event, major SC2 events must draw 1,000,000 Concurrent viewers. The issue that I have with this analysis is that you begin by abitrarily throwing out the 10k minimum concurrent viewership number, and use the 1% ratio from baseball that I believe does not necessarily apply to SC2, which gives you a number that doesn't really make sense. For example, the 10k minimum concurrent viewership is a number I would dispute. NASL and IPL broadcasts, while they may break 10k viewership, often fall short of these goals. Meanwhile, even smaller tournaments like the ESV fall far below the 10k mark. Furthermore, realistically there is very little chance that SC2 events will ever reach 1 million concurrent viewers if our largest events now do not even reach half that number. The only realistic way for that to happen would be if North Korea's Kim Jong Un was secretly a massive SC2 fan and forced his entire nation to watch SC2 tournaments. I jest a bit here, but it will be very difficult to more than double viewership just like that :p Now, my critique was pretty harsh, and I hope you don't take it personally. You did make some very good points, as well as recognize the importance of amateur and talent-development programs, and I really appreciate the effort you put into this. I also agree with your conclusion that currently investment in amateur programs is generally not worthwhile at the moment.
Hey, a thoughtful critique! Those don't happen often.
Re: 1%
If you can suggest a better model to use and show me some numbers, we can use that ratio instead. However, if I'm an investor, I need some sort of quantitatively supported basis to go off of. "striving for higher" means nothing to someone who's decisions are governed by ROI, and an amateur scene won't be "sustainable" if investors like this don't think its worthwhile.
Again, MLB might not be the best model, but from an investors standpoint, its better than no model. You are welcome to present a better one.
Re: 10k target concurrents
It is not clear to anyone that NASL and IPL's daily broadcasts are making ROI targets for IGN. From a business standpoint, these are an attempt to get a foothold in a growing market so that, when the market becomes big, IGN will then be making lots of money.
Moreover, if the target is 8k, that's still a target size of 800,000 for MLG concurrents. If the target is 5k, the MLG target size is 500,000. The overall point of, "it needs to be MUCH bigger" (ie more than 3x as big) still stands.
Re: doubling viewership
Indeed, it might not happen. Semi-pro players should read this analysis, realize that, and make their career decisions based on reasonable analysis. Moreover, I hope people start to realize how important it is for the scene to grow. That means broadening its appeal to people who know less about the game, getting all of us better at communicating with our friends who aren't into SC2, getting better at explaining to people why what we do is awesome. This stuff doesn't happen by itself.
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Re: 10k target concurrents.
It is also worth noting that I am trying to do an apples-to-apples comparison of Championship event v. Championship event. IPL nightly broadcasts are Pro-level weekly content of <3hrs featuring <12 players. A championship event has >16 players (preferrably >32) and is >8hours of overall content, and therefore has commensurately higher costs, requiring higher viewership to cover costs and achieve reasonable ROI.
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Re: harshness of critique.
I'm a PhD Student. Your questions were all softballs compared to what I normally get :p
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Why are you triple posting? Just use edit button
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On July 24 2012 20:11 Arcane86 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2012 10:02 Bagration wrote:First off, I appreciate all the work that you put into this blog, and the thought and analysis behind it. I agree with you that having a sustainable amateur scene is pretty important, and that currently it is usually not worth investing in a amateur scene. But you can't draw conclusions from assumptions, nor can you force the baseball model onto eSports. Just because amateur baseball gets 1% of the viewership that MLB does, does not mean that amateur SC2 tournaments will get 1% of the viewers that professional tournaments get, nor should they necessarily strive to reach that number (often times I would expect them to surpass this). Let us assume that an event needs 10k online concurrent viewers to be worth running.
Target Semi-pro Viewership = 10k Concurrents
Semi-Pro/Pro Viewership Ratio = 1%
(Target Pro Viewership) = (Target Semi-pro Viewership) / (Semipro/Pro Viewership Ratio)
(Target Pro Viewership) = (10,000) / (1%)
(Target Pro Viewership) = (10,000) / (.01)
(Target Pro Viewership) = 1,000,000 Concurrent Viewers
For an investor to safely run an SC2 amateur event, major SC2 events must draw 1,000,000 Concurrent viewers. The issue that I have with this analysis is that you begin by abitrarily throwing out the 10k minimum concurrent viewership number, and use the 1% ratio from baseball that I believe does not necessarily apply to SC2, which gives you a number that doesn't really make sense. For example, the 10k minimum concurrent viewership is a number I would dispute. NASL and IPL broadcasts, while they may break 10k viewership, often fall short of these goals. Meanwhile, even smaller tournaments like the ESV fall far below the 10k mark. Furthermore, realistically there is very little chance that SC2 events will ever reach 1 million concurrent viewers if our largest events now do not even reach half that number. The only realistic way for that to happen would be if North Korea's Kim Jong Un was secretly a massive SC2 fan and forced his entire nation to watch SC2 tournaments. I jest a bit here, but it will be very difficult to more than double viewership just like that :p Now, my critique was pretty harsh, and I hope you don't take it personally. You did make some very good points, as well as recognize the importance of amateur and talent-development programs, and I really appreciate the effort you put into this. I also agree with your conclusion that currently investment in amateur programs is generally not worthwhile at the moment. Hey, a thoughtful critique! Those don't happen often. Re: 1% If you can suggest a better model to use and show me some numbers, we can use that ratio instead. However, if I'm an investor, I need some sort of quantitatively supported basis to go off of. "striving for higher" means nothing to someone who's decisions are governed by ROI, and an amateur scene won't be "sustainable" if investors like this don't think its worthwhile. Again, MLB might not be the best model, but from an investors standpoint, its better than no model. You are welcome to present a better one. Re: 10k target concurrents It is not clear to anyone that NASL and IPL's daily broadcasts are making ROI targets for IGN. From a business standpoint, these are an attempt to get a foothold in a growing market so that, when the market becomes big, IGN will then be making lots of money. Moreover, if the target is 8k, that's still a target size of 800,000 for MLG concurrents. If the target is 5k, the MLG target size is 500,000. The overall point of, "it needs to be MUCH bigger" (ie more than 3x as big) still stands. Re: doubling viewership Indeed, it might not happen. Semi-pro players should read this analysis, realize that, and make their career decisions based on reasonable analysis. Moreover, I hope people start to realize how important it is for the scene to grow. That means broadening its appeal to people who know less about the game, getting all of us better at communicating with our friends who aren't into SC2, getting better at explaining to people why what we do is awesome. This stuff doesn't happen by itself.
Regarding the 1%, perhaps we could take a look at the viewership numbers of college football (US) vs NFL, or the NCAA basketball vs the NBA. I don't have those numbers off of the top of my head, but it would be nice to have them for consideration.
I agree that NASL and IPL daily broadcast viewership might not meet ROI minimums, so the sub-10k viewership may not be sustainable long-term. It would be very hard to know for certain what the viewership needs to be for each individual tournament without looking at their finances.
I do want to bring up the topic of CSL, with the recent news of Suppy's signing to EG. Players like Suppy, qxc, Ostojiy, Spanishiwa are all CSL "stars" who have attained recognition and occasional tournament success at the professional level. The Collegiate Starleague is probably one of the best amateur leagues in NA, because it allows students to compete without giving up their studies, and gives them resources, such as tournament experience, practice partners, etc, that can help them transition into professional play, or at least become better players. What are your thoughts on the CSL?
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Talking as an organizer of Amateur tournament for lower leagues, but opening now also for higher leagues, I totally agree with all the points you have mentioned and I will add a bit on the top (check out: koreign tournament):
For amateur scene to take off we have to take a different approach to the presentation of the tournament, that is not so price and competition oriented but more community oriented ( I hope I am not out of subject ).
Increasing interest and viewership can only happen if people who watch the games also identify themselves as potential users. Being part of the movement in an active way make them want to watch lower level or even semi-pro matches because they might gain something from it (select some as a coach, receive coaching prize, etc), or even could directly be inspired by a play style that is more accessible (slightly, and I am not saying that non semi-pro could play as well as semi-pro etc, please be kind).
Now to still be motivated, amateur semi pro tournament needs to have that community of players and associated players to take off, and yes, It won't be many players/viewers, that's why amateur tournament runs often to increase the viewership on the long run (that's my understanding): you get 30 x 100 viewers or more if you do a daily tournament etc.
I am missing a lot of things, but I hope the discussion will go on and suggest some nice alternative to help small tournament and amateur/semi pro tournament to take off and attract more viewers.
CHeers
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EPT
