EPTIf my nearly 30 years (scary to think about that coming up soon) and my participation over at least half that time in esports on and off has shown me anything, it's that teams imploding at the end is far to common. Why is this though, where are they going wrong? So in this blog I'm going to explore some of the common issues that are just far to common and where these teams are going wrong.
*Fair Warning This Is A Blog and Obviously Largely Opinion Based On Experience*
My Experience With This Issue
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*I ran a small (very small) esports team in the early 2000's that I had some sponsors for. Ultimately and unfortunately after a year I realized that long term I didn't have the know how or means at the time to keep the team financially stable. Nor with myself going back to school would I have the time I needed to run things properly. So I made deals to offload the players to different situations if possible or gave advanced notice to ones I couldn't, and closed the doors before that came to pass. Allowing me to end things on respectful terms with all involved.
At one point I re-opened things with new sponsors (still very low budget) and some of those same people for a go at things again. Things went well but over time a majority in the team wanted to grow past where myself and my partner were able to devote time to grow things towards. So rather then butting heads we set the people up who wanted to grow more rapidly with another team and closed the doors.
Largely considering my personal upfront expenditures were minimal I look at both things as a success from the perspective I did what I wanted to do, and despite it not working out I ended things both times in a way that as far as I know everyone left without any resentment.*
At one point I re-opened things with new sponsors (still very low budget) and some of those same people for a go at things again. Things went well but over time a majority in the team wanted to grow past where myself and my partner were able to devote time to grow things towards. So rather then butting heads we set the people up who wanted to grow more rapidly with another team and closed the doors.
Largely considering my personal upfront expenditures were minimal I look at both things as a success from the perspective I did what I wanted to do, and despite it not working out I ended things both times in a way that as far as I know everyone left without any resentment.*
Issue 1 Your Broke or Going to be: This one is probably the most common, but as seen recently even entities like own3d seem to have an issue on how to deal with it. Team wise this commonly ends up in players playing with a team for months without pay, or just the outright sudden closing of a team without warning. So how do you go about closing the doors without seeing posts on sites like this about how you haven't paid player X in 3 months and now the community has the pitchforks out.
First and foremost it's good when the financials start to get tight to make the team aware of the state of things. If the team is likely to lose a sponsor that could make or break the teams continued survival be upfront about it. This way team members at least are not caught completely by surprise should that come to pass and decisions need to be made. If the well drys up it becomes the players decision to remain without any promise of pay, rather then people being strung along waiting for money that's never coming.
Should the team need to close in this situation if the team has been up front with the players about their financial situation, the team is far less likely to end things on bad terms. As they at least kept the players informed and made it the players decision to stay or go.
Issue 2 You Stagnate: So this one is a bit less noticed in some respects. However, many of times the above financial issues can be self inflicted and related to this issue. Some teams simply get to a point and can not go any further. No matter how hard they try to climb the mountain it's as if the mountain continuously gets taller and they make no progress towards the summit. Where most teams go wrong is they begin to make promises they can't keep in order to try to create artificial growth, once again in hopes some win fall allows them to back up the promises. This eventually leads to people getting fed up with false hopes and the team crashes and burns in a blaze of drama infested glory.
The easiest way teams in this situation can close the doors on things, is to realize their place and if it's become to hard to continue climbing with seemingly no hope of reaching the summit to wind things down in a reasonable manner. If to many players are being poached by more well off teams, or if it simply becomes to much work to justify the effort there is good and bad ways to bring things to an end. It's best to put a time table on the teams continued existence. Inform the team that the goal is to hit X point in Y amount of time, and if the team can't achieve it things are done. People are not dumb and it won't be hard to tell if that X point will be reached in Y time as that Y time approaches. With this in mind people who wish to continue on can set themselves up in new situations before things come to an end. Allowing all parties to be satisfied they gave it the old college try.
Issue 3 Focus Goes Elsewhere: So the final issue I'll touch on is that a lot of times teams continuously try to stay in the most hip happening area. That or people running the team decide they want to spend their time elsewhere. The issue for a lot of these teams is that they are not very good at transitioning from one area to the next. Many of times in that period of transition things get miss managed and people get upset. This leads to people feeling a lack of support after they've worked so hard for a team and they end up bitter.
To close the book on one endeavor to open the next teams need to transition properly. To often teams make the leap to quickly and make a 90 degree turn with their support. The proper way to deal with a refocusing is to inform the existing people being supported that within some reasonable time period support is going to be slowly pulled and that chapter closed or at least become unsupported. Teams should also make good on any promises made before making these transitions which all to often is not the case. You simply shouldn't change directions without first fulfilling your promises to people. The only reason to not fulfill all promises would be resource related. If that's the case people should be informed far enough ahead of time they are able to try to set themselves up in a new situation in advance of support being pulled.
TLDR of this all: Teams close, it's the way things go, but teams need to learn the proper way to deal with closing the doors. So much drama could be avoided and teams could avoid burning bridges with people, allowing them to be re invented later on should circumstances change. They need only look at their individual situation and the root cause of what will likely lead to their demise. Then be open with the people the team supports, and do their best to end things in the most comfortable way possible for all. Thusly leaving little resentment for things not turning out how people hoped and everyone being able to part on good terms.
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. Search Kenneth Decker and you'll see my name in the list of runners up during the events lol. If you search my name in the search box some of what I was doing a few years ago still is listed there.
