EPTThis is really a hats off to the TL coverage teams. Though there are some serious gaps in their writeups--a lot of tournaments didn't have live coverage, recaps, or previews--the sheer amount of work they've put in and the vast amount of content they've created is pretty ridiculous.
General methodology: I'm collecting news pieces on any tournament where foreigners and Koreans competed against each other. That one GSL where mana was the only foreigner in the entire thing? That one counts. 2012 MLG Summer Arena? That too. The pieces were categorized according to location/context: Korea or International. 2012 GSL Season 5? Not a single foreigner in Code S or Code A. I triple checked. So no, that one doesn't count. I limited myself to collect only tournaments from 2010 to 2012. Any content created this year won't be included, just to save myself from working indefinitely.
Some simple numbers before I go in and start doing some more detailed analysis:
Articles written about Korean tournaments where foreigners participated (GSL, GSTL, Proleague): 250. Seriously. Like I mentioned before, I left out a fair amount. 2012 GSL season 5 probably has 20-30 pieces written for it alone.
Articles written about International tournaments where Koreans participated (IEM, MLG, Dreamhack, Assembly, IPL TAC/IPTL, etc): 196
For a grand total of 446 articles: recaps, previews, editorials. Waaagh.
From here I'll start some sampling to relieve the burden of reading every single one. Once I have more time (deadlines coming up next week) I'll try and play around a little more to check out the differences in coverage. The bits that're obvious--the GSL produced a lot more content than any one international tournament alone, and probably in total more than all other foreign tournaments combined. Why this is should be fairly obvious--the GSL's structure results in more games played across a wider span of time, meaning that writers have more content to work with, and more content to create. Meanwhile, a tournament like MLG takes place over a weekend, meaning less games are played, and even less are available for the viewing public, making scrutiny on each game harder. So, detailed analysis is often unfeasible.
I'll see what more I can figure out once I've refreshed my statistics skills...
