There has been a lot of debate about the WCS America Season 1 Finals viewership numbers. Profiles such as CatZ and Adebisi were even discussing it during the finals over twitter, with contributions from a number of other people too.
It seemed that the consensus quickly became “Due to no American players in the finals the American viewers aren’t watching in as big numbers as they otherwise would have”. People point to the stream numbers of the WCS EU and AM finals and compare them saying “there are Europeans in the European one, and this is why stream numbers were higher.” This, however, is to vastly over simplify the issue and ignoring a lot of the differences between the two finals. First though the numbers: WCS AM finals stream numbers peaked at like 47k concurrents. WCS EU finals had 130k peak concurrents I think it was reported. A difference of roughly 200%.
The reasons this is a bad comparison is because you neglect a lot of the other differences between the two finals, or indeed differences to other tournaments in the US.
One of the key differences between the American and European scene is the number of fans in each of them. I can only look at the Liquipedia numbers but they’re pretty clear. For the last 12 months people from Europe has viewed about 65% more pages compared to people from the Americas.
This difference plus the difference in time zones is enough to explain the difference in viewership. Using the numbers above and assuming all other things are equal and people will watch both tournaments given the chance. So lets assume we have 50k American and 80k European fans of SC2 who follow the WCS. Both grand finals were held on a Sunday. The European grand final started at 21:15 CEST and the American grand final started at 17:00 EDT or 23:00 CEST if we convert the time zones.
This 2 hour difference is quite key since it alienates a lot of the European fans who has to get up early the next day for school or work, (the finals ended at 2:20 CEST).
So with simple addition if we assume all European fans and all American fans watched the european Grand Finals we get 130 k, but if only the Americans watched the American Finals it would get 50k viewers. However I do know that Europeans watched the American Finals, I’m European myself and watched them, but there were fewer Europeans watching these finals than the America one, by far.
There are also other possible factors that are just as hard to verify as the lack of American players in the Finals.
For example that there was no live audience or crowd. This is something I personally feel makes a huge difference. Have a crowd of 300-500 people and it fuels the hype and, I assume from my own experience, increases the viewer retention.
The fanbases of the players in the finals, and especially the players ending up in the grand finals, and the “storylines” of the players. “Is this MVP’s comeback?” and “Will Stephano still go through with his plans to retire if he wins?” versus “Liquid vs EG rivalry! ...wait, aren’t they team mates now?” In this sense ESL were lucky. I don’t think the numbers would have been as big had we’ve seen a ForGG vs DIMAGA grand finals.
There were also some small differences in content during the downtime between games between the two tournaments. Something that also could help increase the viewer retention.
So what to make of all of this. Well I don't think it is just one cause, but rather there were a number of factors that led to the lower viewership figures for WCS America Season 1 Finals. Sure the lack of hometown heroes to root for played some part, but I don’t believe it was the key or even one of the major factors for the difference in numbers. MLG has put on live events which has had Korean versus Korean finals before and the viewer numbers have been much better at those tournaments.
I'd say that the main reason why I didn't watch was because there were basically no foreigners, as soon as Snute was knocked out I stopped watching. I was a fervent complainer about the whole lack of Americans (North, South, Central, ANYTHING) in WCS America. I don't think I'm alone on this.
It's to be expected to be honest, just look at the players in the finals day 2. Alicia Snute Ryung Revival Alive
Hero is a much better player than all players on the list, imo Ryung is the only one that is close to his level. Revival did better than I expected though, took 2 games off Hero, so I will check the Vods.
But it's a much weaker (entertainment) to watch because the players aren't at top level and they aren't the storyline foreigner players that some people like. It just fail to please any side of the crowd.
The player list already looks boring since quarter final for me. (we had match like moonglade vs ryung, revival vs snute, not offense to people who watch it for foreigners but the skill difference makes the game boring to watch)
Of cause the hate against MLG isn't helping either.
WCS EU also had similar problem imo, especially when we were watching Mvp playing his games against Dimaga/stephano and then we have games like TLO vs Happy and each side makes huge bundles. But at least Mvp is playing the best of the foreigners and the games were fun to watch.
Like you said, the player base might be a factor but it's not a problem. I have no problem watching Korean players as they provide the best games. The main reason I didn't watch was because of the enormous downtimes they had between games. It took up to 5 hours just to cast 1 group at times. During the finals, I didn't really have players that interested me. I like to watch high level Zergs play and the RO8 didn't exactly entail that. I know I'm part of a niche group that thinks this way so take my criticism with a grain of salt.
I watched both events, but preferred the WCS EU finals by far.
The fact that EU had a live audience made a huge difference. It was tangible from across an ocean. I felt better about watching it, whereas AM had nothing there. There was very little filler, so we had these periods of absolute dead air where the casters were trying to fill it in. It just wasn't as well put together as EU.
Taking that into account, the lack of native players in AM didn't help, nor, I think did the casters. I like all the ESL casters, and I like Rotterdam, but (as much as I hate to say it) I just don't like Axslav and Axeltoss. They're the main casters for MLG, so they got to cast the grand final, and it just wasn't as exciting as listening to the others.
There are ways to fix this, there have to be, but I think a lot of those ways lie with MLG making a better show. ESL did their job well, this time around, and I think MLG has something to live up to.
Also they need to pick up Rotterdam if NASL goes down
If the finals had ended earlier I would have watched, but 2:20 CEST is too late since I have to wake up around 6 AM. The coming days however I will wake up 3AM to catch all the good stuff from Korea instead, waking up early is easier than going to bed late.
I had a great time watching wcs America throughout the whole thing. My worst experience was all the people complaining about casters and the number of participating Koreans. Wish people could put down pitchforks and enjoy it like I did.
I count as a viewer. I turned it on, then promptly fell asleep in the first game of the finals with the stream on. So I inflated the viewer numbers compared to a real figure.
Timezones are a bitch. Haven´t watched anything of WCS AM due to that. And there´s plenty content as is.
Players didn´t help, either. When you got an all-Korean tournament concentrating on the games you need to have the very best, or some real crowd pleasers (like Mvp). I found the line-up at WCS AM simply not interesting enough, not even to watch VODs, because it felt like a generic clanwar.
Incontrol said on itg earlier today that viewership numbers are primarily American, even when it comes to European tournaments. I'm not sure if that is true, but it would help to get some sort of word from twitch themselves as opposed to extrapolating based on liquipedia hits if one wants to make a point in terms of European vs. American viewership.
Well, my 5 cents on the matter, I did watch all the finals except for NA because of time zone differences, I mean it's same for Korea, but Korean finals is history being made, you can't ignore it, but I believe that most people from Europe watched it later, not on air. Also, I didn't like settings of NA final, I mean it was boring, no people to cheer, no show (I mean wtf?? It's USA and no show???) and even lights were messed up, when commentators announced players and we were shown their faces - I couldn't see a fracking anything, I mean that was just plain "I don't care about except the game itself", I mean it was like offline event, could've saved on the tickets.
Overall, on no foreigners, I actually agree, first, I didn't, because anyday I would prefer Hero vs. Revival over Suppy vs. DeMuslim in terms of quality of the games, but again I think NA scene seriously suffers for two simple reasons: american players are not motivated by this huge event, and people new to sc2 they don't care about quality, they don't understand it, but they understand "this dude is from USA, let's cheer for him!". I mean look at the olympics, there are always a lot of underdogs because they are best in their respective countries. You can't just give all the biathlon spots to norway, france, russia and germany, there are still people from countries that have no chances (e.g. South Korea) but they increase viewership numbers and make this event worldwide, not just "best of the best", but best from all over the world.
And also, my main concern about this system is that a lot of great koreans just can't afford to go NA and Europe, so they will have less WCS points, being strong players. I mean look at this, koreans qualified for the finals from NA and Europe: "HerO, Alicia, Ryung, Revival, aLive, MVP, ForGG" - this guys currently are not event Code S level players, and never have being except for a few (obviously 4 time GSL winner is Code S regular". I mean look at the list of players that DIDN"t qualify for the Season finals from Korea: 1. Leenock, GuMiho, YoDa, Squirtle, Bomber, Rain and 3 out of 4 group of death participants Parting, Flash and Life.
I believe any of this player will destroy anyone from NA and Europe, except for Hero and MVP (although if they would've played in Code S, their chances of qualifying would've been just a bit above zero).
What I'm saying, if what we're getting from NA and Europe are mostly some average level koreans, then why not top-level americans and europeans? Because now we have finals looking like Code S, but without middle level, it's like only top level and bottom level players from Korea are participating, how fair is that? People say "if koreans beat you in NA and Europe, its your fault because you play worse, hence you do not deserve to win", but look at this from the different POV, how is that Code A players are most deserving of finals than Code S players? I don't think thats the truth, I believe there are two ways of handling wcs:
1. Best players should play - (let's not go into: then please close NA and Europe wcs and use only korean wcs results) please lock down regions and significantly increase number of korean spots, at least we will have actual top level koreans instead of "koreans with sponsors".
2. All the regions should be present fair and square - lock down the regions, do not increase number of korean spots, give spots to Asia and Australia and Oceania. This will lead to a strange looking WCG, so I recommend option 1, it's perfect for viewers and players.
TLDR: Average koreans dominate NA and Europe, why top level koreans are not present in the finals due to limited level of spots, it's not fair to both - top level koreans and top-level NA and Europe players, change is needed.
P.S. is it me, or people become alianated to EG and AX because it's theur korean players that were dominating NA and Europe?
I half-heartedly watched the finals. Not that I have any issue with Korean domination its just that I didn't really care for the players that made it through. Unfortunately, players like Ryung, Revival, Alicia and Alive aren't particularly interesting to me. There hasn't been enough PR around these players to make them people I care about yet, WCS EU had it a lot easier in this regard but I still felt like the hype around these players was sorely lacking. This isn't even a comment about whether they're skilled or not, it's purely that there wasn't a storyline or anything interesting about the tournament (compounded by all the problems plaguing the tournament).
If that lineup had been Hyun, Jaedong, Hero, Polt in the top 4 I feel like the viewership would have been a lot higher.
Regardless of if the players are Koreans or foreigners I just think the EU and KR regions just had way more appealing players to watch. I mean gsl is gsl but EU had mvp and Stephano two of the most popular players in the world.
I really wanted to watch the finals even it was in the night for me but then i saw who casted it and turned it off. No offense to axslav and axeltoss but they are just not top casters in my opinion. But that might be just personal taste.
I think WCS EU is just a more likeable event. NA had all that drama, bad management by MLG, no good storylines... EU had more value with the different streams in the groupstages, the nice location with the little crowd. I know some people critisised it for beeing too small but mlg had no crowd at all. They could have casted that from replays and there would be no difference.
TLO, Dimaga and Strelok helped a lot too. The NA competition is just a joke and that hurts the viewership a lot in my opinion. NA pros are just not good enough and it seems that the viewers are not interested in "WCS Korea 2 for koreans on foreign teams".
I think that having too many koreans in the round of 16 was a major reson for not having enough viewers. Personally it was more fun watching the European WCS.
WCS US had too many koreans dominating over the foreigners. Meanwhile there were only three koreans in WCS EU: ForGG (playing for Millenium - European team and living in EU), MMA (playing for Acer - European team) and MVP (playing for IM - korean team).
I actually really enjoyed who the top 4 were. Hero, Ryung, aLive, and Revival are all amazing players and I love watching them play - especially alive and ryung. It's a shame there personality (or lack of it) dictates a lot of the way people look at them.
For me, WCS AM was just soo underwhelming production wise that I'm not too surprised in the end that no one cared about the players. Bring more content and hype and I think that it at least brings in more people. It's a shame how much MLG missed out on. Casters were great though . . . really starting to enjoy Axslav and Axeltoss
EPT
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