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
Purely anecdotal but I didn't watch WCS NA after the broadcast where Suppy and Scarlett got eliminated because I lost all interest in the event, I know several people who voted with their feet as well. I think you're underestimating the amount of viewers and hype the event lost by having no North American players remaining.
If they were better koreans i would've been more interested. Or if there was a fan favorite foreigner. But tbh the list was just not good enough to get me to watch (whereas I'll stay u- late to watch GSL or wake u- early for WCS EU).
On June 05 2013 19:50 TheButtonmen wrote: Purely anecdotal but I didn't watch WCS NA after the broadcast where Suppy and Scarlett got eliminated because I lost all interest in the event, I know several people who voted with their feet as well. I think you're underestimating the amount of viewers and hype the event lost by having no North American players remaining.
(Should this be true;) What a sad continent you lot live on. Thank God we don't ruin tournaments like Wimbledon or Roland Garros on our side of the ocean, as soon as there's no English or French competitors left. It's starting to seem best Blizzard stops wasting their money on America.
I considered watching WCS AM (I watched EU and KR) but for me it was not interesting to watch another KR final. I would've tuned in if Suppy or Scarlett were in the finals. I realize that if we want to see the best games it will involve many KR players but I am more interested in who is the best in each region. Part of this is that it is cool to see a regions play style. I find KR to be more mechanical and refined, whereas EU and AM tend to have more unorthodox and less refined play that is heavily based in denying information. I want to cheer on people that come from a similar place and have a similar culture. The draw to watch games with an underdog is quite high to me as well. The only reason I will watch the global event is because TLO and Innovation (not an underdog, but has a cool style) are there. Once they're gone I will be happy with results and won't need to watch the live event.
I skipped both the EU and NA finals simply because the skill levels were just so weak plus I don't care too much about koreans too scared to play on their home turf.
1. I watched ShoutCraft AM and enjoyed the new players, this felt like Code A + a few very good foreigners.
2. Nothing special about the finals, the hype was bad, no crowd, same office with the view. Like watching a 300$ showmatch.
3. Bitterdam are much better at their job then the MLG crew. Axlav has great game knowledge, but Axeltoss does a lot of fake hype with his awkward hand movement and voice. He needs a better partner, that Shampoo guy was very good at it.
4. Timezone issues. Constant breaks with commercials.
I know that I'm a bit young compared to the average 25-32 year old demographic that watches Starcraft 2, but another reason I didn't watch was because I still work nights. WCS Europe had their finals conclude about a half hour before my job, whereas I only got to see Snute vs Alicia before I had to go to work. I completely agree on the lack of live audiences; it's the reason that made me not watch any of the MLG Arenas. The lack of foreign players probably didn't help, but I didn't care about that very much. What I couldn't get over was the idea that America had become a watered down Code A tournament. The Koreans dominated, but none of them are going to be serious competitors to win at the Season Finals. The only players I could call Code S caliber are HerO and Ryung, and I couldn't see either of them getting past the Ro32 anymore with how much deeper the player pool in Korea has gotten.
The question should not be why WCS NA lacked viewers, but what MLG can do to attract more.
Factors such as Korean domination and therefore lack of local players is something out of the hand of MLG, as the rules set by blizzard are clear and leave no wriggle room.
I only watched the Ro8with Moonglade and Snute in it just to see if they could win. Then the finals just cause it was Hero. But it was boring enough that I was actually glad Hero lost the first two maps.
Youre right, you kind of draw hype and excitement when there's a crowd...and also from the excitement of the casters. The casters were good but kind of boring for me in the finals.
The EU finals had a much better storylie..i didnt know who to root for... The dethroned but rightful King of Terran or...a foreigner.
On June 05 2013 19:50 TheButtonmen wrote: Purely anecdotal but I didn't watch WCS NA after the broadcast where Suppy and Scarlett got eliminated because I lost all interest in the event, I know several people who voted with their feet as well. I think you're underestimating the amount of viewers and hype the event lost by having no North American players remaining.
(Should this be true;) What a sad continent you lot live on. Thank God we don't ruin tournaments like Wimbledon or Roland Garros on our side of the ocean, as soon as there's no English or French competitors left. It's starting to seem best Blizzard stops wasting their money on America.
Yeah that's it. Stop spending their money on America. Oh wait, they aren't spending money on America, they're spending money on Korea three times.
What a sad outlook you have if you can't see that this was set up in a way that caused the Americas to lose interest. Don't blame us for not wanting to watch after our representatives drop out. I'd bet money that most of Jamaica doesn't give a shit about bobsledding when their competitors are no longer in either.
I occasionally watched some of the finals weekend but I felt like the skill disparity between HerO and anyone else except Ryung would be too high for it to be truly enjoyable. I watched almost every day of the tournament, though.
People like watching the best Koreans but won't stick around for the likes of Alicia/Revival/Crank. Basically the lackluster player pool coupled with foreigners still doing badly killed the tournament.
On June 05 2013 19:50 TheButtonmen wrote: Purely anecdotal but I didn't watch WCS NA after the broadcast where Suppy and Scarlett got eliminated because I lost all interest in the event, I know several people who voted with their feet as well. I think you're underestimating the amount of viewers and hype the event lost by having no North American players remaining.
(Should this be true;) What a sad continent you lot live on. Thank God we don't ruin tournaments like Wimbledon or Roland Garros on our side of the ocean, as soon as there's no English or French competitors left. It's starting to seem best Blizzard stops wasting their money on America.
Yeah that's it. Stop spending their money on America. Oh wait, they aren't spending money on America, they're spending money on Korea three times.
What a sad outlook you have if you can't see that this was set up in a way that caused the Americas to lose interest. Don't blame us for not wanting to watch after our representatives drop out. I'd bet money that most of Jamaica doesn't give a shit about bobsledding when their competitors are no longer in either.
Dunno, last time I checked, the prize money of WCS AM was handed out in America (which results in a lot of taxes to the USA).
I watched parts of the event, but it couldn't really keep me entertained. I think everything has already been stated so far, but:
1. Timezones were not compatible with getting up at 6 am. 2. Many downtimes, not much to keep me interested in the event -> no live audience, not much interest in the players participating, casters were average, (nothing specific to complain about, but they couldn't create fascination for the coming matchups). The view out of the windows was nice though
Agreed with the blog. I did watch the first two games but it wasn't worth it for me to stay up longer, as the hype wasn't there. I loved the crowd at WCS EU and the whole studio set up was great! After that watching WCS AM felt lame and i didn't feel like watching at very late hours.
You know I've said it so many times in the LR threads & general section that there really is no point saying it again to get across people's thick heads. Okay, three words: regions mean nothing. There's a lot more to it than that, but if you want to dissect what I say look up my own God damn posts and shoot me a PM if you think you can take a good stab at me.
At the end of the day what have we learned? CatZ still has his head stuck up his own ass (see his bit about NASL/IPL or some other shit about the NA scene allowing Koreans to compete). It's the same shit. The people concerned about numbers should be the organizers and not everyone else. This is just another example of "Oh my Gawd, why are the numbers so low; why does this crowd suck?" This is where I tell them to be the crowd. Kind of hard to do when it's in the MLG studio, no? Good thing I meant all events and not just this one. o;
MLG/Blizzard got a ton of shit for how this event was ran (thus they should). There were a lot of variables in play, but you guys really should be mad about the qualifier for being a qualifier. Your angst is once again misdirected.
i watched the semifinals but after them it was just to late and the pauses between matches just felt so long for me, the downtime was unbearable and the casters (axeltoss axslav ) somewhat bored me ( which could be because of the late time, but still they didnt fell as entertaining as the eu casters )
Of course it's mostly time zones. But overall I felt it very much lacked coherence. EU had a great host in Redeye who tied the whole thing together while in NA it felt a bit like the IPL broadcasts of old. Cast one game, break, cast another game, break, cast another game, it's over, have another ad break and start the next match.
There wasn't enough to remind me that this wasn't a replay cast or at least something bigger than an MLG qualifier stream. I watched it, but I can't say I felt thoroughly entertained. I just wanted to know what it was going to be like, so I sat through it, and the lack of any kind of audience probably greatly contributed to that feeling. I stuck around because I had nothing better to do, not because anything compelled me to stick around.
MLG got pretty unlucky with the players in the Ro8/Ro4, you gotta give them that, and I don't think they did a subpar job or anything. I just felt like they were doing what they have always been doing, and while that is certainly adequate, I think this won't necessarily allow them to retain their viewer numbers if they stick with that formula.
They got dealt a shitty hand, but they might need to look around to the other regions and take notes and try to implement new things, that simply change up stuff they haven't changed in a long time. Even if it's just changing things for the sake of it, people need to get a fresh perspective on MLG shows. I hope their WCS budget allows them to do something along those lines.
If I lived in Germany and I wouldn't stay up to watch it regardless of the players. Lots of people know how much I enjoy watching HerO play, but I definitely wouldn't stay up to watch him play in this one. I can only seeing myself stay up really late for a couple of Leagues/Tournaments now from my end. Which would include PL, some GSTL matches and GSL Korea. If I lived in Korea I might stay up a MLG lan tournament (Columbus; Anaheim; Dallas, Providence) as long as there were no delays *cough, cough*. In reality there aren't many tournaments in the Western Hemisphere that I could see myself staying up to watch. Especially when you have rebroadcasts running with some organizers like IPL and the NASL. I would have no reason to watch it live.
How did MLG get unlucky with the players? If you ask me who would advance from that player pool it would be pretty much these guys qualifying.
i think its mainly caused by the low spread of broadband internet in the USA, the whole infrastructure and therefore the whole e-sports thing is 5-10 years behind compared to Europe. It really feels like USA internet infrastructure is years behind if u are not living in one of a few central metropolitan areas. Another factor, is that most Europeans cannot watch WCS America, it starts at midnight in central europe.
On June 06 2013 01:10 StarStruck wrote: If I lived in Germany and I wouldn't stay up to watch it regardless of the players. Lots of people know how much I enjoy watching HerO play, but I definitely wouldn't stay up to watch him play in this one. I can only seeing myself stay up really late for a couple of Leagues/Tournaments now from my end. Which would include PL, some GSTL matches and GSL Korea. If I lived in Korea I might stay up a MLG lan tournament (Columbus; Anaheim; Dallas, Providence) as long as there were no delays *cough, cough*. In reality there aren't many tournaments in the Western Hemisphere that I could see myself staying up to watch. Especially when you have rebroadcasts running with some organizers like IPL and the NASL. I would have no reason to watch it live.
How did MLG get unlucky with the players? If you ask me who would advance from that player pool it would be pretty much these guys qualifying.
Less people care about the players. They're somewhat decent, but alive or Revival have much fewer fans than others. Imagine the Ro4 being HerO, Polt, Scarlett and viOlet. That would probably have brought out more people. Hell, even NesTea or someone like that making it far.
The casters were half bad imo. Axslav? the one with the beard is pretty good imo. the other one is bad... Yes the downtime was annoying and the fact that the finals didnt have very good players played a role too.
I watched GSL and WCS eu finals even though im in the eastern timezone ( NYC time ) but couldnt give more fucks than 0 for WCS AM because players didnt really appeal to me.
I didn't watch because it just felt like an amateur version of WCS KR finals in terms of skill-level. If the final were snute vs. scarlett or moonglade, I would definitely have tuned in even if it were zvz just because I want to know who the best foreigner in the scene is.
On June 06 2013 01:10 StarStruck wrote: If I lived in Germany and I wouldn't stay up to watch it regardless of the players. Lots of people know how much I enjoy watching HerO play, but I definitely wouldn't stay up to watch him play in this one. I can only seeing myself stay up really late for a couple of Leagues/Tournaments now from my end. Which would include PL, some GSTL matches and GSL Korea. If I lived in Korea I might stay up a MLG lan tournament (Columbus; Anaheim; Dallas, Providence) as long as there were no delays *cough, cough*. In reality there aren't many tournaments in the Western Hemisphere that I could see myself staying up to watch. Especially when you have rebroadcasts running with some organizers like IPL and the NASL. I would have no reason to watch it live.
How did MLG get unlucky with the players? If you ask me who would advance from that player pool it would be pretty much these guys qualifying.
I think the slow pace with lots of pauses hurts the fans living in different timezones a lot. I see me stay up late for GSL not only for the higher level of play but for the better pace of the show. Even the finals were at a nice pace or the bo5 semi´s are ok here are the players and the sponsors but now we focus on the games.
Watching MLG events in general and WCS NA feels more like the super bowl. There are commercials. And waiting. Interrupted by gameplay.
I watched it, though not with great interest. I wouldn't have watched it if it was a foreigner only finals. I didn't watch WCS US or WCS NA finals last year.
The production and atmosphere was obviously not great but overall the players themselves weren't the best and that was the main reason it wasn't too interesting for me.
MLG is just really bad at producing a compelling event, always have been. their casters aren't the most exciting ones out there either and the player lineup was really lackluster compared to KR and EU, even in the playoffs/finals. it's to be expected.
Good read, I agree entirely, I don't expect the same # as EU, but this still was low relative to that.
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 think when WCS AM has Korean domination it is very different than when MLG Anaheim has Korean domination. WCS AM felt like GSL Lite, not WCS AM.
The biggest problem to me is there is no X factor that draws people in, everything was basically just passable, its hard to have any BIG complaints, but nothing stood out as raising the bar. Level of gameplay was good but not world class, entertainment value was moderate, venue was average at best, broadcast talent pull/popularity moderate at best as well, pre tournament hype felt very lacking. Generally we see tournaments really blow it out of the park in at least one of these areas, generally in the past MLG has done this with big name players, in a way they used to bring in Tastosis and every big name caster they could, they replaced that with KeSPA players, and it worked, but here there was no X factor that made anyone really think "Damn, I need to watch this". I had it on and watched it all, but I never felt pulled in to the show and tournament whatsoever.
There's just nothing to write home about the production value. Ehhh-ish casters, no downtime content, no live audience, there wasn't much music playing during the event, venue is inside a small office. When HerO won it, I just felt like: "Oh... well I guess that's that." and not like when Mvp won WCS EU and Soulkey won GSL I was like "hooooooooly fuck, that series was so epic!"
Aside from HerO himself, the WCS AM tournament didn't field any world class players. That's the major reason I didn't watch it live and caught the VoDs later. Minor reasons include the lack of a live audience and a lack of an interesting narrative (no foreigners, no up-and-comers in the later stages of the tournament, etc).
However, I really do appreciate the fact that it brought out some pretty entertaining games and that it was all free. It just wasn't enough for me to rearrange my schedule to watch it live.
On June 05 2013 19:55 Kraznaya wrote: isnt it that NA viewers can watch EU games at pretty reasonable times for NA but NA games are at awful times for EU viewers
Not really, watching WCS EU from NA is like watching GSL from EU.
I like the NA casters, they are more noob friendly but they do lack the hype and excitement in their casting that we see in with the EU casters. The live audience probably has a lot to do with this. We also cannot forget in EU they HAD MC THE PROTOSS PRESIDENT doing analysis in between games !! Overall, I watched less of the AM finals because it was basically GSL light. I don't like the fact that the AM, EU, and KA WCS champs are all from the same country. Who is the best in the Americas? The world may never know.
I think they should seriously consider getting Incontrol, Idra, Day9, Kibblez, or CatsPajamas in their caster rotation. It would be nice to see a robust mix. Axetoss and Axslav do seem to get a little worn out, may be why the hype and excitement seems to die down during those long days. Everyone needs a break once in a while!
I kept the WCS AM stream open in a separate tab, but the fact that there was a community Star Strikers tournament going on at the same time was major distraction for me as far as paying attention to the games. Some have made the jokes that the star strikers finals was the actual WCS AM finals, but there was some truth in it for me and probably a lot of other people.
edit: i found the img link that encapsulates my sentiments: + Show Spoiler +
There was no hype at all, there was no live audience. It just felt like an online event. I don't know how else to put it - it just wasn't exciting. When HerO won, it wasn't like "AAAANNNND HHHEROOOO IS THE WCS AMERICA CHAMMPPPIIOONNNNNN!!!!!!!!!" it was like, "oh and hero won, cool." (some exaggerations there)
The players I think had something to do with it but ultimately, whoever wins can't be controlled. I'm sure if DeMu had made it (even though I'm not a fan of him at all), the event would have had a lot more viewers.
Regardless, I watched. The games were exciting, and I wanted to see Snute beat Alicia. Oh well.
I watched the Protoss games from both. I don't care about the ethnicity of the players. I'm just looking to steal the best builds, nothing else really. But I must say, MLG's production was pretty abysmal in comparison. There just was no hype. When HerO won there weren't even any flashing lights or anything. He said he felt embarrassed because he didn't show any emotion. But I honestly don't blame him. It would look even more awkward if he started cheering in a quiet, well-lit environment, sitting literally 2m away from his competitor.
these days the only player i watch any more is flash. idk sc2 just isn't that entertaining anymore unless you're watching one of your favorite players.
Without flash i really couldn't care any less about what happens at a tournament
The finals were fun to watch, but there was a lot of downtime in between matches. I don't at all have a problem with having Koreans in the tournament, I think that they work the hardest to get in (I mean most of them have to qualify through group stage, a lot of invites were foreigners). I feel like they didn't have enough backstory behind the players though, it's something that really lacks with having US casters on Korean players. They knew a little bit about their playstyles, the favorites in a match, and wins, but it was lacking in terms of interesting material. It could be just because of the youth of HotS, but I feel like the stories and rivalries could have been expanded more.
There's definitely some truth to what salle is saying, but I do think overwhelmingly, the American games seemed to be on a lower level than compared to the EU region. We'll see what happens at the finals, but it does seem like Korea > EU > US. I don't think it's all about whether there are American players in the finals or not. I think this has some effect, but pretty low.
People want to blame it on the fact that there were no NA players in the NA finals, but if they deserved to be there then wouldn't they be there? I would rather watch 6 Koreans play across the 3 regions rather than 2 Koreans, 2 Americans, and 2 Europeans if that means that the quality of the games are going to be higher. Europeans work hard and train to make their footprint in the e-sports scene, but it seems like Americans only want to be spoonfed rather than work for it which I think is fucking lame. If you want an American vs American finals, then complain to the players about getting better rather than trying to have the rules altered to make it so that there will be a forced American vs American finals.
Yeah, AM finals were boring, I watched a bit, but, time schedule was horrible for EU (finals at midnight sunday evening, when you work next morning), no crowd, no hype, bland casting.
To me it felt exactly like watching an online tournament. What is the point of playing live if you have no public and barely any interaction with the players outside of pre/post match interview.
I mean it seems there was a barcraft quite near with quite a lot of people, you could have gotten a public without much problem. Hell WCS EU public was quite small, but the proximity with the players made up for it really well.
On June 05 2013 18:02 Plexa wrote: If that lineup had been Hyun, Jaedong, Hero, Polt in the top 4 I feel like the viewership would have been a lot higher.
Yeah people like to simplify only speaking of koreans vs foreigners, but obviously its very significant who the players are, not just what country they're from - for koreans more so than for foreigners.
On June 05 2013 14:52 TylerThaCreator wrote: 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.
I enjoyed both EU and NA, but the EU was a better broadcast. ESL a better production crew, but also casters and players that have better personality, more overt enthusiasm and infectious love of the game. The MLG casters are serviceable, but their casting is more workman like.
The other issue is the crippling downtime. It is MLG's biggest weakness and they need to address it. Any time I would tune in and see that cityscape, I would just turn off the stream because I knew how much longer that thing would be up. I know they are limited on space, but there is a reason GSL has two sets of booths. MLG needs to takes steps make sure the next pair of players are setting up DURING the current match on air.
They also need to staff up, get more robust casters and spend some money on a studio or other game space. The time zones are also an issue, but maybe they need to try and broadcast earlier in the morning for the EU audience. Start at 10 am and get as many people as possible.
I want to love WCS NA and it can be done. NASL did it, but they don't have the relationship with Activision that MLG has. But MLG can make the magic happen, but they need to double down and get that production up.
The lack of entertaining NA players is the sole reason why there were no casual viewers. The sole reason for a casual viewer to watch a videogame competition or an sports competition in general is if he/she can relate in any way to the players present or if he/she is entertained by then.This is why in regular sports the biggest viewership numbers are not obtained for the biggest qulity matches but for the most hyped or most controversial. Right now in sports the highest paid athlete in the world in 2012 according to forbes is floyd mayweather junior who is a boxer.In general boxing is considered a niche sport with a low fanbase(theyre only on hbo and espn pay per view).Neverthelss the guy made almost 40 million dollars last year using his main weapon:a very big mouth. And this goes on in every sport.In football the most viewed matched are usually between temas with historic rivalries such as England-Argentine or Real MAdrid-Mancester United-Bayern Munchen.These matches are not necessarly of the highestt quality but people watch them because they want to see theyr'e countryman beating the historical rivals opponets. Historically in the US the only example that comes to mind was the Cold War period where the USA and USSR used venues such as the Olympic games as means of bolstering country pride:the hockey team matches,rocky balboa movies,I think even chessplayers were involved. Which brings me to the next point:nationalism.In any major sport nationalism or local affiliation is one of the main reasons why people watch a certain athelete/team.You dont support youre hometown team because they are good.You support them because they are your hometown team.Americans being patriots want an american to represent them and right now the na proscene is sort of dead at highlevel. If blizzard wants to really save the na scene they really need to introduce citizenship based region lock to allow the local scene to grow. If hardcore fans want great quality games then the Proleague/osl/gsl are running all year round.Note than the rolfstomp of a korean vs a foreigner isn't a quality game.A quality game is a competitive one in which both players have a shot.A game of rolfstomping is just boring. The EU finals could have had even higher ratings if it wasn't for forgg or even MVP.I wanna see the best in Europe not the best players that can not make it into korea.
On June 06 2013 22:56 Plansix wrote: I enjoyed both EU and NA, but the EU was a better broadcast. ESL a better production crew, but also casters and players that have better personality, more overt enthusiasm and infectious love of the game. The MLG casters are serviceable, but their casting is more workman like.
The other issue is the crippling downtime. It is MLG's biggest weakness and they need to address it. Any time I would tune in and see that cityscape, I would just turn off the stream because I knew how much longer that thing would be up. I know they are limited on space, but there is a reason GSL has two sets of booths. MLG needs to takes steps make sure the next pair of players are setting up DURING the current match on air.
They also need to staff up, get more robust casters and spend some money on a studio or other game space. The time zones are also an issue, but maybe they need to try and broadcast earlier in the morning for the EU audience. Start at 10 am and get as many people as possible.
I want to love WCS NA and it can be done. NASL did it, but they don't have the relationship with Activision that MLG has. But MLG can make the magic happen, but they need to double down and get that production up.
There is not much "downtime" per se, when you see the skyline they're doing ad breaks and you either don't get any or have adblock enabled.
The thing is simply that MLG does waaaay more ad breaks in WCS NA than ESL or GOM do in WCS EU/WCS KR respectively.
I think that's a NA thing, IPL and NASL did the same in their online broadcasts.
I didn't watch because I refused to reward MLG for the bullshit job they did up to that point. One thing people regularly discount is the amount of viewers MLG lost during the Premier League qualifiers fiascos. Those were huge fuckups that were "fixed" with another MLG apology that no one really accepted. Then, you have a WCS AM that's basically MLG arena over more days.
Add to that the fact that MLG made it obvious from the very beginning that they didn't care about American competition during the Premier league invite phase (if I remember correctly over/nearly half of the invites were Korean. Really?), and you get a disillusioned/disowned American crowd. Going off of what Incontrol said on ITG about American viewers regularly being the largest chunk of viewers, and you immediately have a WCS that will falter no matter what you do. Then you throw on average casters and production when we could have had NASL's production and Bitterdam, and now people are pissed.
Really, WCS AM failed because Blizzard picked the exact wrong partner. It doesn't matter how many people from the Americas you have playing when you have MLG fucking the duck every chance they got.
I think that WC Europe simply had the better production. More streams in multiple languages with multiple casters. MLG casts are like a stick in the ass and WCS AM was done by MLG basically. WCS Europe was just more fun, the casters where more casual and funny and there simply was a connection between the casters and the viewers. In WCS america the casters I think tried to mimic casters from other american sports and tried to be all professional and boring and this simply sucks in my eyes. Its not for this community.
In addition you had a better side program and other stuff in EU while in the US you had some music or ADDS !
On June 06 2013 22:56 Plansix wrote: I enjoyed both EU and NA, but the EU was a better broadcast. ESL a better production crew, but also casters and players that have better personality, more overt enthusiasm and infectious love of the game. The MLG casters are serviceable, but their casting is more workman like.
The other issue is the crippling downtime. It is MLG's biggest weakness and they need to address it. Any time I would tune in and see that cityscape, I would just turn off the stream because I knew how much longer that thing would be up. I know they are limited on space, but there is a reason GSL has two sets of booths. MLG needs to takes steps make sure the next pair of players are setting up DURING the current match on air.
They also need to staff up, get more robust casters and spend some money on a studio or other game space. The time zones are also an issue, but maybe they need to try and broadcast earlier in the morning for the EU audience. Start at 10 am and get as many people as possible.
I want to love WCS NA and it can be done. NASL did it, but they don't have the relationship with Activision that MLG has. But MLG can make the magic happen, but they need to double down and get that production up.
There is not much "downtime" per se, when you see the skyline they're doing ad breaks and you either don't get any or have adblock enabled.
The thing is simply that MLG does waaaay more ad breaks in WCS NA than ESL or GOM do in WCS EU/WCS KR respectively.
I think that's a NA thing, IPL and NASL did the same in their online broadcasts.
Well it was on my Iphone or Xbox, where I don't seem to get ads. Still that downtime was brutal and painful. I can't deal with a full 5 minutes between 15-30 minute games and 20 minutes between sets. It is just to much. At least with GOM, there is pacing and you know when the commercials are going to end.
Casters are a MUCH bigger part of it than are given credit for. I don't care who's playing in Europe, I like apollo and the kingslayer enough to listen to them for hours and tell me why I should care. But Axslav/toss's manufactured hype, and lack of an ability to connect to viewers on a meaningful level really hurts my experience and makes me not care. There is so much starcraft content now...why would I watch teh WCS America finals with those two casters when I can watch a half dozen great EU matches as well with a far superior caster experience.
On June 06 2013 16:38 Wojciech Zywny wrote: these days the only player i watch any more is flash. idk sc2 just isn't that entertaining anymore unless you're watching one of your favorite players.
Without flash i really couldn't care any less about what happens at a tournament
Same opinion here. Maybe I'd watch someone like Fantasy too if he started doing well. But the game just doesn't seem to be as fun to spectate as Brood War so you need some kind of attachment to the players for it to be exciting.
Honestly most of the comments in here say everything, but for me one of the big things is that WCS doesn't have anything special about the finals it seems. I don't know, it just felt like the rest of all the games they casted.
EDIT: Tuned in for about a minute and then left because I had some work to do, but I'll be honest it just didn't feel too different.
Also, a big point is that they scheduled mOOnGLaDe's match to play first, which for Australia ended up being about 3AM, so they missed out on HEAPS of viewership from Aus... (okay okay, probs only 1k tops )
I'm not sure it can be avoided, but thinking about what times to hold tournaments is important as sponsors want to get the largest exposure that they can.
I personally stopped watching after moonglade got knocked out. While I like the korean players, I really don't like the out-of-region allowance into the WCS and use my (tiny drop of) viewer's influence in an attempt to persuade blizzard to change. Moonglade's AM entrance was legit, because AU closer to AM than EU. Another legit choice for him could've been KR (but which foreigner would choose this...).
On June 05 2013 15:27 BisuDagger wrote: 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.
For me, i didn't watch because i just dont like the players. And also the production was no where near the effort WCS EU Gave. They provided Game analysis of each games, interviews with the pros and audiences, and i think i even saw a bar there which shows how much prepared they are.
I didn't watch it cause there was no incentive to watch it. If I wanted to watch Koreans (aka top level play), I'd watch GSL and Proleague If I wanted to watch storylines, I'd watch WCS EU America had Koreans, not even the best Koreans, basically stomp NA pros, and by the end, it was just mid tier Korean players and no storylines or players I could root for from my area The qualifiers fiasco turned me off as well, MLG's response was pretty lackluster and Sundance's apology was worse. And on top of that, NASL being phased out of SC2 was sad as well.
Just overall, I thought it was handled very poorly and that there was no reason for me to watch it other than I happen to be in that time zone.
The fact that WCS AM was the only WCS region to not have a live audience kind of killed it for me. There was only two general camera shots: the players at their computers and the casters in the studio, and sometimes shots of the skylines and of the player room during downtime. It felt like it was really artificial and bland, and it turned me off to watching for the most part besides the foreigners and HerO/Ryung playing. WCS EU and KR do it right by having spectators, and even in the small ESL studio where there was a crowd, but it improved the atmosphere significantly. Even if the WCS AM studio had spectators for the top 8 on, I am sure they could pull viewers from the area in and retain online viewers. Hell, I would have drove down from northern Connecticut to NYC to see some of the WCS, because God knows that MLG has had a ton of "arenas" and other events in NYC but push away live spectators, which frankly saddens me as a northeasterner not being able to attend ANY events.
If we wanted to watch the best StarCraft, we'd watch an improved automaton2000 botmatch. We don't. In fact, I switched from watching SC2 to playing/watching Dota2 because HotS doesn't interest me at all.
The issue is the dominance of koreans over americans. People want to watch players that can at least semi relate to/ have some personality. With so much SC to be watched, why would you ever watch WCS over GSL?
Foreigners vs Koreans is interesting; Koreans vs Koreans is just another lower quality production of GSL.
I'm a bit late to the party but I just wanted to mention your numbers in the OP for WCS AM are slightly off, the real number is 51k. This is right after HerO won game 6.
EU finals started around 6am for me. I couldnt wait to watch them and stayed up all night. I started watching from ro16 and ESL ran an amazing tournament with real quality production and casters. They also had fans cheering and watching live and the whole tournament had a great vibe. AM was quite the opposite, I only caught a few games when I had nothing else to watch and it just didnt get me excited to watch the final because it was going to be more of the same boring set with casters I dont enjoy listening to. I skipped through the finals for AM on VOD a few days later and was quite unimpressed. The only reason I bothered watching was because I wanted to see HerO play Revival.
On June 05 2013 18:02 Plexa wrote: 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.
I really enjoyed wcs america. I thought the production quality was good and I became accustomed to axslav and axeltoss as casters. The downtime between games could have been handled better... maybe they could show a montage of cool battles in wcs so far or something equally interesting instead of the same clip of new york rolling by... I would have watched a lot more, but the time difference means I couldn't; gotta go sleep so I can wake up in time for work the next day! I'm a viewer from the uk btw.
I went to bed after MvP vs. Innovation which I had running on my computer but I wasn't really watching it. The sad thing is that I was excited for MvP's games.
The 2 players just tossing medivacs with hellbats at their opponent over and over and over until someone has a marked advantage and wins 10 minutes later just is incredibly boring. Not even Tastosis, IMO the best casting duo, can't make that kind of TvT interesting to watch. SCVs running, SCVs running, lucky drop -> win.
Also there was like a 2 hour pause between the semis and the finals... Come on.
On June 10 2013 04:38 Djzapz wrote: I went to bed after MvP vs. Innovation which I had running on my computer but I wasn't really watching it. The sad thing is that I was excited for MvP's games.
The 2 players just tossing medivacs with hellbats at their opponent over and over and over until someone has a marked advantage and wins 10 minutes later just is incredibly boring. Not even Tastosis, IMO the best casting duo, can't make that kind of TvT interesting to watch. SCVs running, SCVs running, lucky drop -> win.
Also there was like a 2 hour pause between the semis and the finals... Come on.
On June 08 2013 18:49 Masq wrote: The issue is the dominance of koreans over americans. People want to watch players that can at least semi relate to/ have some personality. With so much SC to be watched, why would you ever watch WCS over GSL?
Foreigners vs Koreans is interesting; Koreans vs Koreans is just another lower quality production of GSL.
Foreigners versus Koreans is interesting? How so? Most of the time they're getting trounced.
On June 10 2013 04:38 Djzapz wrote: I went to bed after MvP vs. Innovation which I had running on my computer but I wasn't really watching it. The sad thing is that I was excited for MvP's games.
The 2 players just tossing medivacs with hellbats at their opponent over and over and over until someone has a marked advantage and wins 10 minutes later just is incredibly boring. Not even Tastosis, IMO the best casting duo, can't make that kind of TvT interesting to watch. SCVs running, SCVs running, lucky drop -> win.
Also there was like a 2 hour pause between the semis and the finals... Come on.
This sounds bitter. I guess you didn't like it when MVP lost the final game. On the bright side, it went way passed that point several times. Unlucky break? I don't know man. That seems like a forced error in my book. Innovation was trying to catch those scvs out of place.
1. timezone, cant be at times where no eu can watch it (sure its nice for americans but sadly europe can be watched by BOTH so america has to do them earlier if they want europeans watch it) 2. koreans only IS an issue, i not watched as soon as all foreigns was out 3. casters/Settings (they have not the class of europe)
I did watch it (only the grand finals though) mainly because I wanted to see HerO and cheer for Liquid (in that sense, HerO is works as of a foreigner) and actually it being a PvZ was somewhat atractive as I haven't seen a big lot of good PvZ in HoTS yet. The time was stupid but at least I was just in Portugal, where the time is one hour closer to U.S. than in Czech Republic, so it was bearable. As I said many times, I don't really care too much for the glitter around, so the lack of audience did not bother me. I don't really like the casters but that is just personal preference and they were not mute-level bad.
In my opinion, the problem of the whole WCS system is that it all climaxes very fast. When choosing SC2 to watch at a given moment, I have a tendency to pick tournaments that are in the latest stage, because that increases the possibility of good games as compared to early rounds/prliminaries or whatever (not to say they are only good finals and bad Ro32s, but on average and not including GSL finals, this works pretty well) - but with WCS, there were FOUR big finals within like three weeks. That was just too much for a short time.
On June 10 2013 04:38 Djzapz wrote: I went to bed after MvP vs. Innovation which I had running on my computer but I wasn't really watching it. The sad thing is that I was excited for MvP's games.
The 2 players just tossing medivacs with hellbats at their opponent over and over and over until someone has a marked advantage and wins 10 minutes later just is incredibly boring. Not even Tastosis, IMO the best casting duo, can't make that kind of TvT interesting to watch. SCVs running, SCVs running, lucky drop -> win.
Also there was like a 2 hour pause between the semis and the finals... Come on.
Uhm wrong finals.
I think I posted in the wrong thread. I'm still angry with TvT in general ;(
I must respectfully disagree with the OP on all ends.
"Hometown heroes" make or break an event. If I stream Sen playing a bunch of Code S Koreans with myself speaking butchered Mandarin to cast the event and get 2600 viewers all at once, then that means anyone is willing to go to great lengths to see their own nation's players fighting for their survival in the tournament. The fact that there were no Americans in the end did not shake any hardcore fans of the GSL or largely Korean-dominated SC2 events, but deterred any chance of increasing American viewership. Evidence for this?
Let me find me casting the Pride of Taiwan in butchered mandarin and present some figures...
http://www.twitch.tv/enders116/b/339023066 - three hours ten minutes. I have 2600 viewers because Taiwanese people want to watch their symbol of national sc2 pride (sen) compete.
On June 12 2013 13:52 Enders116 wrote: I must respectfully disagree with the OP on all ends.
"Hometown heroes" make or break an event. If I stream Sen playing a bunch of Code S Koreans with myself speaking butchered Mandarin to cast the event and get 2600 viewers all at once, then that means anyone is willing to go to great lengths to see their own nation's players fighting for their survival in the tournament. The fact that there were no Americans in the end did not shake any hardcore fans of the GSL or largely Korean-dominated SC2 events, but deterred any chance of increasing American viewership. Evidence for this?
Let me find me casting the Pride of Taiwan in butchered mandarin and present some figures...
http://www.twitch.tv/enders116/b/339023066 - three hours ten minutes. I have 2600 viewers because Taiwanese people want to watch their symbol of national sc2 pride (sen) compete.
You're missing my points then. I'm assuming that the time you were broadcasting the games were not in the middle of the night, but rather some time in the middle of the day?
Obviously the fan favourite players (based on the fan base also) matters. But a huge part of why there were so few people watching WCS America was due to a number of factors and not just one. These factors are rather universal for getting a big number of viewers:
Who the players are
What is on the line for the game
How good the production is
When the game is being played
If you look at any of the big LAN tournaments of recent years you'd know that a lot of them have had much higher viewership figures with players on the same fan favourite level as the ones in WCS America's final. If you had had the most favourited players around people will still not tune in if the production bores them too much. Another thing to consider is the general acceptance of the tournament by the fans. This is a point I guess I haven't really brought up but it is worth mentioning. In general there are people who dislike WCS just because it is rather over complicated. Others because it's out-muscled NASL from daily SC2 league. Others because of the rules of allowing Non-American residents to participate in an "American" tournament (ie the rule on principle not the defacto players that did come into the finals). Then there are those who disliked MLGs handling of qualifiers etc. The last one is the only one that really makes any big difference on the European to American viewership numbers. Which is what we were discussing. Because it does remove a lot of variables when trying to analyze the number of concurrent viewers.
To me it were the casters. Sorry, but Axlav and especially Axeltoss are unwatchable to me.
I don't think the nationality of the player lineup was the problem or at least not the core of the problem as stated by the OP. I mean most of the koreans were on NA teams and everybody loves LiquidHero. But let's assume the casters were fine, a matter of taste I suppose, the nail in the coffin to me was the fact that WCS EU did by far the better job at... well, everything. + Show Spoiler +
especially MC trolling Apollo during analysis was priceless xDDD
The bar was risen very high and it couldn't be reached by MLG.
In all honesty, I generally don't watch Starcraft unles it's on at night. However, I usually have a stream on in the background when I work. That being said, I only tune into streams that don't have Axslav and Axeltoss. I think Axslav has good things to say, but his voice is very annoying, while Axeltoss seems to be the opposite. On the other hand, the European casters are generally great!
EPT
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