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Proposal for ensuring players are paid.
Recently IPL have been accused of not paying out prize money. This has been happening since the dawn of e-sports. It’s also not only a problem for SC2, it happens in other communities too.
What are players going to do about this? Are they just going to sit back and hope that they get their money? What can they do?
My suggestion would be that SC2 professionals lead the way by creating a players association. What’s the point of this? There aren’t so many well-known professional SC2 players that they all couldn’t get together to have one voice.
What would that voice say? I would suggest that players demand that prize money for competitions is deposited into a bank account controlled by the players association (not any one player) BEFORE the event takes place. If the money isn’t there, then the players don’t play.
Q: I’m an e-sports organiser. I’m planning an event but I can’t provide the money before the event for the prizes because sponsors / ticket money won’t be recouped until after the event.
A: If you don’t have the means to provide the prize money before the event, there is a good chance you won’t be able to provide the money afterwards. You are clearly gambling with unreasonable risks. How to get the money before hand? Convince your sponsors, get a bank loan (if you can show previous successful tournaments it’s a real thing you can do). Unless you are a big organisation, the prize money shouldn’t actually be so big so that it is difficult to front up with, and if you are a huge organisation with a huge prize pot, then you should have the means to provide the prize money upfront.
Q: I’m a player, not an organiser / manager. Why does it have to be me? I can’t be bothered. I just want to play etc etc.
A: If you don’t take responsibility for yourself and your earnings, no-one else will. E-sports is a business, but it’s a business which has shown that contracts mean nothing. You can’t and don’t trust anyone’s word in business. You don’t give your money or time for something where you don’t have some recourse to get paid. Grow up, man up. Start talking to each other.
Q: What about KESPA? It already exists. It’s pretty much what you are talking about.
A: Yes, but KESPA has shown that it’s not a very progressive or open organisation. It’s not capable or probably willing to grow into an international organisation.
Q: Who should do this?
A: I’m looking at the big teams and the big community figurehead leaders. There are many people who could do this.
 
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On August 12 2013 11:02 deathly rat wrote:
Q: I’m an e-sports organiser. I’m planning an event but I can’t provide the money before the event for the prizes because sponsors / ticket money won’t be recouped until after the event.
A: If you don’t have the means to provide the prize money before the event, there is a good chance you won’t be able to provide the money afterwards.
If this is the outlook you take its going to be really hard to find any acceptable tournaments. Most of the big ones rely on that money for their prize pool.
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Escrow is amazing for just this reason.
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Didn't realize that some of the tourneys were not paying out. I bet the real problem comes from the players not knowing how to deposit a 6 foot check that they get handed on stage.
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Maybe more of a problem that no one has the money. Alliance just "won" 1.4 million. Maybe that's where the money went.
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Some of the problems that I foresee is that a lot of the time, the prize money is not readily available for the businesses so they can't unlock it right away. It may sound like an irresponsible way to run things but it's a reality of modern business... The sponsors and the stakeholders are going to hand out the money after the product (aka visibility for their brand) is delivered to them. If they pay "before", it still takes a while anyway because those are important amounts of money in a largely informal new platform. It's likely that the money which is available before the event goes toward production, and part of the revenue generated during and after the production goes to the players and possibly toward the next event, depending on the business model... It's a shame but until tournament runners are well established, it's kind of the only way to get to the point where you can rely on your own resources. It's bad but that's how it works.
Also, as a tournament organizer who does intend to pay the players, it's not very tempting to lose control over that money. Things could happen with that money, who knows.
Are there still major tournaments who haven't paid players recently? What's going on with that IPL thing?
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Tournaments should just pay after the event is over. As far as IPL, IPL winners probably won't see money because, IPL was sold off by IGN, and lets face it IGN doesn't want to pay money, so they may try to get blizzard to do it.
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On August 12 2013 14:31 Djzapz wrote:
Some of the problems that I foresee is that a lot of the time, the prize money is not readily available for the businesses so they can't unlock it right away. It may sound like an irresponsible way to run things but it's a reality of modern business... The sponsors and the stakeholders are going to hand out the money after the product (aka visibility for their brand) is delivered to them. If they pay "before", it still takes a while anyway because those are important amounts of money in a largely informal new platform. It's likely that the money which is available before the event goes toward production, and part of the revenue generated during and after the production goes to the players and possibly toward the next event, depending on the business model... It's a shame but until tournament runners are well established, it's kind of the only way to get to the point where you can rely on your own resources. It's bad but that's how it works.
Also, as a tournament organizer who does intend to pay the players, it's not very tempting to lose control over that money. Things could happen with that money, who knows.
Are there still major tournaments who haven't paid players recently? What's going on with that IPL thing?
I don't accept that this is the reality of modern business. I accept that it is the reality of modern e-sports, but it's not an acceptable reality. Hence the post.
I tried to explain it in simple terms in the original post, but if an organiser can't afford to put up the prize pool up front, then they can't afford to offer that prize pool. If you are an organiser with zero financial means, ie you have a budget of zero, and you can personally invest $0 into a prize pool, then there is no way you can gamble that you are going to raise thousands of dollars through advertising and ticket sales, enough to cover a large event like MLG, IPL etc. If you do this, you are saying that if you don't get enough money then either the players or the contractors aren't going to get paid. Essentially you are transferring the risk of the business from yourself, to everyone else who is involved in the event. THIS IS NOT AN ACCEPTABLE WAY TO DO BUSINESS. You, as the organiser, must be prepared to cover all your costs, even if you lose money. Otherwise you are at least unethical, and at worst a thief and a criminal.
If you have more financial means. Money you can invest yourself, or through sponsorship, then you can have an event which is scaled accordingly. In any case, the general rule applies that if you can't come up with the money up front, before the tournament, there is a damn strong chance you won't have the means to pay it later. Organisers just need to have a realistic scale of the kind of event they are capable of running.
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On August 12 2013 11:13 Elegy wrote:
Escrow is amazing for just this reason.
But but how would we then be able to watch tournaments with imaginary prize monies. 
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On August 12 2013 15:27 deathly rat wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2013 14:31 Djzapz wrote:
Some of the problems that I foresee is that a lot of the time, the prize money is not readily available for the businesses so they can't unlock it right away. It may sound like an irresponsible way to run things but it's a reality of modern business... The sponsors and the stakeholders are going to hand out the money after the product (aka visibility for their brand) is delivered to them. If they pay "before", it still takes a while anyway because those are important amounts of money in a largely informal new platform. It's likely that the money which is available before the event goes toward production, and part of the revenue generated during and after the production goes to the players and possibly toward the next event, depending on the business model... It's a shame but until tournament runners are well established, it's kind of the only way to get to the point where you can rely on your own resources. It's bad but that's how it works.
Also, as a tournament organizer who does intend to pay the players, it's not very tempting to lose control over that money. Things could happen with that money, who knows.
Are there still major tournaments who haven't paid players recently? What's going on with that IPL thing? I don't accept that this is the reality of modern business. I accept that it is the reality of modern e-sports, but it's not an acceptable reality. Hence the post. I tried to explain it in simple terms in the original post, but if an organiser can't afford to put up the prize pool up front, then they can't afford to offer that prize pool. If you are an organiser with zero financial means, ie you have a budget of zero, and you can personally invest $0 into a prize pool, then there is no way you can gamble that you are going to raise thousands of dollars through advertising and ticket sales, enough to cover a large event like MLG, IPL etc. If you do this, you are saying that if you don't get enough money then either the players or the contractors aren't going to get paid. Essentially you are transferring the risk of the business from yourself, to everyone else who is involved in the event. THIS IS NOT AN ACCEPTABLE WAY TO DO BUSINESS. You, as the organiser, must be prepared to cover all your costs, even if you lose money. Otherwise you are at least unethical, and at worst a thief and a criminal. If you have more financial means. Money you can invest yourself, or through sponsorship, then you can have an event which is scaled accordingly. In any case, the general rule applies that if you can't come up with the money up front, before the tournament, there is a damn strong chance you won't have the means to pay it later. Organisers just need to have a realistic scale of the kind of event they are capable of running.
There is a difference between expecting unreasonable amounts of revenue to cover the prize pool and not having every dime up front. You can be prepared to cover all costs even if you dont have cash on had. I don't know your background or how you came to define "an acceptable way to do business" but most companies don't keep large cash reserves in order to cover their expenses, they expect to be able to cover some of them using their revenue. Also that kind of policy would basically kill a lot of events with a large live portion (DH, RedBull LAN, IEM, etc.) since they would have to have money up front not only for the venue, but also have the prize pool set aside. I understand and support the idea of a players association, but demanding that the prize pool be demonstrated up front is silly.
edit: random whitespace at the end.
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On August 12 2013 16:03 packrat386 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2013 15:27 deathly rat wrote:On August 12 2013 14:31 Djzapz wrote:
Some of the problems that I foresee is that a lot of the time, the prize money is not readily available for the businesses so they can't unlock it right away. It may sound like an irresponsible way to run things but it's a reality of modern business... The sponsors and the stakeholders are going to hand out the money after the product (aka visibility for their brand) is delivered to them. If they pay "before", it still takes a while anyway because those are important amounts of money in a largely informal new platform. It's likely that the money which is available before the event goes toward production, and part of the revenue generated during and after the production goes to the players and possibly toward the next event, depending on the business model... It's a shame but until tournament runners are well established, it's kind of the only way to get to the point where you can rely on your own resources. It's bad but that's how it works.
Also, as a tournament organizer who does intend to pay the players, it's not very tempting to lose control over that money. Things could happen with that money, who knows.
Are there still major tournaments who haven't paid players recently? What's going on with that IPL thing? I don't accept that this is the reality of modern business. I accept that it is the reality of modern e-sports, but it's not an acceptable reality. Hence the post. I tried to explain it in simple terms in the original post, but if an organiser can't afford to put up the prize pool up front, then they can't afford to offer that prize pool. If you are an organiser with zero financial means, ie you have a budget of zero, and you can personally invest $0 into a prize pool, then there is no way you can gamble that you are going to raise thousands of dollars through advertising and ticket sales, enough to cover a large event like MLG, IPL etc. If you do this, you are saying that if you don't get enough money then either the players or the contractors aren't going to get paid. Essentially you are transferring the risk of the business from yourself, to everyone else who is involved in the event. THIS IS NOT AN ACCEPTABLE WAY TO DO BUSINESS. You, as the organiser, must be prepared to cover all your costs, even if you lose money. Otherwise you are at least unethical, and at worst a thief and a criminal. If you have more financial means. Money you can invest yourself, or through sponsorship, then you can have an event which is scaled accordingly. In any case, the general rule applies that if you can't come up with the money up front, before the tournament, there is a damn strong chance you won't have the means to pay it later. Organisers just need to have a realistic scale of the kind of event they are capable of running. There is a difference between expecting unreasonable amounts of revenue to cover the prize pool and not having every dime up front. You can be prepared to cover all costs even if you dont have cash on had. I don't know your background or how you came to define "an acceptable way to do business" but most companies don't keep large cash reserves in order to cover their expenses, they expect to be able to cover some of them using their revenue. Also that kind of policy would basically kill a lot of events with a large live portion (DH, RedBull LAN, IEM, etc.) since they would have to have money up front not only for the venue, but also have the prize pool set aside. I understand and support the idea of a players association, but demanding that the prize pool be demonstrated up front is silly. edit: random whitespace at the end.
My background is as a small business owner. Someone who faces up to paying their own business costs, and knows first hand about the sort of people who don't.
Let's say you've got an event, and you've got sponsors who have promised to pay you some money, and you have sold X amount of tickets, and you know from previous events what kind of revenue you can expect to generate during the event. However you don't have all this money up front.
The wrong way: You run a large event with little experience, then you later chase up sponsors for the money, see what money you generated. Then if you have enough, pay the players and anyone who agreed to work for you. (realise you lost a lot of money, don't pay the players).
The right way. Run small events, get experience about running those events so that you can build relationships with sponsors and you can prove that your events are profitable to your bank manager. From this position you can reasonably expect sponsors to provide money before the event. You can show what a success your last event was to your bank manager and get a loan (if you can show 2 or 3 profitable events, it's not that difficult). In this scenario, the organiser is taking all the risks, and the players none, with very little initial capital investment.
Given the reality of the current situation, I don't think demanding the money up front is as silly as flying all the way from Korea, and then hoping that 9 months later someone will get around to sending you a cheque in the post for thousands of dollars you are owed from a whole other country when there is pretty much no way you can chase them down for that money.
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On August 12 2013 15:27 deathly rat wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2013 14:31 Djzapz wrote:
Some of the problems that I foresee is that a lot of the time, the prize money is not readily available for the businesses so they can't unlock it right away. It may sound like an irresponsible way to run things but it's a reality of modern business... The sponsors and the stakeholders are going to hand out the money after the product (aka visibility for their brand) is delivered to them. If they pay "before", it still takes a while anyway because those are important amounts of money in a largely informal new platform. It's likely that the money which is available before the event goes toward production, and part of the revenue generated during and after the production goes to the players and possibly toward the next event, depending on the business model... It's a shame but until tournament runners are well established, it's kind of the only way to get to the point where you can rely on your own resources. It's bad but that's how it works.
Also, as a tournament organizer who does intend to pay the players, it's not very tempting to lose control over that money. Things could happen with that money, who knows.
Are there still major tournaments who haven't paid players recently? What's going on with that IPL thing? I don't accept that this is the reality of modern business. I accept that it is the reality of modern e-sports, but it's not an acceptable reality. Hence the post. I tried to explain it in simple terms in the original post, but if an organiser can't afford to put up the prize pool up front, then they can't afford to offer that prize pool. If you are an organiser with zero financial means, ie you have a budget of zero, and you can personally invest $0 into a prize pool, then there is no way you can gamble that you are going to raise thousands of dollars through advertising and ticket sales, enough to cover a large event like MLG, IPL etc. If you do this, you are saying that if you don't get enough money then either the players or the contractors aren't going to get paid. Essentially you are transferring the risk of the business from yourself, to everyone else who is involved in the event. THIS IS NOT AN ACCEPTABLE WAY TO DO BUSINESS. You, as the organiser, must be prepared to cover all your costs, even if you lose money. Otherwise you are at least unethical, and at worst a thief and a criminal. If you have more financial means. Money you can invest yourself, or through sponsorship, then you can have an event which is scaled accordingly. In any case, the general rule applies that if you can't come up with the money up front, before the tournament, there is a damn strong chance you won't have the means to pay it later. Organisers just need to have a realistic scale of the kind of event they are capable of running.
I understand that if you can't pay up front, maybe you shouldn't offer that prizepool in the first place... and by not paying up, you're essentially being fraudulent. It's a high risk high reward type of thing, where having a high prizepool attempts to legitimize your tournament and can, by itself, help the tournament to succeed.
All I'm saying is that while it may not be right, it CAN certainly play a role in "jumpstarting" e-sports through clever business manuevering rather than constant safe transactions. If it were done by successful entrepreneurs, it could be beneficial to all of us. If done by idiots with no vision, the players get screwed and the scene looks illegitimate, and looks like it's run by a bunch of assclowns.
I'm just trying to look at both sides here anyway. I imagine that to a certain extent, OP's measures could cockblock tournament organizers which would have been able to to pay the players anyway.
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EPT
