EPT--Disclaimer: This is speculation, some (probably most) of what I post will be wrong, and I will likely have got some facts wrong as well.
Today's news, together with news from the last few weeks and the accompanying rumours, have led me to speculate a fair bit on how SC2 is going to do in Korea. With STX corp dropping Soul, Innovation going to Acer and the zombie team Soul joining the eSF and the GSTL whilst Prime, LGIM and MVP leave, the amount of questions seem endless. Are Soul going to find a sponsor? Why is Quantic partnering with Soul? Why is Quantic_Hyun not playing in the GSTL with Soul in this case? How is AZUBU going to hold up? Amongst all the rumours of AZUBU disbanding, the shutdown of AZUBU Korea and the non-existent German headquarters, why is AZUBU picking up new players?
The following is my guess as to what will happen in the near and slightly further future:
GSTL
I personally think this will be the last season of GSTL.
With only five teams left, (FXO KR, StarTale, AZUBU, Soul and Axiom-Acer), and two of those teams (AZUBU and Soul) seeming on the verge of disbanding (though AZUBU always surprise us), I can't help but think that there will be no more GSTL after 2013. The only real possibility for the GSTL to survive, would be for some foreign teams to join the tournament to bolster up the numbers, but it seams unlikely seeing as the ATC and SC2L are filling the team league slots in the western world.
The final nail in the coffin for the GSTL would be if AZUBU and Soul disband, leaving them with only three teams unless StarTale and FXO split their huge rosters in to A and B teams.
Prime, LGIM and MVP
I think these three teams will seek to join KeSPA.
The overall changes to the structure of the KeSPA, it seems to me that the obvious choice for these teams would be to join and participate in the next ProLeague (in turn, I think this deelopment and the change in KeSPA structure is what has led to the delayed announcement of the next PL, and I think/hope we'll see an announcement in the next few days, although i seems that PL will not begin again until 2014.
Particularly after KeSPA's inclusion of League of Legends as an officially accepted title, it seems logical that LGIM (who has 2 LoL teams), MVP (Who has one of the best Korean LoL team in Ozone), and Prime (who have recently acquired a LoL team) would join, particularly after the removal of the membership fee.
That last part is important in particular since all three teams have been struggling with financing for quite some time. In time, I think StarTale and FXO will follow suit.
AZUBU
Who are they? We don't really know. Everything that we know (and don't know) is very well summed up here by Loxley. They might disband soon, but it's also possible that they will join KeSPA eventually since they too own LoL teams (AZUBU Taipei Assassins and AZUBU TaiPei Snipers). AZUBU are a source of mystery and I really have no idea where they are going.
Soul
It's strange what happened to Soul.
STX is one of the biggest shipping companies in the world, a multi-billion dollar company. Recently it was revealed that they had financial troubles and they have now been forced to cease their sponsorship of Soul. But why? Was their investment in Soul really so large that it made a notable difference in their overall finances? Why did they think cutting Soul was the best way of reducing expenses? I don't know.
Perhaps it was because they thought the professional StarCraft scene was no longer of interest to large Korean corporations, though that's odd too, since Team Eight recently picked up Jin Air as a sponsor.
As for the circumstances of Soul's loss of sponsorship there's not much I can say, though I can say that I think they will probably disband soon. Possibly after this GSTL and that's the prediction I have the most confidence in, in all of this blog post.
e-Sports Federation
The eSF is now down to just four teams, and if AZUBU and Soul disband like I think they will, they will be down to just two, StarTale and FXO. If this happens, the eSF will be as good as dead, so I think it would be in their interest to negotiate with KeSPA and attempt a merger. The eSF have, on the other hand, seemed to be somewhat stubborn about their position relative to KeSPA and they may not attempt negotiations until it is too late and all the teams have resolved to leave.
Personally, I can't see StarTale and FXO staying with the eSF if Soul or AZUBU disband (either one or both) since the organisation would simply be far too small to compete with the KesPA, particularly if LGIM, MVP and Prime join KeSPA as it seems they will.
GOMTV
I don't really know what to say about GOM.
Thus far they seem to at least have struck some kind of middle ground with the KeSPA and eSF, having both eSF teams and non-affiliated teams in the GSTL and also KeSPA players in the GSL. With the impending doom of the GSTL, it will probably be in their interest to negotiate with the KeSPA (although this has failed spectacularly in the past, particularly in BW) and organise a joint GSTL/Proleague (although this will require some negotiations from the eSF side as well if those teams are to play).
In the aftermath of the current tumult it may also be possible that GOM will abandon SC2 altogether and focus instead on World of Tanks and DotA 2. While I don't think this is all that likely, it is a possibility that remains on the table.
KeSPA
If anything, this has all been good for KeSPA, as with more teams comes more power and with even just the loss of teams for the eSF would be a plus, since it is a relative reduction in the eSF's power. Overall KeSPA lost one team, STX Soul, and the eSF lost two (LGIM, Prime and MVP out, Soul in). If Prime, LGIM and MVP join KeSPA I think we can look forward to KeSPA dominating SC2 as much as they dominated Brood War as I don't see the eSF surviving in that situation.
Conclusions
If all I speculate comes to pass (Prime, LGIM, MVP -> KeSPA, eSF -> KeSPA, Proleague/GSTL merger, Soul and AZUBU disband, then perhaps this may actually be good for SC2.
A single unified managerial body for SC2 in Korea will mean a better Proleague, possibly better individual tournaments, more standardised conditions for pro players and teams in Korea and a far more stable scene.
Then the money that was being spent on challenging the opposing faction could be spent on the promotion of SC2 and eSports in general and contribute to the growth of eSports and all that stuff organisations like this plather on about over and over but never really get around to doing.
Finally, KeSPA may also finally be able to work with Blizzard in a stable way to ensure the utmost quality of the events in Korea.
Or at least, so I hope.
In reality, the Korean scene is in absolute chaos at the moment. Teams are disbanding or near disbanding, teams are changing organisations left and right and everything has a cloud of uncertainty around it.
You'll notice I haven't mentioned OGN in this post. That's because I don't really know what to say. OGN has refused to broadcast WCS KR season 3 on cable television and this is a big blow to the Korean viewership, who will instead be watching League of Legends broadcasts from the OGN champions tournaments. The only thing I can say here is that they seem to be moving more and more towards LoL and more and more away from SC2. This again could be good and it could be bad. If OGN leave SC2 behind, then SpoTV (whom I know nothing about, if someone could enlighten me on this, I would be very grateful) and GomTV will be the only broadcasters in Korea one of the two will need to start a cable TV channel and compete for air time. If worst comes to worst and Gom also abandon SC2 (for Dota in this case) then SpoTV will be all that is left and I really don't know where this leaves us.
That last is of course a worst case scenario and something I doubt will happen in the near future, but it is difficult to see where this situation will go because there are so many things that can happen. What I think is, KeSPA will once again be the unified body and OGN will be swayed to stay by the newfound stability and SC2 will bloom in Korea once again.
I believe and hope this will happen, partly because that's where my intuition says this will lead, and partly because I don't want to consider the alternative.
EDIT: Naturally there will be more news in the coming days and hopefully this will clear up the situation at least a little bit.
