Sponsoring BSL, STPL or RCG
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masoka82
Spain564 Posts
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES48991 Posts
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Ziggy
South Korea2103 Posts
On October 29 2020 20:56 BLinD-RawR wrote: none, why would they shell out the money for basically no return? foreign tournaments don't get that kind of viewership to justify a big sponsor. all right debbie downer keep ur wig on | ||
pebble444
Italy2477 Posts
one way to raise money would be to have ads playing in between games, not sure what the return on twitch for that is, probably low but still, i don' t think people would mind if they know it supports the tournament; But the strongest support seems to be direct, as shown by how BSL 11 managed to raise its target prizepool in 48 hours i think; | ||
Eywa-
Canada4876 Posts
But anyway, the biggest issue is the global nature of the viewership, you basically need to target businesses who don't care whether the viewer is in Canada, Russia, Peru or Australia... Most major businesses are separated into regions, who have independent budgets... And each region doesn't necessarily benefit from advertising in a different region. Inevitably, the business you approach is going to ask where your viewers are based... If it's mostly Korea, that could be very interesting for a Korean business / Korean regional branch. For International Brood War, you can still get sponsors, but it's harder... You need to cherry-pick businesses who stand to profit from a global audience (since the viewership isn't jaw-dropping on it's own). There have been several sponsors for Brood War events and they all share a common theme, either they're 100% based online or they are/were a community member. Ideally, you lead into the nostalgia factor when pitching to small online businesses (and hope they've watched Starcraft at some point). Hardware manufacturers (which sponsor gaming heavily) also historically haven't been super interested in Starcraft: Brood War (some poked around in remastered - ZOTAC Cup)... But yeah, typically older games aren't seen to have that sex appeal for selling hardware. Another thing about acquiring sponsorships is that... It takes time, lots of it. You are basically writing a personalized letter to each of maybe 50 companies in hopes that one might get back to you for a few hundred bucks. Ideally, you want these to be as professional as possible, so the more time you put into it, the better your return... There's also a learning curve, which unless you do this as part of your professional life, you probably can't really hope to ever exceed B rank (Starcraft comparison), you have no idea what you're doing. Also, based on the last point... If you have a good job (even better if you're a contractor that can do extra hours), you're going to make more money per hour by working and paying for the tournament out of pocket (or as marketing for your consulting company). - Obviously, this last point doesn't apply to everyone, but the time constraints and the learning curve do apply to most people. <<---- And this brings us back to exhibit A... Who are the prime candidates for being sponsors? Community members. If you're really motivated though, talk to a tournament organizer and ask if you can write for sponsorships on their behalf... They give you everything that they can promise for viewership/benefits to the sponsor, and you try to hook someone. The most important thing is to be honest and upfront about what the entity should expect as to not cause any issues down the line. tl;dr: (is actually shockingly similar to just about every question of "why don't we have this?") Time sink Limited return Difficult market Learning curve Want it? Do it + Show Spoiler + The market segment I've found to deliver on sponsorships in the past: Online only Technology Owner/Manager plays video games NOT Poker NOT Hardware | ||
Greth
Belgium318 Posts
They don't have to be 'the big' streamers, start small and move on from there. | ||
BlueStar
Bulgaria1152 Posts
On October 29 2020 20:53 masoka82 wrote: Is there any possibility that, for example LG or Gillette, who are sponsoring ASL, could sponsor big Foreign tournaments like BSL, STPL or RCG? The example - Gillete are sponsoring a StarCraft tournament because of the Korean audience and they can somehow measure the impact of their campaign. The other example LG - they are a Korean company and investing in such endeavors will benefit the Korean market. It's harder to be done such a thing for a global audience. And, of course, if a global organization (e.g. Gilette global) decides to invest in the foreign starcraft it will reach up to 10k people. I bet ASL reaches many more Koreans and word of mouth is also a consideration - for sure there aren't many people outside Korea who talk about StarCraft and the sponsors in their friend circles. Businesses want to measure it's success, not just throw money. | ||
GeckoXp
Germany2013 Posts
On October 29 2020 23:47 BlueStar wrote: The example - Gillete are sponsoring a StarCraft tournament because of the Korean audience and they can somehow measure the impact of their campaign. The other example LG - they are a Korean company and investing in such endeavors will benefit the Korean market. It's harder to be done such a thing for a global audience. And, of course, if a global organization (e.g. Gilette global) decides to invest in the foreign starcraft it will reach up to 10k people. I bet ASL reaches many more Koreans and word of mouth is also a consideration - for sure there aren't many people outside Korea who talk about StarCraft and the sponsors in their friend circles. Businesses want to measure it's success, not just throw money. That's why Twitch was already thrown into the discussion for obvious reasons. They have instant access to the relevant data and can promote themselfes quite readily. Other than that it comes down to the presentation. I don't see any point in sponsoring a tournament in BW either, if all I can see is the tl.net topic and some twitch numbers. As community "we" could support the series / tournaments with more re-posts and more reactions in general to show that there's actual interaction happening. Not to mention that reading some nice words mean a world to everyone involved in behind the scenes, even if it's a just a "I liked this". | ||
XenOsky
Chile2142 Posts
i don't see why not. | ||
Eywa-
Canada4876 Posts
On October 30 2020 02:21 GeckoXp wrote: That's why Twitch was already thrown into the discussion for obvious reasons. They have instant access to the relevant data and can promote themselfes quite readily. Other than that it comes down to the presentation. I don't see any point in sponsoring a tournament in BW either, if all I can see is the tl.net topic and some twitch numbers. As community "we" could support the series / tournaments with more re-posts and more reactions in general to show that there's actual interaction happening. Not to mention that reading some nice words mean a world to everyone involved in behind the scenes, even if it's a just a "I liked this". This is a really good point. Posts count, positive conversation, upvotes on reddit, posting on other community websites (even if it's just seen by 10 other people, the whole community x10 is quite a lot)... Not only are these things appealing in a vacuum, but they in turn drive more traffic. Clipped "must see" things that drive traffic can be really good for business too. ZOTAC Cup could have been a really good case study for this if the reaction out of China weren't so negative, but instead it shows how negativity affects sponsorship despite viewer numbers. That clip got like over a million views, unlike anything I could remember for Starcraft. | ||
psyCrowe
Scotland194 Posts
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M3t4PhYzX
Poland3790 Posts
On October 30 2020 02:26 XenOsky wrote: Movistar and Pringles are sponsoring tournaments in LATAM, yes, bw tournaments... i don't see why not. Sprite and one of the bigger news sites are sponsoring Heroes III National Championship in Poland.. so yeah.. it is possible. It would not even need to be some huge amount.. personally I think 5000-7500$ yearly would suffice for foreign scene to organize couple of nice tournaments. But I doubt it will ever happen, unfortunately. | ||
AttackZerg
United States7453 Posts
And (super biased) they make fantastic chips for gaming computers that are also workstations. AMD has been my 'revival of bw' dream sponsor for a while. | ||
Rus_Brain
Russian Federation1888 Posts
On October 29 2020 20:53 masoka82 wrote: LG or Gillette will be looking for advertising returns. BW is effectively a dead game when you have SC2, to say the least, or all these Dotas, Lols, Pubgs, CS Gos, etc.Is there any possibility that, for example LG or Gillette, who are sponsoring ASL, could sponsor big Foreign tournaments like BSL, STPL or RCG? BW is being sponsored by benevolent persons, who do not care about returns. In particular, are YOU ready to contribute at least $10 to any of those you mentioned? (BSL, STPL, RCG) | ||
Eywa-
Canada4876 Posts
On October 30 2020 19:47 Rus_Brain wrote: LG or Gillette will be looking for advertising returns. BW is effectively a dead game when you have SC2, to say the least, or all these Dotas, Lols, Pubgs, CS Gos, etc. BW is being sponsored by benevolent persons, who do not care about returns. In particular, are YOU ready to contribute at least $10 to any of those you mentioned? (BSL, STPL, RCG) It's really not though. The issue with drawing a traditional esports sponsor is that they will inevitably ask themselves the question... If your primary hobby is playing a 22 year old game, are you likely part of the demographic that is going to buy my product? (whether this is fair or not) The problem with drawing other (food/beverage/law/car/etc) sponsors is the spread of the population. You almost have to sell the sponsor on one region and then have other regions invited to participate as a side "bonus". On numbers alone, it can be quite appealing (if you look at google ads pricing - price per click-through is quite high), the question is whether the company can (or at least believes they can) reach the profile that is the average Starcraft: Brood War player in 2020. | ||
Ziggy
South Korea2103 Posts
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oxKnu
1128 Posts
Sponsors want to reach a certain demographic and want games that have a probability to 'blow up' at a point in time. Basically they're interested most in their ROI (as all businesses are). BW does not offer a compelling argument for neither of those, and nothing that has happened in the last 3 years indicated that that might change. The fact that Blizzard doesn't invest anything in it (maintenance doesn't count especially since they are the original publisher) is also a huge factor. Gaming communities have a strong herd mentality and BW doesn't offer much in the way of luring them in somehow: it's not a beginner-friendly game, it is not actively maintained in the way people expect it to, no side-content in the game, no further developments etc, no big e-sport events to get excited about etc. The closest example of an old game that has reached some level of success in the strategy space is Age Of Empires 2 (DE) . That game has grown organically over the past few years to a point where there are RedBull sponsored events that have gathered tens of thousands of viewers on twitch. One stark difference is that the playerbase for that game weighted globablly is definitely larger than BW ever was in recent years, so it's only logical it has gotten some steady legs as an community-grown e-sport game with healthy sponsor potential from big companies. | ||
art_of_turtle
United States1153 Posts
On October 30 2020 02:26 XenOsky wrote: Movistar and Pringles are sponsoring tournaments in LATAM, yes, bw tournaments... i don't see why not. I need to buy more pringles now. | ||
Rus_Brain
Russian Federation1888 Posts
On October 30 2020 20:47 Eywa- wrote: The problem is, these are very generic advices, not a precise working guideline to sign a contract with sponsor.It's really not though. The issue with drawing a traditional esports sponsor is that they will inevitably ask themselves the question... If your primary hobby is playing a 22 year old game, are you likely part of the demographic that is going to buy my product? (whether this is fair or not) The problem with drawing other (food/beverage/law/car/etc) sponsors is the spread of the population. You almost have to sell the sponsor on one region and then have other regions invited to participate as a side "bonus". On numbers alone, it can be quite appealing (if you look at google ads pricing - price per click-through is quite high), the question is whether the company can (or at least believes they can) reach the profile that is the average Starcraft: Brood War player in 2020. | ||
ox.tQ
792 Posts
On October 29 2020 23:08 Greth wrote: Honestly, if you want to go about majorly promoting BW again, you have to look at twitch. Support of casters, and eventually finding some variety streamers to sponsor so they'll #add some BW playtime in promotion of an upcoming event or tournament. They don't have to be 'the big' streamers, start small and move on from there. I'm so sick of your god damn shameless self-promotions Sarcasm folks, don't burn me at the stake Let's not forget Rus_Brain's wonderful organization is already sponsoring so many events without asking for much (monetary benefit) in return, unlike the corporations OP mentioned. | ||
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