KeSPA decides what games can officially be called e-Sports, issues the progaming licences, decides what rules must be followed in televised games (like no cursing, no bad manners, ect), and generally just does their best to give e-Sports a good image. To this day, I don't know what kind of claim they have to the game channels that show the Proleague.
IEG is International e-Sports Group. I don't know who they are or what they do.
I know I haven't kept up with progaming in about 7-8 months and thus have no business commenting on this, but I'm going to anyway: IEG needs to shut the fuck and just let OGN and MBC have the Proleague.
Edit: apparently, IEG was explained in the post right before this one.
On March 16 2007 08:52 MYM.Testie wrote: Who the hell is IEG?
Yeah, I don't get it either. A lot of things should be explained here. For example KeSPA stands for Korean e-Sports Players Association which is etc etc.
On March 16 2007 09:04 pubbanana wrote: I know I haven't kept up with progaming in about 7-8 months and thus have no business commenting on this, but I'm going to anyway: IEG needs to shut the fuck and just let OGN and MBC have the Proleague.
Well, kinda. IMO it's just a mess that IEG ended up buying the broadcasting rights. It would've been better if OGN/MBC pitched in together to buy Proleague from KeSPA and then things would have gone smoother. But I think that IEG projected more money to be made than what there actually is, and so their demands on OGN/MBC are just too high. But if IEG is stubborn and won't give reasonable demands in a timely manner, SC progaming is going to suffer bigtime in the meantime.
The way I see it, at the time of the auction, OGN and MBC had the most power in the negotiations. So for leverage, and to show that they meant business, KeSPA sold the rights to legitimately the highest bidder. So the power in the negotiation has shifted towards KeSPA who, now with a broadcasting alternative, has the power to abandon OGN and MBC if it comes to that. During all this, IEG is playing the scared bystander in the entire conflict who just wants everyone to get along. The dust settles and OGN and MBC know they're beat and submit. But now you have to see who really made the most in this deal. IEG came out of nowhere and now has the exclusive rights to broadcasting proleague. This puts them in a position of power over both KeSPA and OGN/MBC.
Now it's just like in Goodfellas: Fuck you, pay me! Fuck you, pay me! Fuck you, pay me!
Edit: and while I'm at it, I'll quote Layer Cake- The art of good business is being a good middle-man.
If anyone wants to send them a message, here's the contacts the IEG guy posted here
On February 21 2007 17:32 IEGbrooks wrote: If any of you here would like some answers and are willing to have an intelligent discussion about this, feel free to email me at stuart@iegroup.co.kr.
No flaming please. Only intelligent responses.
Stuart Brooks | International Business Manager International E-Sports Group Inc
Please don't flame and post intelligently. This probably won't do any good, but I think a lot of people would like some avenue to voice their opinions, at least.
I read the other thread about the Proleague, and it seems IEG wants to start domestic Proleagues in North America and Europe? I don't know how I feel about that. I mean, look at Iron Chef America.
I wonder, why are they going to do with the rights, if MBC and OGN now refuse to buy them and they decide to make a league between them, a lot like proleague, but dif name..like.
"Insanely e-ignorant Geeks" League" "This goes to the bitches who tried to fuck with us."
IEG has no fucking clue what it is doing. It's idea is in the right place to expand but it seriously has no fucking clue what it is doing or how to do it.
It says they still want to want to work with OGN/MBC and they will have another meeting by this weekend. They also say they have a hidden "big card" (?) for the meeting.
Also, tomorrow's Shinhan Master's games will remain unaffected, and will go as scheduled.
big card... maybe some other TV station wants to broadcast proleague, or so they will claim yadayada
IEG are being stupid as hell, you don't ask for 40% of revenue on ANYTHING
The funniest part about all of this shit is that kespa didnt own the broadcasting rights to begin with, Blizzard does. Except it costs Blizzard a lot of money and manpower to take Kespa to school, so they aren't going to do it. So Kespa sold something they don't own, and now IEG is charging a ridiculous amount for something that technically doesn't exist within their grasp.
On March 16 2007 09:18 sweatpants wrote: The way I see it, at the time of the auction, OGN and MBC had the most power in the negotiations. So for leverage, and to show that they meant business, KeSPA sold the rights to legitimately the highest bidder.
not legitimately
So the power in the negotiation has shifted towards KeSPA who, now with a broadcasting alternative, has the power to abandon OGN and MBC if it comes to that.
Dumb move by Kespa as there really isnt a strong alternative to MBC/OSL. Who's gonna pick up the slack? Only CJ really has close to the manpower or the ability to perform on that level, but even they fall short.
During all this, IEG is playing the scared bystander in the entire conflict who just wants everyone to get along. The dust settles and OGN and MBC know they're beat and submit. But now you have to see who really made the most in this deal. IEG came out of nowhere and now has the exclusive rights to broadcasting proleague. This puts them in a position of power over both KeSPA and OGN/MBC.
It puts them in a position to start considering "retirement fund" for the upper-ups.
Yea exactly, Steve. I was going to add "a very weak alternative, at that..." It's true that all of that shit about "KeSPA running things for a while" and how they exactly came to obtain these rights is all murky. I wasn't even going to go into that, giving our buddy IEGDave or whatever the benefit of the doubt. I wanted to point out that even when assuming all of that was legit, they're still stirring up a real shitfest here.
The real power KeSPA has over MBC/OGN is the pro-gaming teams and their ability to boycott individual leagues. Before, they weren't able to use that power because they were solely dependent on MBC/OGN for broadcasting.
But hell, if they can't or aren't willing to cut ties with IEG, fuck em. The fans are with MBC and OGN and the audience base is all they need to show KeSPA whose court the ball is in. Paying for broadcasting and relinquishing absolute rights would've been a GIFT if KeSPA wasn't so desperate to sell the rights.