2017 Esports General Discussion - Page 30

On September 06 2017 14:04 Kaneh wrote:
I think regions is good.

Its easier to find someone to sponsor a french thing, an english thing, a german thing, and a spanish thing for 1000$ each than it is to find someone willing to throw down 2000$ for the whole package.

I think the overall money coming in is going to be better, the same reason NA makes so much more money is the reason separate regions with separate marketing is going to be better for sponsorship. This also creates more natural interest in the 'champions league' as you want to root for your region.

I think this is a great move to generate interest and money for EU. The biggest problem is the initial formation is going to require a ton of new teams. I hope more football teams buy in like PSG and Schalke did cause getting this off the ground i think is the hard part.


Also its a fee to buy a license to join the league for X years. Give the guarantee return on investment and solves the problem of the cheapo rosters not getting removed. Also gives more control to riot which can be a good/bad thing.

Overall i dont' really see a downside. It's essentially franchising but split into regions to make it easier to invest.

On September 06 2017 15:52 DarkCore wrote:
They need to find enough good teams to fill this many leagues first, otherwise it would be a disaster. I don't want to watch G2 own their region, gain no real form of practice, and then go to worlds to get slaughtered (even worse than before). The overall quality of teams would have to increase for this to work, and H2K told us that most EU LCS teams are struggling with money.

Might work with franchising, but only if enough good teams join up at the start.

On September 06 2017 16:17 cLutZ wrote:

I don't see how it makes it easier to invest. The problem is too little money per team, more than doubling the#of NA teams in EU means they need to more than double the money of NA.Unless they are selling out Wembley.or Camp Nou every week at the mini LCS its not gonna happen.

This is, of course, a fundamental problem with the LCS model itself. Regular season games so not generate nearly the viewership or attendence #s that tournaments do per broadcast, but still require just as many resources per broadcast. In many ways it requires more resources because it means you have to maintain all these low level teams, but they need to be decent for league play to be compelling at all.

It's why Riot is very eager to get sponsors and "outside" money to come in. Making the pie bigger is the easiest way to avoid fights over how to divide the pie. And the best way to get sponsorships in EU is to localize the teams, because Coke Germany sure as hell isn't advertising in Barcelona. With localization comes national pride and a stronger fanbase as well.

On the contrary, I think this is extremely promising for talent development. You can't break into the scene if there's an exclusive clique at the top that keeps re-hiring the same old awful players because they're buddy-buddy. We live in a world where the third-best EU rookie last split was the fucking MM support - how many of you even remember who he is without looking him up? Are there really that few talented players in EU?

Now there's actually opportunity for promising players to get meaningful experience, instead of spending their entire careers wallowing in CS playing against other shitty teams, getting shitstomped by an LCS team twice a year.

On September 06 2017 19:09 Gahlo wrote:

Let's use Coke as an example. If an NA team wanted to go after a Coke sponsorship, it would be pretty easy. I'm not sure if there's a Coke Canada division, but if there is they could just negotiate with Coke USA and be done with it.

Because EU is as fragmented a market as it is due to cultures and language, there is no Coke EU. There's a Coke France, Coke UK, Coke Germany, and all the money Coke invests into EU is split, so each of those subdivisions has less money to spend on advertising - in this case sponsorships.

So there's less incentive for these subdivisions to sponsor teams because those sponsorships don't target their specific area and get as much exposure where it matters for their bottom line. A team won't be able to pick up sponsorships from multiple subdivisions because the Coke name is already slapped on stuff, namedropped, and having their products placed, so once one group sponsors a team, that well has dried up for them.

These smaller, regional league will make the impact of sponsoring a team better for the individual sponsors.

On September 06 2017 23:45 GrandInquisitor wrote:

You are fundamentally misunderstanding the business model of LCS. LCS will never, ever be profitable from viewership or attendance. Not at 24 teams, not at 10 teams, not even if it was two teams playing in Phreak's basement once a month.

LCS is a loss leader for Riot. That's the reason it exists - to get people to play League. Riot is willing to lose $X on LCS in order to make $Y on RP. Riot literally pays for TSM, CLG, etc.'s very existence, because that's chump change compared to the amount they make back in RP.

So all of this drama stems from the fact that it's kind of awkward for the teams participating in LCS. Are they supposed to be making money like billionaires in the NFL/EPL? Or are they supposed to be losing money like Riot? They want revenue sharing, but the LCS revenue doesn't exist. The money is all in the RP - but how much of that do you attribute that to the teams? How much should they get and how much should Riot get? And whatever percentage you set, the teams will always, always demand more.

It's why Riot is very eager to get sponsors and "outside" money to come in. Making the pie bigger is the easiest way to avoid fights over how to divide the pie. And the best way to get sponsorships in EU is to localize the teams, because Coke Germany sure as hell isn't advertising in Barcelona. With localization comes national pride and a stronger fanbase as well.