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Korea (South)1740 Posts
Waxangel posted about this big news here, and asked someone else to do a write up. I don't know if I can add much more, but let me give it a shot.
The Players
KeSPA: (Korean e-sports pro-gaming association) Made up of representatives from the corporate sponsors of all of the pro-teams. So SKT has a rep, KTF has a rep, etc. KeSPA is made up of a board of directors (comprised by the reps from the various sponsor corporations), and a managerial staff, who run the day-to-day operations.
OGN and MBC: The two major game-specialist broadcast companies in Korea
IEG : A sports marketing and management company, who have been involved in sports marketing for various other Korean sports leagues, i.e. soccer and baseball. They are also the parent company of the progaming team eSTRO (formerly eNature, formerly AMD).
The Story:
1) KeSPA claims the broadcast rights to the Proleague.
2) KeSPA recently auctioned off the broadcast rights.
This is standard practice in other professional sports, i.e. baseball, basketball, football, etc. Normally, a broadcast company "buys" those rights-- for example, the NFL auctions off the broadcast rights to CBS or NBC or whatever.
3) IEG, the sole bidder for these rights, bought them from KeSPA.
The obvious issue here is that OGN and MBC refused to bid on the broadcast rights.
The Problem:
The Proleague is managed almost entirely by the broadcast companies, OGN and MBC. They provide the stadiums, the maps, the schedule, advertising, promotion, etc. Their stance is that it is ridiculous that they have to pay for broadcast rights when it is essentially their league, that they built up from scratch (back in the day there used to be two separate leagues, one for each station, but they joined the two into the current Proleague under the auspices of KeSPA). OGN and MBC thus refused to bid on the rights, and they are also refusing to buy the rights from IEG as well.
The Future?
Everything is up in the air at this point. Here are some possible scenarios:
1) The Proleague is cancelled. If OGN and MBC stick to their guns, no one would be there to manage the league, provide the maps, etc. It could mean the end of the Proleague, period.
2) The Proleague continues, but not on OGN/MBC. IEG sells the broadcast rights to some channel out there that buys these rights (or pay a broadcast fee) and broadcasts the league (CJ, which is planning to launch a game channel soon, would be a possible buyer). This is highly unlikely, however, since no other entity has the experience and infrastructure in place to manage the Proleague.
3) OGN/MBC buys the broadcast rights and continue as in the past. The only difference from the past is that they would be paying a broadcast fee to IEG, or having to buy the broadcast rights outright. They are both adamantly refusing to do so, out of principle as well as profit logic (they claim that paying a broadcast fee/buying the rights will make the Proleague non-profitable)
3) The Proleague, as we know it, ends, and OGN and MBC set up their own team leagues, as in the past. This, too, is unlikely: one of the reasons they joined to make this one Proleague is that running individual leagues was not very profitable.
4) IEG, KeSPA, and OGN/MBC come to some agreeable arrangement and the Proleague continues unabated. This would require alot of deal making and compromise.
At any length, this issue has huge ramifications for e-sports. The worst case scenario is that the Proleague is disbanded, which would have huge reverberating effects on starcraft progaming. For example, sponsors for the Proleague, as well as the companies sponsoring proteams would be scared off and would cut back (and perhaps not renew their investment). End of SC progaming.
Many observers in Korea generally seem to side with the broadcast companies, saying that e-sports is not like other sports, since the broadcast companies actually manage, organize, and run the leagues, unlike in, say, American football, where the NFL does that and the channels can just focus on broadcasting. Thus, KeSPA auctioning off broadcast rights is just stupid.
KeSPA, for their part, are defending their actions by saying they are laying the groundwork for even more professionalization of e-Sports.
That's the long and short of it. Slightly confusing? Sorry. But a one-sentence summary is basically that KeSPA and the broadcast companies are warring over broadcast rights, and potentially this could mean the end of SC progaming. It's big news.
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Hong Kong20321 Posts
SHIT..... wtf man that's insane news >_< wtf does kespa want to do with that. just leave the stuff to ogn and mbc they were doing perfectly fine =. =
my guess is that those bastard 'director' representatives from each company in kespa just want to make some money and dont care about the scene at all
AJSDFKSDJSFKSJDGKLASJGD
how did kespa 'claim' the broadcasting rights in the first place anyway?
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Canada9720 Posts
On what basis does the KeSPA claim that they're expanding the professionalization of e-Sports? It sounds more like they're just doing what's profitable (not laying blame here, this is the same reason why OGN and MBC refuse to settle the issue by purchasing broadcast rights).
Anyway, bum deal. I hope that they work it out, I always enjoyed the proleague and it's format.
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Korea (South)1740 Posts
My personal opinion, of course, is that KeSPA is fucking retarded.
A good analogy about this situation is sort of like this:
Two guys, OGN and MBC, start separate lemonade stands. In the beginning, the lemonade is really unusual so no one buys, but as time goes on it catches fire. So then they decide to invite a third guy, KeSPA, to help them coordinate one big profitable lemonade stand. When this stand starts getting really big, KeSPA says, hey, if you want to keep selling lemonade, you have to pay me. OGN and MBC say who the fuck are you, eat me, we made this lemonade stand happen, you hardly did anything. KeSPA then says I'm going to let a third guy, IEG, sell the lemonade from now on, because he paid me.
Something like this.
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What does kespa plan on doing with the money?
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thx for the news! ty man!
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This is pretty ridiculous >.<;: ... However i doubt that E-sports will just implode... there will be some sort of solution if this happens however it is of course a huge set back :x.
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i'm with the channels on this one
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What does KeSPA do that is actually useful? Why would starting something independent of them be such a problem?
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wtf...who the fuck are they to claim the right to ruin Proleague?
OGN and MBC should *really* make their own league to finally settle this problem.
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If progaming disappears (highly unlikely IMO) that would cause many people to lose their job. And that would be a lot of blood on kespa hands.
I think they will reach some kind of agreement because progaming is so big in Korea. Kespa is so wrong on this one 
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Korea (South)1740 Posts
On February 21 2007 08:02 rrenaud wrote:
What does KeSPA do that is actually useful? Why would starting something independent of them be such a problem?
Well, KeSPA in theory does do a few things:
1) since they are an association of a bunch of big businesses, you're talking about a pretty big network (theoretically) to support the growth of pro-gaming. OGN and MBC, in the big scheme, are two small cable channels with only a limited amount of funds.
2) there does need to be a central organizing body, for example, setting rules, regulations, and standards for progaming, making sure unethical practices aren't taking place, etc.
3) KeSPA has been in charge of getting the sponsors for the individual Proleagues.
It is a distinct possibility that OGN and MBC return back to setting up their own leagues. There are a number of wrinkles: 1) the cost and effort-- would it be worth it? Or would it be simply more profitable for them to tank the whole dirty issue and invest their time and money elsewhere? 2) Would all the proteams actually participate in these leagues? You might imagine the front offices of certain teams (i.e. IEG) refusing to let their teams play. You might have MBC Hero not playing in the OGN league, or some other ridiculous circumstance. It just makes things alot messier. 3) Can teams really play in two separate team leagues? The coordination would be hellish. 4) The prestige of the leagues would be smaller, the scale as a whole would be smaller. You'd have probably smaller scale attendance, less prestige and prize for victory, smaller scale everything (like imagine the finals taking in a tiny theater instead of outdoors in front of a huge crowd) 5) will OGN and MBC really be able to find their own sponsors? Sponsors likely will be scared off to see how unstable the Proleague is-- large investments are made with long-term benefits in mind. You don't make high risk investments without an equally high potential for payoff. So in the end it raises the "price" of putting on a Proleague.
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This is pretty big news. We just all better hope for future num 4) where they just settle it all and it goes back to normal. But what would be wrong with ogn/mbc taking care of managing the league and they just play it on another channel(besides principle)
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Cant they just pick a new name like GosuLeague and run that instead with the same rules etc? I mean instead of creating a new league each why not create a new one working togather?
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So what about the OSL Finals? Will they be able to broadcast that in 2 days?? When does the boradcasting stop if no deal is made?
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Korea (South)1740 Posts
The Starleagues do not involve KeSPA, only the Proleague
Thus, OSL = OGN starleague, MSL = MBC starleague
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On February 21 2007 08:24 DrainX wrote:
Cant they just pick a new name like GosuLeague and run that instead with the same rules etc? I mean instead of creating a new league each why not create a new one working togather?
They won't have the sponsors.
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On February 21 2007 08:28 bustaBust wrote:
So what about the OSL Finals? Will they be able to broadcast that in 2 days?? When does the boradcasting stop if no deal is made?
I think only proleague is affected with this problem. OSL/MSL starleagues are not in "danger" as I understood.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/923/proleaguexh3.jpg)
