Hi all, there was a recent discussion on Reddit about emailing ESPN to convince them to explore broadcasting Starcraft II.
Here's the reddit post for those interested. Linky Link.
Because of that (And with the help of TL) I've made a form letter that we can send on to ESPN, G4TV, Spike, etc.
Edit: Two versions, ESPN has a 1,000 character limit on their Contact Us page so I made a much shorter version.
ESPN: http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/contact?lang=EN&country=united states I am writing to urge you to consider Starcraft II matches as a programming option. Starcraft is a real-time strategy game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. Starcraft sold 1.5 million copies its first two days of sale making it the fastest selling strategy game of all time.
Starcraft is considered a national pastime in South Korea and is growing in North America. On websites such as Reddit and Team Liquid hundreds of thousands meet daily to discuss strategy. YouTube broadcasts of Starcraft are incredibly popular. “HuskyStarcraft” has 300,000 subscribers and 100,000,000 combined views.
The Global Starcraft League in Korea has a monthly prize pool of $170,000 and is sponsored by the likes of Intel, Sony Ericsson and Powerade. A series starring the legendary Starcraft player "Boxer" received over 2 million viewers.
I strongly urge ESPN to consider broadcasting Starcraft II. This is a tremendous opportunity, eSports are a growing scene worldwide and Starcraft leads the way.
I am writing to urge you to consider Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty matches as a programming option on G4 TV. Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty is a military science-fiction real-time strategy video game developed and released by Blizzard Entertainment. Starcraft II sold over 1.5 million copies during its first two days of sale making it the fastest selling strategy game of all time. During the first month of release that number increased to 3 million sales.
With the release of Starcraft II, e-Sports is continuing to grow in South Korea and in North America. Starcraft II is considered a national pastime in South Korea and is considered the most successful e-Sport in the world.
On websites such as Reddit and Team Liquid hundreds of thousands of people meet daily to discuss the game, strategy, and share replays. A vibrant community of casters has already formed providing excitement and analysis of replays on YouTube and Ustream. YouTube broadcasts of Starcraft are among the most popular videos on the website. As of December 2010 “HuskyStarcraft” has over 300,000 subscribers and more than 100,000,000 combined views.
The GOMTV Global Starcraft II League, a tournament in Korea has a monthly prize pool of $170,000 and is sponsored by the likes of Intel, Sony Ericsson and Gatorade. A recent series starring the legendary Starcraft player "Boxer" received over 2 million viewers worldwide. Here in North America Major League Gaming (MLG) recently added Starcraft II to their pro circuit.
I strongly urge G4 TV to consider broadcasting Starcraft II. There is a tremendous opportunity for G4 TV. e-Sports are a growing scene worldwide and Starcraft II, as the largest and newest e-Sport, is leading the way.
Sincerely,
___________
Spike: ??? Their website is a mess and half the contact us pages don't work, if anybody could find a link or email please post it.
EDIT: If you don't think it will fly you're probably right but I don't care. ESPN broadcasts some real shit, spelling bees, professional fishing, magic the gathering, etc during off-peak hours. We're not looking to take down football (yet) just get a spot in the off-peak hours.
Either help us and contribute so we can finish this email and mass-spam ESPN or stop bitching and stay out of this thread.
TLDR: Copy paste the above and send it to ESPN, G4TV, Spike, etc!
On December 03 2010 05:30 sammler wrote: Folks are going to be rude to you, but you obviously have sincere intentions. Nicely done.
Obviously a long shot but it's worth a try. If half the people on TL and Reddit emailed ESPN that'd at least show there's a market for this kind of thing. Hell, if Day9 could mention it on his stream that'd be a gazillion emails too.
as if 7,000$ prize pools are interesting when ESPN is used to covering athletes with over $100 million. And 10-20 thousand viewers is nothing compared to to the hundred of thousands of viewers they get for individual regular season games, let alone playoffs which yield millions of internationally interested fans. Its a wasted effort to contact ESPN, you'd be better off asking G4TV to have a more dedicated segment, but even still if everything is on the internet for Esports why do you want to include a media outlet that isnt declining in popularity? The people who want to follow sc2, can and do, so trying to force it into the mainstream is futile.
Another good idea would be getting college media outlets to cover the CSL, which probably has the draw of a chess tournament, and a debate team.
Not to be rude, but there seems to be a typo in the following paragraph:
"Starcraft II’s predecessor “Brood War” is the most successful e-Sport in the world and is considered a national past time in Korea. With the release of Starcraft II e-Sports continue to grow in Korea and are growing at a grassroots level in North America."
"Past time" should read "pass time." Also, if you're not going to put Starcraft II's name in quotes, it doesn't make sense to put Brood War in quotes. Pick one approach and stick to it.
Overall, I applaud your intent and wish you luck. I suspect you will need it.
to much slang like replays or e-sports. if someone does not know what it means its like reading chinese. you must explain or cut it. i like your effort. =D
On December 03 2010 05:35 Bonham wrote: Not to be rude, but there seems to be a typo in the following paragraph:
"Starcraft II’s predecessor “Brood War” is the most successful e-Sport in the world and is considered a national past time in Korea. With the release of Starcraft II e-Sports continue to grow in Korea and are growing at a grassroots level in North America."
"Past time" should read "pass time." Also, if you're not going to put Starcraft II's name in quotes, it doesn't make sense to put Brood War in quotes. Pick one approach and stick to it.
Exactly why I posted. Please continue to pick it apart.
On December 03 2010 05:35 Bonham wrote: Not to be rude, but there seems to be a typo in the following paragraph:
"Starcraft II’s predecessor “Brood War” is the most successful e-Sport in the world and is considered a national past time in Korea. With the release of Starcraft II e-Sports continue to grow in Korea and are growing at a grassroots level in North America."
"Past time" should read "pass time." Also, if you're not going to put Starcraft II's name in quotes, it doesn't make sense to put Brood War in quotes. Pick one approach and stick to it.
Overall, I applaud your intent and wish you luck. I suspect you will need it.
On December 03 2010 05:36 Minzy wrote: it doesnt have to be a prime time slot to begin with. i mean if theyre going to show "proffesional fishing", why not starcraft.
Exactly. We're not looking to take football's time slot we're looking to get in ahead of professional fishing, hot dog eating competitions, and strong man competitions.
Do you honestly believe ESPN will be remotely interested in promoting some niche RTS game that draws at most some 20-40 thousand online viewers?
ESPN viewership is in the millions, and I doubt advertisers would be interested in promoting SC2.
Lets be happy with our little corner of the internet and help ensure that it stays alive for years to come. Expanding our E-Sports universe is going to take baby steps not giant leaps of faith.
On December 03 2010 05:41 gozima wrote: Do you honestly believe ESPN will be remotely interested in promoting some niche RTS game that draws at most some 20-40 thousand online viewers?
ESPN viewership is in the millions, and I doubt advertisers would be interested in promoting SC2.
Lets be happy with our little corner of the internet and help ensure that it stays alive for years to come. Expanding our E-Sports universe is going to take baby steps not giant leaps of faith.
I think you need a more powerful opening, If I was a CEO at ESPN and saw those opening lines, I wouldn't bother reading the rest. Idk, for somebody who has no idea about e-sports to understand it fully and the potential it has, and then take action on it, I really think it's going to take more than this.
Idk why, I love watching SC2, would just think it'd be embarssing to have it on ESPN. Just not the channel I'd like to see it on... then again I also don't really care to see fishing on ESPN either, so whatever!
I think there would be a massive public outroar against it, however.
On December 03 2010 05:46 FabledIntegral wrote: Idk why, I love watching SC2, would just think it'd be embarssing to have it on ESPN. Just not the channel I'd like to see it on... then again I also don't really care to see fishing on ESPN either, so whatever!
I think there would be a massive public outroar against it, however.
The same type of email could be sent to other channels - G4TV, Spike, etc. ESPN is just the one the original reddit guy started it with.
On December 03 2010 05:29 Torture wrote: The GOMTV Global Starcraft II League, a monthly tournament in Korea has a total prize pool of $170,000.
You want to move monthly here from in front of tournament to in front of prize pool, this makes the reader associate the money as a recurring prize and inflates their mental sense of how big the tournament is. Also, this sentence is grammatically incorrect, the comma should be replaced with something else.
A better sentence is something like this:
The GOMTV Global Starcraft II League is the biggest example of a professional Starcraft 2 tournament. It is a tournament based in South Korea that has a bi-monthly prize pool of $170,000.
That is a better lead-off to the rest of the description of the league.
On December 03 2010 05:41 gozima wrote: Do you honestly believe ESPN will be remotely interested in promoting some niche RTS game that draws at most some 20-40 thousand online viewers?
ESPN viewership is in the millions, and I doubt advertisers would be interested in promoting SC2.
Lets be happy with our little corner of the internet and help ensure that it stays alive for years to come. Expanding our E-Sports universe is going to take baby steps not giant leaps of faith.
They broadcast the national spelling bee so yeah that might have some interest in niche gaming.
Magic the Gathering was shown on ESPN several times. The do show the Madden Challenge, which would probably draw more viewers, but it is a video game. There is a lot of garbage on ESPN and ESPN 2 during non-peak hours and you never know if there is a spot for this.
On December 03 2010 05:29 Torture wrote: The GOMTV Global Starcraft II League, a monthly tournament in Korea has a total prize pool of $170,000.
You want to move monthly here from in front of tournament to in front of prize pool, this makes the reader associate the money as a recurring prize and inflates their mental sense of how big the tournament is.
this would be cool. I mean, it'll probably not happen for years and years, but you might be the one to get the ball rolling on this. I support you and would sign any sort of petition or whatever.
On December 03 2010 05:50 LaughingTulkas wrote: this would be cool. I mean, it'll probably not happen for years and years, but you might be the one to get the ball rolling on this. I support you and would sign any sort of petition or whatever.
I can just imagine the name eESPN, lol.
LaughingTulkas your name is very appropriate, definitely lol'd at eESPN.
On December 03 2010 05:41 gozima wrote: Do you honestly believe ESPN will be remotely interested in promoting some niche RTS game that draws at most some 20-40 thousand online viewers?
ESPN viewership is in the millions, and I doubt advertisers would be interested in promoting SC2.
Lets be happy with our little corner of the internet and help ensure that it stays alive for years to come. Expanding our E-Sports universe is going to take baby steps not giant leaps of faith.
One thing that I thought of while reading this post is that it doesn't necessarily need to be broadcast on any of ESPN's cable channels. ESPN has espn3.com which shows some of the wackiest shit ever. Lots of football, Cricket, Canadian handegg, you name it.
That might be a better avenue even if ESPN coverage is a longshot. Even restreams could fly.
I don't think this will fly. Plus lets be serious here, why would ESPN broadcast a videogame? They didn't cast Halo games and that was huge when it first came out. And frankly, I don't think they should cast SC2, love the game but that's all it is. Most people that watch ESPN want to watch football, baseball, basketball, soccer and of course poker.
On December 03 2010 05:47 Zzoram wrote: You'd be better off trying Spike TV or G4 TV.
Now theres an idea. Might actually work with those stations.
On December 03 2010 05:46 alexhard wrote: ESPN2 has niche stuff like spelling bees. Showing starcraft isn't that outlandish...
espn2 is much more likely. espn is way too into the big 3 US team sports. they barely touch hockey and soccer, and the only poker they show is the world series.
On December 03 2010 05:41 gozima wrote: Do you honestly believe ESPN will be remotely interested in promoting some niche RTS game that draws at most some 20-40 thousand online viewers?
ESPN viewership is in the millions, and I doubt advertisers would be interested in promoting SC2.
Lets be happy with our little corner of the internet and help ensure that it stays alive for years to come. Expanding our E-Sports universe is going to take baby steps not giant leaps of faith.
Listen, they show the fucking spelling bee on ESPN-2. If you're telling me a well produced SC2 show shouldn't even be CONSIDERED for ESPN I think all of e-sports should just pack it in right now. But, since you're wrong I think we can move along now. I'm not saying that e-sports will definitely be TV big in the US, but we should fucking try.
Just like everyone has said, I applaud the effort but unlikely to happen. You have better chances with G4TV. When I worked at an Internet cafe several years ago, they came to the place 2-3 times to have tournaments.
If you can get Olivia Munn to say she likes it, then you're set!
On December 03 2010 05:41 gozima wrote: Do you honestly believe ESPN will be remotely interested in promoting some niche RTS game that draws at most some 20-40 thousand online viewers?
ESPN viewership is in the millions, and I doubt advertisers would be interested in promoting SC2.
Lets be happy with our little corner of the internet and help ensure that it stays alive for years to come. Expanding our E-Sports universe is going to take baby steps not giant leaps of faith.
Listen, they show the fucking spelling bee on ESPN-2. If you're telling me a well produced SC2 show shouldn't even be CONSIDERED for ESPN I think all of e-sports should just pack it in right now. But, since you're wrong I think we can move along now. I'm not saying that e-sports will definitely be TV big in the US, but we should fucking try.
the spelling bee drew more viewers than the Stanley Cup Finals. you have no idea what you're talking about.
The problem with SC2 is that it's not enjoyable to watch unless you have a good understanding of the game. A normal person will not understand the value of workers, they will not know what it means if someone is building a barracks. If ESPN dedicated 1hr/week to SC2 then the cast would have to be so simplistic that not a single SC fan would be watching it.
Either that or they would cap at 10k viewers.
As I said in another thread; why do you want the game to be played on television? It's much better if we just keep it here on the internet, I never watch television and for SC it would suck since I would not have access to Liquipedia and would not be able to postwhore in the live report thread.
What I'm trying to say is; WHY do you want SC to be featured on ESPN when you know that it will be such a small thing? Would it not make more sense to get a proper Web-tv running, with a 10 man staff that broadcasts SC for five hours/day. Then people from allover the world could watch and that would be much better as well.
At least we should let the game mature for a bit, the game really is not that interesting in it's current state if you are not deeply into the community. No teams to cheer for, lot's of uninteresting no-namers in the GSL, different people winning every tournament etc.
On December 03 2010 05:49 drgoats wrote: Magic the Gathering was shown on ESPN several times. The do show the Madden Challenge, which would probably draw more viewers, but it is a video game. There is a lot of garbage on ESPN and ESPN 2 during non-peak hours and you never know if there is a spot for this.
especially considering that most starcraft matches are between the hours of 3 a.m (west coasters) and 6 a.m. (east coasters) in the US...lol
On December 03 2010 05:49 drgoats wrote: Magic the Gathering was shown on ESPN several times. The do show the Madden Challenge, which would probably draw more viewers, but it is a video game. There is a lot of garbage on ESPN and ESPN 2 during non-peak hours and you never know if there is a spot for this.
especially considering that most starcraft matches are between the hours of 3 a.m (west coasters) and 6 a.m. (east coasters) in the US...lol
that's if they did live stuff.
If they put it on live at this time that would be awesome for us and there might actually be interest for early morning time-slot when just us super nerds would watch. Of course I would hope for a more regular time-slot eventually, but a start is a start. Once they have rights to programming like that they can re-cast it when ever.
I will definitely share the love of this email and I hope to all that is good and right that we see SC2 on TV.
On December 03 2010 05:29 Torture wrote: To Whom it May Concern,
I am writing to urge you to consider Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty matches as a programming option on ESPN.
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty is a military science-fiction real-time strategy video game developed and released by Blizzard Entertainment. Starcraft II sold over 1.5 million copies during its first two days of sale making it the fastest selling strategy game of all time. During the first month of sales that number increased to 3 million, and to date it has sold ______(Anybody know how many?) copies.
You want to get rid of this paragraph break between the first sentence and this second paragraph. Readers are inclined only to read the first paragraph so you want to accurately describe just what the hell Starcraft 2 is right off the bat. You should also insert viewership numbers in this description so they get a sense of how popular it is, game sales alone are not a complete barometer of popularity.
On December 03 2010 05:29 Torture wrote: Starcraft II’s predecessor Brood War is the most successful e-Sport in the world and is considered a national pastime in Korea. With the release of Starcraft II e-Sports continue to grow in Korea and are growing at a grassroots level in North America.
This one's just my opinion, but you should get rid of the first sentence since it doesn't relate exactly to the focus of this letter, which is Starcraft 2. Instead, change this around so that you're describing Starcraft 2 to the fullest, it's okay if you embellish a little. For example:
With the release of Starcraft II, e-Sports is continuing to grow in South Korea and in North America. Starcraft II is considered a national pastime in South Korea and is considered the most successful e-Sport in the world.
On December 03 2010 05:29 Torture wrote: On websites such as Reddit and Team Liquid hundreds of thousands of people meet to discuss the game, strategy, and share replays.
After "hundreds of thousands of people meet", you should insert a timeframe such as daily, or weekly, or whatever, to give the reader a sense of the activity of the community. A blanket statement about population size does not give a complete sense of frequency of activity.
On December 03 2010 05:29 Torture wrote: Here in North America Major League Gaming (MLG) recently added Starcraft II to their pro circuit. At a recent tournament in ___ (Dallas, Raleigh, wherever we can find stats for) MLG attracted _____ viewers, with a prize pool of $7,000 for regular season tournaments.
Get rid of the mention of the prize pool here, it pales in significance with the prize pool of the GSL and will cause scale whiplash in the reader particularly as they are both in the same paragraph. Just insert a weasel word instead, like it has a "major" prize pool or something.
On December 03 2010 05:29 Torture wrote: I strongly urge you to consider broadcasting Starcraft II and to contact Blizzard Entertainment regarding broadcasting rights. There is a tremendous opportunity here for ESPN. For your convenience, the following is the appropriate email to contact Blizzard Entertainment. (Insert relevant Blizzard email, anybody know it?)
You should get rid of the stuff about Blizzard. You are basically telling the reader what to do and assuming this ever gets to a decently high-ranking guy at ESPN, they won't appreciate that. Also definitely watch out for personal pronouns, it makes you sound familiar and like an insincere asshole. Just end it at "consider broadcasting Starcraft II" and insert some platitudes at the end about how great the game and e-Sports are. For example:
I strongly urge ESPN to consider broadcasting Starcraft II. There is a tremendous opportunity here for ESPN. e-Sports are a growing scene worldwide and Starcraft II, as the largest and newest e-Sport, is leading the way.
I would subscribe to ESPN if they cast SC2 tournaments regularly, maybe with the focus on NA/Europe circuit. Something that the audience can relate to.
It seems like a kind of bourgeois arrogance to demand that a national network broadcast a game that caters to such a limited demographic -- essentially a demographic within a demographic. Sports covered on ESPN are so much more accessible to all groups of people, including those without high speed internet access or a quality home PC. That's one of the best things about football, basketball, baseball, soccer -- I met kids in Haiti who derived so much pleasure simply from playing soccer barefoot in a rocky field. It's elemental, the physical confrontation, the camaraderie of a team, etc.
And in America, who really wants to see it? Think about how small the amount of copies sold is in relationship to our population. Compare that with the accessibility of any sport shown on ESPN. Not to mention that starcraft is crippled by its proportional inaccessibility more so than any traditional sport would be, since you really need to have a fairly decent knowledge of the game to enjoy casts beyond the point of their novelty wearing away.
And beyond that, the casters don't really understand the human side of sport's appeal at a level that even the most terrible sports journalists do. I don't know why, but there's not a lot of analysis regarding players' philosophical tendencies with respect to strategy in casts. At least, nothing that goes very far beyond "Kyrix is an aggressive Zerg." Even the English-Speaking players in the GSL are barely covered in this regard. Team Liquid's feature articles are the only easily accessible source of this kind of coverage, even as the community obviously hungers for it -- the main example I can think of being how popular blog-style first person reports on the foreign scene are on the forums here.
Some things you might want to say: Help attract the "geek" part of our society, which is already rapidly growing.
The fact that we can have 20000 people just watching a tournement while lacking major advertisemnts. Imagine if they have it on tv, its not infeasible for 100k me thinks.
The time to jump on the e-sports boom is now.
Some starcraft commentators have over 300000 subscribors on youtube.
On December 03 2010 06:04 McIver wrote: It seems like a kind of bourgeois arrogance to demand that a national network broadcast a game that caters to such a limited demographic -- essentially a demographic within a demographic. Sports covered on ESPN are so much more accessible to all groups of people, including those without high speed internet access or a quality home PC. That's one of the best things about football, basketball, baseball, soccer -- I met kids in Haiti who derived so much pleasure simply from playing soccer barefoot in a rocky field. It's elemental, the physical confrontation, the camaraderie of a team, etc.
And in America, who really wants to see it? Think about how small the amount of copies sold is in relationship to our population. Compare that with the accessibility of any sport shown on ESPN. Not to mention that starcraft is crippled by its proportional inaccessibility more so than any traditional sport would be, since you really need to have a fairly decent knowledge of the game to enjoy casts beyond the point of their novelty wearing away.
And beyond that, the casters don't really understand the human side of sport's appeal at a level that even the most terrible sports journalists do. I don't know why, but there's not a lot of analysis regarding players' philosophical tendencies with respect to strategy in casts. At least, nothing that goes very far beyond "Kyrix is an aggressive Zerg." Even the English-Speaking players in the GSL are barely covered in this regard. Team Liquid's feature articles are the only easily accessible source of this kind of coverage, even as the community obviously hungers for it -- the main example I can think of being how popular blog-style first person reports on the foreign scene are on the forums here.
Seriously, now? Broadcasting starcraft is class warfare because some people don't have good computers? Please.
Sean "Day9" Plott........ blabla some sort of sentence about Day9 because he's awesome and the ambassador of eSports in the West. (Link to HuskyStarcraft or Day9 or an exciting cast of some sort...any recommendations?
As someone who has dealt (albeit unsuccessfully) with the CEO of the CPL, I can tell you that these emails do actually get through and they do get read. Make it as professional and straightforward as possible, and eliminate superfluous adjectives. I'd also avoid the nebulous "To Whom It May Concern" (I've always hated that) and instead find a specific contact within the company to address directly.
You want to convey the target demographic as well as maybe suggest ESPN-2 for coverage. If you discover that ESPN-2 has a different command structure (it probably does) then send this email to a member of the management there instead.
As far as the Blizzard contact, find someone in the Blizzard e-Sports department. Rob Simpson perhaps (he casts most of the Blizzard events)? Company email addresses are typically first initial last name, maybe you'll have luck with him as a contact. Be sure you consult him beforehand, since it's possible they've already pursued talks with ESPN.
I like how quantitative your email is. The more relevant facts and statistics you can provide, the easier it will be for them to start a discussion internally.
Best of luck.
EDIT: Krigwin had a good post above and it reminded me of something. You need to specify what exactly your aims are here. When I emailed CPL, it was to get Starcraft added as a game in the CPL, which had established, annual tournaments. Do you want ESPN to create their own tournament? Cover other tournaments in conjunction with MLG? In conjunction with GOM? That part wasn't very clear in your email.
Unlimited Computer/Broadband access is not available to a majority of people in the United States. And that's a factor in this discussion, so downplaying it is pointless.
I don't think that ESPN broadcasts things like this. ESPN shows sports that are either familiar or easy to understand. You're better off with something like G4 or Spike.
On December 03 2010 05:46 FabledIntegral wrote: Idk why, I love watching SC2, would just think it'd be embarssing to have it on ESPN. Just not the channel I'd like to see it on... then again I also don't really care to see fishing on ESPN either, so whatever!
I think there would be a massive public outroar against it, however.
The same type of email could be sent to other channels - G4TV, Spike, etc. ESPN is just the one the original reddit guy started it with.
Would seem more natural on G4TV, Spike, etc. than ESPN to me. Maybe ESPN2 as some brought up. Maybe.
On December 03 2010 05:46 FabledIntegral wrote: Idk why, I love watching SC2, would just think it'd be embarssing to have it on ESPN. Just not the channel I'd like to see it on... then again I also don't really care to see fishing on ESPN either, so whatever!
I think there would be a massive public outroar against it, however.
The same type of email could be sent to other channels - G4TV, Spike, etc. ESPN is just the one the original reddit guy started it with.
Would seem more natural on G4TV, Spike, etc. than ESPN to me. Maybe ESPN2 as some brought up. Maybe.
They show poker which has prize pools in the millions. e-sports wont compete. G4TV would be the only channel looking for something like this.
Your intentions are good but unrealistic. RTS games overall are not even near the level of popularity that it is in Korea, China and Taiwan. If ESPN or another network ever broadcasts a video game it will be one of much more mainstream appeal. Think something such as CoD or Halo.
I like that you are passionate about this but realistically, they are just going to laugh at you.
On December 03 2010 05:40 Holcan wrote: also the niche that ESPN is looking to fill isnt exactly filled by esports, im sure they arent lacking the 16-30 year old males.
They're probably lacking the geeky/nerdy 16-30 year old males though. ^_^
I personally would rather watch streams than G4 or Spike. They have so many commercials and even have ads DURING the programming in some cases. ESPN is in a class above those channels. If we can get enough support, this has a very high probability to get on ESPN2 if we do this right. If we could turn on ESPN2 at 3 or 4 am and see Tastosis casting the GSL, I'd be a very happy man. Once we get enough edits from people who actually know english, they will hopefully look at Reddit and TL and see what a strong following it has and consider this.
I watched some of there Madden show. They actually didn't show a lot of the game being played, a lot of it was following the players around. I did like how before a lot of the plays they would ask the player why they chose the play they did. Though I think for SC2 you need to show the whole game, or most of it, they could use this same question with the player format. Why did you choose to switch to mutalisks at this point in the game? etc. Hope something like this works out somewhere, probably G4.
edit: Also, would it be better to have some kind of single email with a link to a list of signatures or something, I don't know.
There's no way they are even going to consider this. SC2 prize pools seem like alot for e-sports/a video game... but think about how much more is in pretty much every other competitive activity. SC2 can't even dream of touching basketball/football/baseball, it's not even close to poker prize pools, even fishing/bowling have more money in them than SC2.
There's pretty much no channels that would ever consider broadcasting SC2. It's not financially sound.
There needs to be some moderation in this thread, seriously. If you think this is hopeless or some kind of "bourgeois arrogance" or that OP is an idiot for attempting something like this, that's a pretty cool story bro, why don't you go to one of the gajillion balance threads in the strategy forum and grace some fools with your wisdom. This thread is about improving this letter which I think is a decent idea although the chances of success seem low, but hey, dare to dream, right?
On December 03 2010 05:29 Torture wrote: As of December 2010 “HuskyStarcraft” has over 300,000 subscribers and more than 100,000,000 combined views.
You want to insert "A Youtube user known as" in front of HuskyStarcraft here so the reader knows what the hell you're talking about.
On December 03 2010 05:29 Torture wrote: Sean "Day9" Plott........ blabla some sort of sentence about Day9 because he's awesome and the ambassador of eSports in the West.
Here is my attempt:
Another famous e-Sport figure, Sean "Day9" Plott, runs a daily webshow that attracts over (someone who knows the numbers insert them here) viewers per show.
On December 03 2010 05:29 Torture wrote: (Link to HuskyStarcraft or Day9 or an exciting cast of some sort...any recommendations? Perhaps DreamHack & GSL VOD? Both professionally done and a pretty large scale.)
No. This is bad. Bad bad bad bad bad. The last thing a guy taking a cursory glance at your letter wants to do is go watch some 20-minute long video casted by some dude he doesn't even know about a game he knows nothing about. It will off-put the reader from the focus of your letter, cause him to lose interest, and worst of all, maybe associate the game with juvenile vidya gaemz. If I was an ESPN official who didn't know anything about Starcraft 2, a Husky video on Youtube would make me hate the game and delete this email immediately.
What you want to do is instead say something like, "For more examples of the kind of viewership Starcraft II as a televised e-Sport can attract, consider (stuff)", where stuff can be links to GomTV or some Blizzard hosted page on Blizzcon or an MLG page or some combination of all of them. You want to brute force straight-up out-muscle the reader here and overwhelm him with numbers and statistics so he thinks Starcraft II is the shit. You want him to see the kind of money and viewers and ratings a simple computer game is attracting. You do NOT want to waste his time with videos.
I think they might be able to draw in a new demographics that dont otherwise watch ESPN. This is pretty important and you may want to add that point.
While addition of another big sport would not change the demographics that much (a person who watch one sport are more likely to watch another), the demographics for e-sport can be very different and can bring them new blood.
to all the nay sayers out there, if ESPN recieves 20,000 letters asking for SC2 then they will do the family guy math and realise that if 20,000 people cared enough to write in about it then there must be many many times more people that would watch it.
Around 3 million people play sc2, and if husky has over 100,000,000 views then a very good sized chunk of them watch SC2 related content, no it won't get prime time but unless you ask you shall never recieve.
Family guy has been cancelled 5 times and brought back DUE TO VIEWER DEMAND! Shareholders like profit and to get that they have to listen to their viewers.
On December 03 2010 06:24 HyruleanTubist wrote: I personally would rather watch streams than G4 or Spike. They have so many commercials and even have ads DURING the programming in some cases. ESPN is in a class above those channels. If we can get enough support, this has a very high probability to get on ESPN2 if we do this right. If we could turn on ESPN2 at 3 or 4 am and see Tastosis casting the GSL, I'd be a very happy man. Once we get enough edits from people who actually know english, they will hopefully look at Reddit and TL and see what a strong following it has and consider this.
As a closing, how about
Sincerely,
The Starcraft II Community
What exactly is the difference between turning on Spike and watching GSL and opening a browser and watching GSL? If it's about comfort, you can always hook your computer up to a tv screen.
to all the nay sayers out there, if ESPN recieves 20,000 letters asking for SC2 then they will do the family guy math and realise that if 20,000 people cared enough to write in about it then there must be many many times more people that would watch it.
Around 3 million people play sc2, and if husky has over 100,000,000 views then a very good sized chunk of them watch SC2 related content, no it won't get prime time but unless you ask you shall never recieve.
Family guy has been cancelled 5 times and brought back DUE TO VIEWER DEMAND! Shareholders like profit and to get that they have to listen to their viewers.
And for every box of SC2 sold CoD: BO sold three more. If something is financially unwise, ESPN isn't going to change their decision based on 20K angry nerd letters. If you want to see SC2 on TV America and other places have to culture change. There is just no way atm ESPN or G4 will ever broadcast SC2 when they can go "look, DirecTV tried this already and it failed."
On December 03 2010 06:25 travis wrote: Isn't spamming ESPN with thousands of emails of the exact same thing an AMAZINGLY obnoxious thing to do?
I'm going to have to agree with you here. Wouldn't just 1 email work?
I disagree.
1 email can be overlooked. 10 emails can be overlooked. ... 10,000 emails WILL NOT be overlooked.
They won't consider this as an attack that bring down their email system, as long as this done truthfully and sincerely. The only people that will be annoyed are their IT admin, who probably plays Starcraft anyway. The executives will see this as a business opportunity.
If you don't try, nothing can be gained. So why not?
I think an email campaign by TL, Reddit, Day9, and husky would provide enough thousands of emails that they might think "hey, you know, alot of people game. why not try it out?"
you should definitely include how it was successful in korea (in depth). nothing is as convincing as evidence of success like that. i remember seeing stats that sc is #2 viewed channel in korea following the news. #3 is soccer or something like that.
also, don't assume espn knows your lingo. most people dont know what esports are.
ESPN1/2 coverage is basically never going to happen, but you might be able to get ESPN3 to host something, since its basically just their streaming service.
I'm not very optimistic about this, though. The spelling bee is one of those one-a-year nationals things that has a surprising amount of interest. Stuff thats on during off-peak hours like fishing or hunting doesn't help your argument at all because you'd have to have the event over and then replayed in that timeslot (where you may as well not have it because almost nobody is able to watch it).
I stick to my "shoot for ESPN3."
Also, put all reference links at the very end. You don't want to interrupt the flow of the reading.
On December 03 2010 06:41 JiYan wrote: as many have stated before me:
you should definitely include how it was successful in korea (in depth). nothing is as convincing as evidence of success like that. i remember seeing stats that sc is #2 viewed channel in korea following the news. #3 is soccer or something like that.
also, don't assume espn knows your lingo. most people dont know what esports are.
Any idea where you saw those stats? Would love a link so that I could include something like that.
Thousands of email in an inbox will be viewed as yet another mass online spam effort, a la 4chan, and the email account would most likely be ignored or closed.
You need a prominent figure (read: Day9) to somehow get in touch with a prominent ESPN figure. Work on the personal level, not virtual.
Oh, and the only purpose in getting sc2 onto ESPN would be to reach a wider market, and the viewership already existing for the sports content on ESPN would, in my opinion, largely be uninterested in a "video game claiming to be a sport", in their eyes.
This isn't that far fetched as it might sound. Eurosport have been showing some eSport on their Eurosport2 channel. I don't have ESP so haven't read the thread if someone mentioned it already.
The most they've ever shown of Ultimate Frisbee are occasional video clips. I don't remember seeing lacrosse either. Non-olympic water polo, field events of the track and field variety, arena football, various minor leagues, these don't get air time at espn either.
So why would starcraft? You're more likely to get halo, or even more, paintball.
You could single out spelling bees, but those are very niche events that the general public finds appealing.
As other people have mentioned, I wouldn't limit yourself to ESPN. Maybe try them first, see what kind of response you get, then use that to gauge your next attempts. I personally think ESPN is a bit lofty of a goal right now, but it's a good place to focus your initial efforts.
To anyone talking about the prize pool not being a good incentive, you have to remember game shows like "Wipeout" (prize $25,000) or "Win Ben Stein's Money" (prize $5000) that have multiple seasons. It's not like people watch these programs to see the monetary gain of another person, it's the game itself that they enjoy.
The idea is good, but you should really be sending the letter / email to a network like spike, g4tv ect. like other people have said. Im sorry guys but TL gives you a false impression of how popular esports are in America, ESPN is not going to be willing to take that kind of risk. I mean it took forever for them to show soccer
man... what if ESPN does start to broadcast sc2. Even at like the worst hours of the day, slowly more people will start watching. ESPN has to then start hiring casters and that will make the exposure even greater. I just hope they don't get some guys who play "lots of diff games" to do the casts... hopefully we get guys who specialize in sc2.
Okay so... I REALLY like esports and I keep up with GSL religiously (also MLG when it's around and other tournaments as well). I also really appreciate your motivation, and will be willing to sign any list you ask me to so that you can send it in with your letter.
However, I don't think the audience of SC2 and the viewers of ESPN overlap too much. (It was really surprising to see they broad casted MTG though lol). I would guess that many of ESPN's viewers are 50 year olds who don't really use computers, and probably don't even know sc2 exists. This isn't to say they wouldn't grow to like it - but when they see something like sc2 when what they want is football / hockey / baseball, I don't see it going well. Also, many of the people involved in sc2 are not.... in shape. And although this is really superficial (and I could care less), many of the viewers may not respect that since they're so used to seeing the physiques of professional athletes.
I really encourage you to continue writing your letter and will support you all the way, BUT I would suggest you reconsider which group you send it to. For example, you might have a higher chance of success by sending it to MTV, or YTV, or some other station.
Hopefully you don't get the wrong idea - I love that you're doing this, just ESPN might not be the ideal recipient of your letter.
If we only send one mail, I think the ideal would be to collect signatures in the different communities of StarCraft, starting with this. Attach a document with the support of thousands of people, the letter will have much more weight, since it is a statement of a community, not a single request.
If They only receive a single e-mail, the first thing they will think will be: "Ok, some nut wants to relay his favorite videogame ... Brenda throw this into the trash can, Ok?"
Nothing will happen if no one steps up to try, so I applaud the OP for stepping up. I honestly don't think it's as unlikely as people make it out to be. StarCraft 2 has sold many copies worldwide, and ultimately that's what it comes down to: potential viewership.
On December 03 2010 07:05 rally_point wrote: Okay so... I REALLY like esports and I keep up with GSL religiously (also MLG when it's around and other tournaments as well). I also really appreciate your motivation, and will be willing to sign any list you ask me to so that you can send it in with your letter.
However, I don't think the audience of SC2 and the viewers of ESPN overlap too much. (It was really surprising to see they broad casted MTG though lol). I would guess that many of ESPN's viewers are 50 year olds who don't really use computers, and probably don't even know sc2 exists. This isn't to say they wouldn't grow to like it - but when they see something like sc2 when what they want is football / hockey / baseball, I don't see it going well. Also, many of the people involved in sc2 are not.... in shape. And although this is really superficial (and I could care less), many of the viewers may not respect that since they're so used to seeing the physiques of professional athletes.
I really encourage you to continue writing your letter and will support you all the way, BUT I would suggest you reconsider which group you send it to. For example, you might have a higher chance of success by sending it to MTV, or YTV, or some other station.
Hopefully you don't get the wrong idea - I love that you're doing this, just ESPN might not be the ideal recipient of your letter.
Yeah, ESPN would just be one recipient. The original Reddit discussion was about ESPN and somebody mentioned making a form email so I took up that challenge.
ESPN is a big leap, but no harm in trying. Whats the worst that can happen? they say no and nothing changes oh well? Best outcome i can see is them sending you to other stations that might be more accepting of the idea(because if it catchs on, on other stations espn can always buy it back).
Also i think with ever year theres a better and better chance of a station picking up a pro gaming league. But idk if we're there quite yet.(Other then CGS being on directv until the recession hit and their experimental advertising budget was cut )
People are way too pessimistic. Obviously SC2 isn't going to get featured on ESPN's main TV channel but you have to keep in mind that ESPN owns a huge and extremely popular network of channels on TV, radio, internet and otherwise some of which might be interested in SC2. Espn.com already runs a bunch of e-sports features mostly online including videos, blogs, and the like (you can check out just a few of them here: http://search.espn.go.com/mlg/).
A letter that just lets ESPN know that there's a big newcomer in e-sports seems plenty worthwhile to me. Nice work.
how do you guys not see how stupid it is to spam them with emails. seriously. why aren't more people speaking up about what a terrible idea this is?
do you REALLY think they are going to appreciate getting thousands of emails of the same thing? do you think they are going to go "oh i just got 10,000 emails of the same thing, well clearly this now has more clout and i should seriously listen!"
no. thats not going to happen. they are going to go "wow what the fuck is wrong with these people spamming the shit out of us, don't they realize how hard it is to go through 10,000 fucking emails?"
Mr.X's idea is much much better. It's not juvenile and selfish like a bunch of immature kids screaming for attention.
i liked what rift had to say about this too. day9 contacting them would be pretty awesome.
I think a description of Starcraft's qualities as a spectator sport should be included, why it lends itself more to broadcasting than other games. Maybe also that MBC and OGN basically live off of nothing but Starcraft, so there is certainly potential for profit.
By the way in your first sentence you have "progRamming" and not "progaming", for simplicity's sake it might as well be spelled out "pro-gaming" to not confuse anyone who reads it.
dude when this msg is done being written ill copy paste and sign myself up if that is allowed?. just send the e-mail to me, so i can send it to ESPN as well.
Oh, just checked out the link, didn't realize a letter was already sent and they got a response. Wasn't the greatest letter, included a link to GSL 1 Fruitdealer music video, not even an hd video (though I love that video).
I like letters like these are good idea, but they should be aimed at other stations. No Jock-filled sports broadcasting station is going to cover Starcraft 2. However, some of the more niche techguy channels, or maybe even something like HBO or CNBC late at night might play the odd Starcraft 2 match at 4 in the morning.
On December 03 2010 07:19 travis wrote: how do you guys not see how stupid it is to spam them with emails. seriously. why aren't more people speaking up about what a terrible idea this is?
do you REALLY think they are going to appreciate getting thousands of emails of the same thing? do you think they are going to go "oh i just got 10,000 emails of the same thing, well clearly this now has more clout and i should seriously listen!"
no. thats not going to happen. they are going to go "wow what the fuck is wrong with these people spamming the shit out of us, don't they realize how hard it is to go through 10,000 fucking emails?"
Obviously if its 10,000 emails from the same dude it will look bad. But really next to supporting a company who supports esports thats the next best thing. Its not like the head of espn looks through the random emails. They have a division of their company whos job it is to go through all the emails, send the important emails on to the higher ups and trash the rest/answer the emails. Since the email would just go to a generic email.
So 10,000 emails would definitely get noticed and talked about and hopefully work its way up. Where if you send 1 email with 10,000 signatures its likely that 1 dude will see it and if hes in a bad mood he may just trash it.
On December 03 2010 07:22 ~GhoSt wrote: By the way in your first sentence you have "progRamming" and not "progaming", for simplicity's sake it might as well be spelled out "pro-gaming" to not confuse anyone who reads it.
It's supposed to be programming not pro-gaming.
....urge you to consider it as a programming option.
ESPN doesn't care about e-sports, and neither do most of its viewers, who consider sports to be athletic endeavors. It just doesn't jive with their culture, which pretty much unanimously looks down upon video game playing nerds. E-sports needs its own channel, where it can actually be respected.
Looking for the following, does anybody have them?
Sales: Any idea how many units SC2 has sold to date. I've found one/two day sales and one month sales but can't find anything up to date. NUMBERS: Anybody have an estimate or know where to find the numbers for how many people watched GSL? MLG?
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AdAge.com) -- ESPN, the self-proclaimed "worldwide leader in sports," is adding video-gaming coverage to its lineup of football, baseball, basketball and other sports programming.
ESPN ESPN will provide online coverage of Major League Gaming's 2008 Pro Circuit competitions.
On the heels of the first televised season of DirecTV's "Championship Gaming Series," which featured live professional video-game tournaments, ESPN has entered into a multiyear content agreement with Major League Gaming to provide extensive online coverage of MLG's 2008 Pro Circuit competitions, including exclusive streamed matches, player interviews, scores and stats. ESPN will also feature MLG content in short segments on its existing TV programs.
ESPN will be onsite at each of the 2008 MLG Pro Circuit competitions, reporting news from its own coverage booth for various ESPN programs and platforms, including ESPN360.com.
That young-male demo Video gaming is one of the most popular activities among young males. According to research from Frank Magid Associates, 34% of males ages 12 to 24 list playing games on consoles such as PlayStation and Xbox as their favorite leisure activity. The next-closest activity, at 14%, is playing sports or exercising. So it's not surprising to see a mainstream media outlet turn its attention to gaming. ESPN's move into covering video games follows those of other TV networks, such as MTV Networks, which has invested in gaming-news sites such as GameTrailers.com and has broadcasted an annual Gamer's Week.
"If things work out nicely, I hope to see a larger relationship down the road," said Raphael Poplock, VP-games, ESPN Enterprises. "I'm bullish on professional gaming. This is a nice first step to establish a presence in this space and find out through reader interaction where to take this moving forward."
A potential second step could include a future MLG season airing on one of the ESPN TV channels. Mr. Poplock said the network has had great success with its "Madden Nation" reality TV show, which also featured a video-gaming competition, through its partnership with Electronic Arts.
As part of the MLG deal, ESPN will launch a section on its website with news, information and video related to competitive gaming. The section will include background on MLG, interviews with top players, video from past competitions and an ESPN/MLG top 10 with regularly updated video highlights. Additionally, MLG will host ESPN co-branded online video-game tournaments.
USA Network MLG bought time on USA Network last year to air taped segments chronicling its finals. MLG has had a relationship with ESPN during the year, with gamers from MLG appearing regularly on ESPN 2's "Cold Pizza" morning show.
Mr. Poplock said the ESPN Video Games site is performing ahead of expectations.
"Our next step with espnvideogames.com will be the launch of a new video-game show early this year that will focus on the latest news, events, big software launches and the competitive gaming space," he said. Mr. Poplock added that a crew was at the Consumer Electronics Show last week taping segments for the show.
On December 03 2010 07:33 FrostedMiniWeet wrote: ESPN doesn't care about e-sports, and neither do most of its viewers, who consider sports to be athletic endeavors. It just doesn't jive with their culture, which pretty much unanimously looks down upon video game playing nerds. E-sports needs its own channel.
because poker is and athletic endeavor... Like other people have said espn owns multiple channels, not just espn1. This is going to sound retarded but any one remember the movie dodge ball. Espn "the ocho" showing dodgeball, tractor races etc. Espn do actually have channels that show crazy ass shit lol
edit: the first month of sc2 sales, they sold over 3 mill copies and only other numbers i could find was it was predicted to sell 5-6 million copies the first year
Well it may sound silly that ESPN would even consider this, but this IS the same channel that broadcasts "world timbersports challenge" and "worlds strongest man" competitions, it's actually not that far of a stretch.
Having said that it would be more likely that G4 or another gaming channel would broadcast this.
Both ideas of sending 1 email or 10,000 are fine. Sending 1 email with abunch of support is it shows the same idea just condensed Into one letter, while 10,000 emails is showing the same idea with just an indication of how many people would prefer for this idea to be put into action.
Anyway, I like the idea. But what would ESPN broadcast? ESPN doesn't host leagues and matches, they only report them. They would have to send reporters to leagues (MLG, GSL, whatever) to get coverage, which can't conflict with other things. Seems a bit unrealistic right now.
[edit] After reading through the thread a bit more thoroughly, I definitely think this is not the best way to go about getting SC2 televised in the US.
On December 03 2010 07:33 FrostedMiniWeet wrote: ESPN doesn't care about e-sports, and neither do most of its viewers, who consider sports to be athletic endeavors. It just doesn't jive with their culture, which pretty much unanimously looks down upon video game playing nerds. E-sports needs its own channel.
because poker is and athletic endeavor... Like other people have said espn owns multiple channels, not just espn1. This is going to sound retarded but any one remember the movie dodge ball. Espn "the ocho" showing dodgeball, tractor races etc. Espn do actually have channels that show crazy ass shit lol
Yes, Poker is not an athletic endeavorer, but it is not shunned by the "manly men" who consider poker to be a manly sport. If you actually think ESPN would take e-sports serously, regardless of how many nerds loved it, you're fooling yourself. ESPN is run by, and mostly watched by, the guys who beat you and all your nerd friends up in high school.
Good luck with this, I will be following this thread. Whenever the form letter is finished I'll send it.
Keep up the work.
Also, I like the idea of getting Day[9] to mention it on his stream.
Which reminds me. Mention in the e-mail that Day[9] has a WEB STREAM (not even on television) that has 10K viewers a day 4 days a week. Also mention that he does it out of his freakin bedroom, no special effects, 1 man band type deal, and STILL gets 10K viewers a day. That's the person that needs to take this to ESPN or G4.
Think how much Day[9] could do if his daily was professionally done and on G4 or Spike. I think Starcraft 2 would sell another 3 million copies.
Sending this to G4 might also be a wise idea. At least they can have something good to watch that's video game-related.
I'm in complete support of StarCraft II, and e-sports in general (except Halo, because Halo is trash), growing in the US, and becoming a recognized sport genre.
I definitely would start off with something a little more splashy. Preferably numbers. Things like $$ signs with big numbers after them and viewing numbers. Starting it off like a petition is the wrong way to go, imo. You need to catch someone's eye....imagine if its some old guy screening the emails, and he barely even knows you can play games on a computer. He's just going to lol about 3 sentences in and press the delete key. Start it off with something like.
XXX,XXX,XXX views. $XXXXXXXX a year. NFL? No. XXX,XXX,XXX viewers is the total number of views a single Starcraft 2 broadcaster has accumulated on his youtube channel. $XXXXXXXX, the yearly salary of a professional SC2 player in Korea. Followed by more numbers, a description of the game, some of its famous people, Day9 would be first, he could be SC2s Fatal1ty.
Obviously I suck at writing and someone would need to make it sound more professional, but you need to more or less sell something to people who probably have little to no idea what you're talking about at first and will be REALLY, REALLY skeptical.
Good intentions with the single email, and it certainly can't hurt, but.. Please don't spam them with thousands of emails.
Also, I don't feel that this is really the business of the community. I'm sure there's already parties that are interested in, and that are hard at work at getting this type of thing rolling. Like, oh I dunno, Blizzard perhaps? Also, it's not just a matter of having ESPN say yes. There's two parties involved, three if you count Gretech, who is contractually set up with Blizzard already. I'm not entirely sure Activision/Blizzard would just sit by and not get their hands into the pot.
I hate to sound all negative, but I feel that this isn't really necessary... And spamming them is the worst idea ever. If something like this is gonna happen, there has to be an organization behind it that can, and has, something to offer.
I think this is a pretty awesome idea, but as mentioned by many people it does have some downsides. Spamming emails would not be the best idea, but showing support for Day9, Husky, and other casters would be a good start. Spreading the word around about starcraft 2 to everyone you know and giving them links to the casters would help as well. Another thing you have to remember is that SC2 is still pretty new. The first thing any TV channel will do is go to starcraft2.com look at their forums and see all the "SC2 is the worse game ever", "B.net 2.0 sucks" type threads and they are going to turn their backs on SC2.
@Rally_Point. I play starcraft quite a bit, and I have played for a long time, but I also watch a lot of Football and basketball, as well as play basketball. So to ESPN viewers are 50+ and SC2 aren't in shape is pretty far off from the truth. Also my dad watches ESPN pretty much everyday when he is not working, but he has also sat and watched me play BW quite a bit and enjoyed watching it. He would sometimes ask me to play a game because he thought it was pretty fun to watch.
There is really no telling what could happen. I would just consider spamming the emails, and maybe have all the SC2 communities come together and think of a plan. Like have someone make a poster saying "Show SC2 on ESPN" and give them to the top 10 casters. Get as many people to sign a petition and make a website showing the number of people that have signed. Eventually someone will see it and WANT to show sc2 matches.
I love this idea. Even if it doesn't work, I think it's well worth the effort. Showing fan support for something like this is a great idea.
In addition to ESPN, it might also be worth contacting someone at Blizzard.
As far as G4/Spike,etc goes - I feel like ESPN would treat it right, so that'd be the place to go first. G4 and Spike are more likely to air it, but I doubt they'll treat it with the respect it deserves. Look at the VGAs :p
Here a person has decided to send an e-mail making a proposal. If you want to send 10000 e-mails, you will have to start from the same premise. Those 10000 people should have their motives and reasons for sending an email to ESPN. I do not think the standard to follow is: 1 person wants to send an e-mail -> we should send 10000 emails.
We could send 10000 emails (one per person of course) if we where claiming about something, or because we can not sustain a critical situation or because the company directly owes us something and we want to recover it at all costs.
But ESPN does not owe us anything, so we should do things diplomatically. Firmly, but diplomatically.
On December 03 2010 05:34 Holcan wrote: as if 7,000$ prize pools are interesting when ESPN is used to covering athletes with over $100 million. And 10-20 thousand viewers is nothing compared to to the hundred of thousands of viewers they get for individual regular season games, let alone playoffs which yield millions of internationally interested fans. Its a wasted effort to contact ESPN, you'd be better off asking G4TV to have a more dedicated segment, but even still if everything is on the internet for Esports why do you want to include a media outlet that isnt declining in popularity? The people who want to follow sc2, can and do, so trying to force it into the mainstream is futile.
Another good idea would be getting college media outlets to cover the CSL, which probably has the draw of a chess tournament, and a debate team.
Admin, I would like to let you know I am restraining myself from insulting this person and breaking a rule on TL.
Dear person I just quoted, the OP stated he is trying to get Starcraft 2 a spot in it's off peak hours. In ESPN's off peak hours they do not cover multimillion dollar games, they do not have 100,000 viewers, this being said, you entire response to the OP was in the opposite direction. This could be because one of two problems, one, you did not read it, or two, you have lower than normal intelligence. Thanks.
On December 03 2010 07:33 FrostedMiniWeet wrote: ESPN doesn't care about e-sports, and neither do most of its viewers, who consider sports to be athletic endeavors. It just doesn't jive with their culture, which pretty much unanimously looks down upon video game playing nerds. E-sports needs its own channel.
because poker is and athletic endeavor... Like other people have said espn owns multiple channels, not just espn1. This is going to sound retarded but any one remember the movie dodge ball. Espn "the ocho" showing dodgeball, tractor races etc. Espn do actually have channels that show crazy ass shit lol
Yes, Poker is not an athletic endeavorer, but it is not shunned by the "manly men" who consider poker to be a manly sport. If you actually think ESPN would take e-sports serously, regardless of how many nerds loved it, you're fooling yourself. ESPN is run by, and mostly watched by, the guys who beat you and all your nerd friends up in high school.
Video games arent shunned by the "manly men" most of them have consoles and play video games. ESPN has already taken e-sports seriosuly when they signed a contract with mlg to cover the circut(and mlg bought gotfrag so thats 2 of the biggest outlets for esports..maily fps's tho). And since at the time of the contract mlg was mostly a console league, consoles were only popular in america. Euro and asia didnt have shit for competitive console teams.
So i would bet any money they are already have people keeping tabs on esports, and with SC having a global draw theres a chance they might cover a season and see how it goes. The more video games are accepted the more likely it will be talked about seriously (and with halo/cod its being more and more accepted) and corporations like espn are smart enough to not blindly disregard a potential way to get more companies competing for advertising slots.
edit: not to mention sc wouldnt be competing with millions of viewers. SC would be shown when the demograph would be up and willing to watch. And thats not prime time hours. Honestly if it made it on tv before midnight id be shocked.
Why don't people try something more reasonable like Spike TV or G4TV I hate to sound pessimistic but this will never even get to the Secretary desk of ESPN. I know alot on TL have accepted E-sports as sports. But we are a small percentage of people who feel that way 95% of Americans feel that Starcraft is just another computer games with Nerds playing.
how many people are actually going to tune in to the ESPN channel if they show some SC2 match? yes casters like day9 and husky have huge number of views because they are videos that are accessible at any time, it's not some number they got to in one week the day9 dailies get about 10000 viewers live and other people watch it during their free time
now pretend that ESPN is going to show a rerun of a GSL match played the previous night the viewership is already cut because many people will find the video online before it airs on ESPN if they show the matches live, they'll be showing it at 5AM EST which will also have a low viewership the final option is prevent people from posting videos of the match until it is aired on ESPN, and who the hell would want that option
and in response to the person who said that ESPN even shows "timbersports" tournaments even though no one really cares about it, it still involves people doing things i would be interested in watching a person running on a log or cutting logs and you can tell that the objective is to make the other person fall off the log or cut the log the fastest, but if someone suddenly flips to ESPN and sees two people sitting in a booth playing a computer game, they're going to flip the channel immediately because they don't understand anything about the game and won't be able to pick it up in a matter of seconds
On December 03 2010 08:05 Proto_Protoss wrote: Why don't people try something more reasonable like Spike TV or G4TV I hate to sound pessimistic but this will never even get to the Secretary desk of ESPN. I know alot on TL have accepted E-sports as sports. But we are a small percentage of people who feel that way 95% of Americans feel that Starcraft is just another computer games with Nerds playing.
Why are people suggesting G4? It's a dying channel that shows reruns of cops and cheaters 24 hours a day.
Good luck! I hope you stay positive in spite all this pessimism and harsh reality talk. There are some good suggestions on this thread as well, so maybe use them to fine tune your original plan. I do hope to watch esports broadcasted straight to my TV, so I wish you all the best.
Why are you even trying to get ESPN to cover sc2?they wont even cover UFC because its not "MainStream". To get sc2 on tv you will need a non suck gaming channel.
I think TV stations do enough research to know what will or will not work as a program with a very high accuracy rate. If a show will bring in the cash the chances are extremely high they have already thought it out.
ESPN sets up new channels all the time. ESPN 2 currently costs 12.99 per month. You can get premier league on sky for £12.25 extra a month. Networks will broadcast whatever you like but it won't be free unless some big tournament steps up. http://espn.go.com/espn/thelife/videogames/blog/_/name/thegamer/ they do have a blog though.
ABC Sports is bigger and better than ESPN. Can give them a shot with emails and see in a couple months if it gets any traction.
On December 03 2010 08:05 Proto_Protoss wrote: Why don't people try something more reasonable like Spike TV or G4TV I hate to sound pessimistic but this will never even get to the Secretary desk of ESPN. I know alot on TL have accepted E-sports as sports. But we are a small percentage of people who feel that way 95% of Americans feel that Starcraft is just another computer games with Nerds playing.
Why are people suggesting G4? It's a dying channel that shows reruns of cops and cheaters 24 hours a day.
Starcraft has a better chance with a dying channel than with an empire. Its better to get some exposure. If G4 announced they would broadcast SC i can bet there would be load of people watching. If on ESPN said ok heres Starcraft many people who are expected some sort of American sport would change the channel at the sight of random alien shit fighting.
On December 03 2010 07:19 travis wrote: how do you guys not see how stupid it is to spam them with emails. seriously. why aren't more people speaking up about what a terrible idea this is?
do you REALLY think they are going to appreciate getting thousands of emails of the same thing? do you think they are going to go "oh i just got 10,000 emails of the same thing, well clearly this now has more clout and i should seriously listen!"
no. thats not going to happen. they are going to go "wow what the fuck is wrong with these people spamming the shit out of us, don't they realize how hard it is to go through 10,000 fucking emails?"
Mr.X's idea is much much better. It's not juvenile and selfish like a bunch of immature kids screaming for attention.
i liked what rift had to say about this too. day9 contacting them would be pretty awesome.
I agree with this guy, would be awesome to have a famous e-sport figure contacting them, where as he could point to some kind of petition or just amount of mails he has gotten.
That way we could hopefully get inconctact with them without spamming, aswell as show how many people who'd actually be interested in e-sports shown on tv!
In china the government recently sponsored a 3 month long wc3 tournament. It will be broadcast on all major TV channels and apparently has newspaper coverage.
And as we all know the city of Incheon sponsored the GSL.
Its good to see governments and organizations getting involved, albeit with their own little personal gain attached with advertising.
As much as ESPN is undeniably the biggest sports channel out there, I actually think this might be a bad idea.
I'm an avid sports fan and sometimes I'm just forced to watch stuff on ESPN as there's no alternative. And they have subpar broadcasters too. Their broadcasters always spout a lot of crap on the spot about how X player has grit and heart. Then they just keep repeating that everytime he does a great play. Or how Y player is so talented, and how he is the future of his team.
They rely a lot on sensationalism sometimes, it's almost disgusting. And the lack of coverage of small-market teams until playoff time comes is annoying. They'll focus on the big market teams, and talk about them to death even if the team isn't doing that well.
I really would not like seeing them covering e-sports at this time. Unless they can guarantee us that they will be hiring the best broadcasters in the e-sports scene right now to be the ones covering the games, if they do decide to show them.
On December 03 2010 07:33 FrostedMiniWeet wrote: ESPN doesn't care about e-sports, and neither do most of its viewers, who consider sports to be athletic endeavors. It just doesn't jive with their culture, which pretty much unanimously looks down upon video game playing nerds. E-sports needs its own channel.
because poker is and athletic endeavor... Like other people have said espn owns multiple channels, not just espn1. This is going to sound retarded but any one remember the movie dodge ball. Espn "the ocho" showing dodgeball, tractor races etc. Espn do actually have channels that show crazy ass shit lol
Yes, Poker is not an athletic endeavorer, but it is not shunned by the "manly men" who consider poker to be a manly sport. If you actually think ESPN would take e-sports serously, regardless of how many nerds loved it, you're fooling yourself. ESPN is run by, and mostly watched by, the guys who beat you and all your nerd friends up in high school.
yeah after seeing this post, im reminded of this little bio clip of doyle brunson, and how he is pretty much the slayers_boxer of poker, he got it all started i think in a sense, or in his day it was crazy since they needed to carry guns, they played in tournaments that were underground, because i believe gambling at that high amount of money was illegal back then. so the game has evolved and wasn't always just a game of luck/repetition/chips/huge ass prize pools.
On December 03 2010 07:46 faction123 wrote: SC2 has sold about as many copies total as ESPN gets viewers on monday night. Why why why do you think they'd care?
Take baby steps, don't waste their time with these emails just yet.
try now, make a huge dent in their inbox, if it fails, try again later if someone else picks this up when its all set and done.
I would suggest starting with G4 or Spike and if it gets enough interest there then you will get an idea of the amount of people who watch it and can use it in an email to ESPN if you decode to do that
I wouldn't even be interested, and I think most of us prefer watching SCII via streams anyways since we actually like being on our computers/surfing. Bleh if SC gets on cable TV.
On December 03 2010 08:05 Proto_Protoss wrote: Why don't people try something more reasonable like Spike TV or G4TV I hate to sound pessimistic but this will never even get to the Secretary desk of ESPN. I know alot on TL have accepted E-sports as sports. But we are a small percentage of people who feel that way 95% of Americans feel that Starcraft is just another computer games with Nerds playing.
Why are people suggesting G4? It's a dying channel that shows reruns of cops and cheaters 24 hours a day.
They might cast the EG masters cup on their website, and why not G4.
It is the best place to strike and if we cause a big enough noise we can get it on TV.
This may not be as far fetched as some of you guys are making it out to be... if you look at the link below, they've broadcasted stuff as random as middle school math competitions, although it was more a yearly thing than a recurring program.
On December 03 2010 08:11 Baarn wrote:ABC Sports is bigger and better than ESPN. Can give them a shot with emails and see in a couple months if it gets any traction.
ABC Sports has been rebranded ESPN on ABC, and is essentially run by ESPN now.
I think SpikeTV might be the best target for SC2 on cable tv. ESPN could go with video games, but they'd likely want to do with with sport sim console games, not an RTS or even an FPS. People need to stop getting hung up on the idea that "Starcraft is so much better than Madden blah blah blah". ESPN doesn't care how good a game is, they care if their demographic will watch the show. Most of their demographic plays sports sims and are more likely to watch them than they are to watch a game they're unfamiliar with.
Just make sure the letters are very clear in their goal, no fluff. Executives don't have time nor patience for fluff.
Why is it impossible? ESPN broadcasted EA Madden championships before, and that was unbelievably shitty TV. SC2 is 100% more exciting and its fan base is much more passionate. Not to mention the fact that the model already exists for broadcasting (Korea). It's very possible to get something like this going. I would not be surprised if in the next 5-10 years we get an ESPN eSports channel. Gotta start somewhere.
On December 03 2010 08:00 KashmirAZ wrote: doesn't ESPN also cover the Madden Tour thing? Where they go around the country playing Madden games living on a bus.
Yeah but in the end its still football, and you now how Americans are with their football. I live in the U.S. and its pretty sad how a large majority of people ignore the biggest sport in the world(real football were you actually consistently use your foot a.k.a. Soccer)
Literally you could play spin the Football and put that on ESPN and i pretty sure a ton of people would watch it.
Starcraft being a videogames sadly has no chance due to the cultural shame put upon those who play alot of video games. Now if some famous American (Teen idol/Singer/Actor) starts playing, gets good, and wins something big, and publicizes it, then yeah it will get famous.
But unless some famous person does't consider it as being "Cool", no chance. Unfortunately
On December 03 2010 09:39 Zim23 wrote: Why is it impossible? ESPN broadcasted EA Madden championships before, and that was unbelievably shitty TV. SC2 is 100% more exciting and its fan base is much more passionate. Not to mention the fact that the model already exists for broadcasting (Korea). It's very possible to get something like this going. I would not be surprised if in the next 5-10 years we get an ESPN eSports channel. Gotta start somewhere.
Madden is a video game about sports, and is part of sports culture since the athletes portrayed by the game love it and pay attention to it. The day Madden is released, every NFL player checks out their in-game ratings.
Starcraft II has nothing to do with sports. It lacks the gross-out-but-can't-look-away factor of professional eating, it doesn't have the oh-those-poor-children factor of spelling bees, and anyone that hasn't played the game would be completely lost. I understand you would have a different casting strategy by trying to dumb things down, but seriously, do you think anyone who hasn't played Starcraft is going to try to figure out the difference between a marine and marauder?
There is comparatively little prize money to be won, and there would be comparatively little viewership in the US.
I would love for it to happen, but it just won't. Definitely not on ESPN or any other major sports network.
they show freakin poker and bowling, why not show this too? not that poker and bowling are bad but to be honest they really arent all that exciting to watch
That would be awesome to be honest, getting back from work, take a shower, grab some food and turn on the TV, sit next to the lady and watch fucking SC2 on ESPN^^
On December 03 2010 09:39 Zim23 wrote: Why is it impossible? ESPN broadcasted EA Madden championships before, and that was unbelievably shitty TV. SC2 is 100% more exciting and its fan base is much more passionate. Not to mention the fact that the model already exists for broadcasting (Korea). It's very possible to get something like this going. I would not be surprised if in the next 5-10 years we get an ESPN eSports channel. Gotta start somewhere.
Madden is a video game about sports, and is part of sports culture since the athletes portrayed by the game love it and pay attention to it. The day Madden is released, every NFL player checks out their in-game ratings.
Starcraft II has nothing to do with sports. It lacks the gross-out-but-can't-look-away factor of professional eating, it doesn't have the oh-those-poor-children factor of spelling bees, and anyone that hasn't played the game would be completely lost. I understand you would have a different casting strategy by trying to dumb things down, but seriously, do you think anyone who hasn't played Starcraft is going to try to figure out the difference between a marine and marauder?
There is comparatively little prize money to be won, and there would be comparatively little viewership in the US.
I would love for it to happen, but it just won't. Definitely not on ESPN or any other major sports network.
ESPN2 shows the most absurd things. I don't see why they couldn't show starcraft. The things I've seen on ESPN2 include Yo-Yoing, Dominoes and Scrabble. I would think SC2 would get more viewers than these things.
On December 03 2010 05:41 gozima wrote: Do you honestly believe ESPN will be remotely interested in promoting some niche RTS game that draws at most some 20-40 thousand online viewers?
ESPN viewership is in the millions, and I doubt advertisers would be interested in promoting SC2.
Lets be happy with our little corner of the internet and help ensure that it stays alive for years to come. Expanding our E-Sports universe is going to take baby steps not giant leaps of faith.
If they have time for Professional Poker, the X-Games, and Snooker, I think they have time for just about anything as long as it makes sense with their schedule.
On December 03 2010 09:34 DoubleLariat wrote: I believe that the sponsor is powerade not gatorade.
was going to post this as well.
Also while I'm skeptical they will give a shit, it's still good to try. You never know in a couple of years esports could have a small show on ESPN2/3. Hell they do regional 9 Ball tournaments, I'm sure we can reach the level of proam billards in a few years with esports, assuming we haven't already surpassed these sports.
it appears that ESPN responded to the email sent by the guy in reddit. Mass emailing will not *force* ESPN to show sc2. Moreover, if we mass email them, they might just end up ignoring us thinking we're just raging nerds.
Also, for all who don't know, The Walt Disney Company owns ABC, ESPN, some other media networks. Disney is the world's largest media conglomerate in terms of revenue according to fortune magazine. If any chance, they might start their own Gaming Channel like OGN or MBC. Idk, but disney is rich as hell.
On December 03 2010 10:03 mardi wrote: it appears that ESPN responded to the email sent by the guy in reddit. Mass emailing will not *force* ESPN to show sc2. Moreover, if we mass email them, they might just end up ignoring us thinking we're just raging nerds.
It won't force them no, but it will help them realize the potential market.
From the ESPN FAQ (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?page=help/espn-faq#program):
# SUBMIT A PROGRAM PROPOSAL OR STORY IDEA TO ESPN
ESPN's policy does not allow us to accept for review or consideration any ideas, suggestions, or creative materials not solicited by us or our subsidiaries.
So maybe e-mailing ESPN directly might not work. What's (sorry for the ignorance) a subsidiary of ESPN? Because talking to one of THOSE might work.
I'm also pretty sure it's Powerade not Gatorade. -------------------------------- But to all of you who say that this won't work....it probably won't. But there is a chance. And there's no effort involved for you...OP has written everything. You just need to send an e-mail.
The chances are incredibly small that your e-mail does anything. But the cost of doing so is basically nothing. Are you telling me you wouldn't accept a free lottery tickets b/c the chance of winning the lottery is so small?
Stop the cynicism and just send the god damn e-mail. It won't cost you anything, but the reward could be huge for our community and our sport.
Starcraft II has nothing to do with sports. It lacks the gross-out-but-can't-look-away factor of professional eating, it doesn't have the oh-those-poor-children factor of spelling bees, and anyone that hasn't played the game would be completely lost. I understand you would have a different casting strategy by trying to dumb things down, but seriously, do you think anyone who hasn't played Starcraft is going to try to figure out the difference between a marine and marauder?
Do you understand how complicated Football is? do you really know every rule to Football? How about basketball? Did you even know they cant have cream cheese in the lockers in the ACC? There are people at universities hired to specifically read the rule books because they are so big. Have you ever heard Artosis and Tasteless explain the game for people who "are new to the game"? they make side comments all the time about it. All you have to get across is the "Idea" of the game not every minor detail.
It sounds way too choppy and forced now. It has to sound natural, but backed up with evidence. More sentence variety, and don't just do fact after fact. Elaborate on stuff.
On December 03 2010 10:42 Pandain wrote: It sounds way too choppy and forced now. It has to sound natural, but backed up with evidence. More sentence variety, and don't just do fact after fact. Elaborate on stuff.
Problem is 1,000 characters without spaces doesn't leave much room for elaborating. What's there right now is 1,000 characters exactly. =/
I agree that G4TV or a similar station would be a better target for this type of campaign. G4 has said in the past that the reason they don't cover e-sports in general is because it is simply too niche even for their audience. Now, with the rise of SC2, there's a chance that G4 could be convinced, but ESPN is a bit of a pipedream.
My opinion is that "Teamliquid TV" would come before ESPN or G4.
I believe that things happen slowly. From one day to another we will not see a channel like ESPN broadcasting StarCraft (at any time of the grill).
I think it is an assault on a huge castle. At the moment, impossible.
On the other hand I think a very small channel or simply too small will not help. I'm tired of seeing programs, shows and interesting proposals simply ruined because no one sees that channel and the conclusion is "Ok, we were wrong, televise this or doing this type of program does not work."
Teamliquid TV is a possibility in some sense. At the moment no one could reach the cable TV channels, but "TL" has an amazing infrastructure now.
We have "Streamers" in several languages, different programs, dozens of commentators and, above all, a community and a public that supports the entire infrastructure as well as tournaments, progamers within the community, links to associations, brands and companies. I think there's enough material.
I think it's a matter of organization, also to observe deep as project and create a TV programming, but on the Internet.
I don't know what is sadder - the ones posting negative non-constructive stuff for no other reason than they are negative no-sayers - geez guys or the parochial USA centric blinkered attitudes a lot of you portray - ESPN would not be interested because E-sport is only big in China Taiwain and Korea - what - you think ESPN isn't interested those markets? China is the biggest market in the world...
Go for ESPN man - they will jump at it if presented properly
You tell them how to MARKET the show, and on the merit of that potential, they'll become interested.
This poses a serious problem. Why?
Because it requires an educated audience. ESPN appeals to people value "manliness," and feats of strength. Hence, ESPN's stable audience (the one they will "sell" to their advertisers) will not react well to programming whose dramatic appeal consists in "geeking out."
If you really want to pitch it, you have to think like their managing board.
I think it would be cool. Best of luck. I hope my points help.
1. Generate top players who are personable and fun to watch (like Jinro, et al.) 2. Generate professional commentators who can simultaneously appeal to new and to veteran audiences. 3. Maintain our hallmark goodwill and enthusiasm as a community: gl hf gg! (Seriously, what other sport breeds such sportsmanship?)
Why is there no mention of Eurosport's esports coverage in the letter. The first episode on the Global Challenge Shanghai had more then 1 million viewers. Way more relevant then husky's subscriber number or the korean viewer numbers because it is a similar market.
On December 03 2010 11:31 RhodanP wrote: I don't know what is sadder - the ones posting negative non-constructive stuff for no other reason than they are negative no-sayers - geez guys or the parochial USA centric blinkered attitudes a lot of you portray - ESPN would not be interested because E-sport is only big in China Taiwain and Korea - what - you think ESPN isn't interested those markets? China is the biggest market in the world...
Go for ESPN man - they will jump at it if presented properly
Honestly, I think the solution is not to "try their luck" with a lot of television or associations.
If we can do things right the first time in one go, perfect. Say "Hey, what can go wrong?" Well ... the worst that can happen is that the first impression will be horrible and they will refuse to read more letters like this.
That's what can happen.
A move like this should be supervised by Teamliquid.
On December 03 2010 11:39 Aporetics wrote: Here's how it works:
You tell them how to MARKET the show, and on the merit of that potential, they'll become interested.
This poses a serious problem. Why?
Because it requires an educated audience. ESPN appeals to people value "manliness," and feats of strength. Hence, ESPN's stable audience (the one they will "sell" to their advertisers) will not react well to programming whose dramatic appeal consists in "geeking out."
If you really want to pitch it, you have to think like their managing board.
I think it would be cool. Best of luck. I hope my points help.
I agree with this totally. the reason poker took off like a wild rocket is because this audience could still consider it "manly" enough to at least put up with it being on TV. Even if they dont consider it a sport. And also the fact that online poker is a MASSIVE money hog dosent help our cause.
however G4 would be better off by launching a SC league... it would appeal to their target audience much more than their now DISMAL programming. Would be fairly cheap to produce (with prize pool/production being the only recurring costs) and would provide advertisers with a viewer base they want to target MUCH more than with Cops/cheaters etc. They could even produce this ENTIRELY ONLINE.
Show thats Cheap,Marketable,Cutting edge, low production budget,video game oriented, and huge growth potential? why arent they already doing this?
Here's my version. I am writing to urge you not only on behalf of me or the people that have actively helped with this letter. I am writing on behalf of modern society as a whole, of the booming age where technology has morphed our modern day lives, changed the industry, and created specifically a new thriving phenomenon, known as E-Sports. (SOMEHOW NEED TO BRING UP SC2 IN THIS SENTENCE) As well all know ESPN is the monopoly of sports broadcasting. But we also know that you also show special programs from spelling bee's to even Magic the Gathering. Speaking on behalf of over a million people, we believe that E-Sports(electronic sports) is growing like never before, specifically one game, a strategy RTS game called Starcraft. The original Starcraft is considered a national pastime in South Korea, with regular showings on TV and years of long-standing and stable tournaments. (REPHRASE BETTER). Amassing a massive cult following, it was only when the sequel, Starcraft 2, came into existence that E-Sports has begun to explode. The fastest selling strategy game of all time, Starcraft Two has surpassed all expectations having regular audience viewings ranging from from 20000 viewers reguarly watching games live from a single stream to the 300,000 subscribers that famous SC2 commentators such as "Husky Starcraft" have. Tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people meet on websites such as Teamliquid and Reddit daily to discuss, debate, and watch Starcraft.
The time to capitalize on this is now. If from only the internet Starcraft Two can thrive so greatly, then imagine how much could happen if it was shown on ESPN. Viewers ranging from not only in America, but from China, Korea, and much of Europe(all having a big E-Sports base). By showing SC2 matches on television, not only would it be watched, but it would grow in ways we can only imagine. On behalf of hundreds of thousands of people, we write this, asking you to please consider showing SC2 matches.
feel free to edit it from here. I like the general way this is going.
It's great that some people are so enthusiastic about the game and the pro scene and it paints a bright future for esports. Realistically, i don't see this happening quite yet as it isn't as popular and mainstream as we would like it to be. However, there is nothing wrong with dreaming so good luck!
On December 03 2010 05:41 gozima wrote: Do you honestly believe ESPN will be remotely interested in promoting some niche RTS game that draws at most some 20-40 thousand online viewers?
ESPN viewership is in the millions, and I doubt advertisers would be interested in promoting SC2.
Lets be happy with our little corner of the internet and help ensure that it stays alive for years to come. Expanding our E-Sports universe is going to take baby steps not giant leaps of faith.
hey... do millions watch Magic the gathering or spelling bees? probably not.... so as long as we're a better idea than those we can get ourselves up on TV (by ourselves/we, i mean Starcraft 2)
So even for those who does not consider e-sports as sports, it still has a place in ESPN. Furthermore they also cover Poker quite extensively so i don't see why not. I do believe it's still too early and i'd much rather it to be a concerted team liquid reddit, husky effort ( basically all big sc2 community out there). We can provide them actual figures , signatures, maybe get big shots from MLG to chip in and have MLG broadcasted on ESPN for a start.
Noble effort but a little bit too early imo. You can't rush this as well otherwise it will end up just like CGS
1. Generate top players who are personable and fun to watch (like Jinro, et al.) 2. Generate professional commentators who can simultaneously appeal to new and to veteran audiences. 3. Maintain our hallmark goodwill and enthusiasm as a community: gl hf gg! (Seriously, what other sport breeds such sportsmanship?)
4. In professional sports, franchises invest in developing talent by (a) having "minor" leagues, and (b) having "scouts." For those who have never been involved in high-level sports, scouts don't just go around finding undiscovered talent: when they find it, they develop it. A scout becomes a personal coach to the talent he finds.
SC2 Teams are like this, but I hope to see the community develop more organized ways of developing talent. A fundamental part of this is keeping the community a positive place, supportive of players. Getting into SC2 is logistically hard enough. The first thing we can do is make the sacrifice worthwhile.
Great thought, who knows it could work considering the amount of channels Espn has. I could see them plugging this on Espn3 more than anything. Though the goal may be set a bit to high.
On December 03 2010 12:03 dtz wrote: ESPN is not all about sports
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network
So even for those who does not consider e-sports as sports, it still has a place in ESPN. Furthermore they also cover Poker quite extensively so i don't see why not. I do believe it's still too early and i'd much rather it to be a concerted team liquid reddit, husky effort ( basically all big sc2 community out there). We can provide them actual figures , signatures, maybe get big shots from MLG to chip in and have MLG broadcasted on ESPN for a start.
Noble effort but a little bit too early imo. You can't rush this as well otherwise it will end up just like CGS
The most basic problem isn't an issue of e-sports vs sports. It's the fact that people here are vastly overestimating GSL/MLG and vastly underestimating all the sports that ESPN broadcasts. Whatever the most watched e-sports event in the history of e-sports is is absolutely NOTHING compared to even the 'niche' stuff on the network. It can't even begin to touch things like basketball/football/baseball.
SC2 is nowhere near being an option for most legit broadcasting stations.
On December 03 2010 05:36 Minzy wrote: it doesnt have to be a prime time slot to begin with. i mean if theyre going to show "proffesional fishing", why not starcraft.
The sad truth is that there are more people interested in watching fishing, bowling, or any other more obscure sport than there are interested in watching SC2.
Tens of thousands of viewers is a very very small number comparatively to ratings that even the most obscure sounding programs pull in.
I watch almost every Sportscenter and almost every GSL game. That being said.... there is a better chance of me building a time machine and winning GSL season 1 than ESPN showing starcraft 2. I've never met a single person in real life that would watch a GSL game for more than 30 seconds and every person I know watches Sportscenter. Which do you think ESPN is going to show? They show poker because people actually watch it but seriously.... look at how many views the GSL videos have compared to how many people watch ESPN. Not even comparable.
While I think people are on the mark when they say that ESPN probably isn't going to be airing SC2 games at this point in time, the OP is on the right track. You have to lay the groundwork by showing there is some level of interest there. While the chances of near term success are low, the chances of them deciding to broadcast SC2 is zero if it's not even on their radar at all.
On December 03 2010 05:41 gozima wrote: Do you honestly believe ESPN will be remotely interested in promoting some niche RTS game that draws at most some 20-40 thousand online viewers?
ESPN viewership is in the millions, and I doubt advertisers would be interested in promoting SC2.
Lets be happy with our little corner of the internet and help ensure that it stays alive for years to come. Expanding our E-Sports universe is going to take baby steps not giant leaps of faith.
Boxer vs. NaDa had 1.4 million viewers.
it's a niche RTS game... no arguing against that. But look at the potential! You said it yourself "ESPN viewership is in the millions"
But I think TV is not going to be the way to reach the mainstream anymore. Esports needs a way to show an intense game via facebook/youtube/etc.
Being a dad now and having a kid in my arms for most of the time that I'm home, I would love to be able to grab the TV remote and throw a SC2 championship up on the TV while I play with my kids.
That is an effect you are not going to get out of YouTube or Facebook and is exactly why you need ESPN to have a major SC2 Tourney, even if its just once a year.
as much as I'd love to see sc2 on espn, you guys are crazy lol. First of all SC2 doesnt fit espn's program line up at all, either does it fit the demographic that already watches espn. Football football, basketball, soccer, baseball, more football, oh yea then 2 hours of starcraft, lmao not gonna happen.
You guys would be better served bothering g4tv, they might actually do it, since there viewership has been dropping as of late and they actually have broadcasted live video game tourneys before.
just because starcraft is an e-sport doesnt mean it should be on a sports channel, dont be a fool.
you guys are dreaming too big too fast, if you were to say, have a college based tournament in the states and canada, that might make it on espnU but never never nevewr espn or espn2, those are 2 of the most popular if not teh msot poopular cable channels in north america.
ESPN is not "looking for more programming" they have plenty, if you notice espn is basically the only channel that doesnt go infomercials for 4 hours at 3am, and theres a reason for that.
not a good video to send. I think the video alone is going to make them say no. If ur gonna show something, i HAS to be HD, and It has to not have corny music. If it was like a compilation of exciting moments where u can hear the crowd and the commentators going nuts it would be much better. Also you should use the korean commentators since they sound more exciting as well as more serious that Tastosis(love them though, but idk if ESPN would appreciate completely random corny jokes.) These are ppl who have never ever seen an RTS be played. If you give them low quality they are just going to close it and forget about it.
I have yet to see a good highlights video from sc2. I think we need desperately need one.
hey... do millions watch Magic the gathering or spelling bees? probably not.... so as long as we're a better idea than those we can get ourselves up on TV (by ourselves/we, i mean Starcraft 2)
At first I was thinking.. yeah ESPN and E-sports as if.
But that brings up a good point, they broadcast some serious garbage. I bet if you told ESPN execs 20 years ago they'd be playing HOURS of texas hold'em each week, including a Tuesday primetime slot... they have laughed you out of the room.
They also have run programming based on competitive Madden football.. so it isn't like they don't acknowledge competitive gaming.
Obviously if everyone who ever played SC2 emailed ESPN it wouldn't matter, they aren't broadcasting SC2 anytime soon. However, it is worth getting up with whatever other media outlets around, smaller TV stations, etc. because that is where it would have to start. If down the road it really picked up steam then who knows, have to start somewhere.
On December 03 2010 13:17 TheGiftedApe wrote: as much as I'd love to see sc2 on espn, you guys are crazy lol. First of all SC2 doesnt fit espn's program line up at all, either does it fit the demographic that already watches espn. Football football, basketball, soccer, baseball, more football, oh yea then 2 hours of starcraft, lmao not gonna happen.
You guys would be better served bothering g4tv, they might actually do it, since there viewership has been dropping as of late and they actually have broadcasted live video game tourneys before.
just because starcraft is an e-sport doesnt mean it should be on a sports channel, dont be a fool.
you guys are dreaming too big too fast, if you were to say, have a college based tournament in the states and canada, that might make it on espnU but never never nevewr espn or espn2, those are 2 of the most popular if not teh msot poopular cable channels in north america.
ESPN is not "looking for more programming" they have plenty, if you notice espn is basically the only channel that doesnt go infomercials for 4 hours at 3am, and theres a reason for that.
Did you read any of the other posts? Talking about the other crap they show at those times? I think sc2 could easily beat any of those for time slots...
Here's something I've never understood and I hope someone can explain it to me... why would anyone want pro-gaming to become popular? One of the main reasons it's so enjoyable (for me) is because it's a niche scene. It's like being in a special club that very few other people know about. You tell your friends about it and they go "No way! That's real??" Then they seek it out and you can talk about it with those friends, and you're all in that cool club.
What would be the benefit of pro-gaming becoming more widespread and being broadcast on ESPN? More commercials? A greater chance that players would take the fall for money? The luxury of watching the games on a chair in front of the TV as opposed to a chair in front of the computer? Or do people need validation for their enjoyment of progaming? Like "More people like it, so it's ok I do!"
On December 03 2010 13:49 NukeTheStars wrote: Here's something I've never understood and I hope someone can explain it to me... why would anyone want pro-gaming to become popular? One of the main reasons it's so enjoyable (for me) is because it's a niche scene. It's like being in a special club that very few other people know about. You tell your friends about it and they go "No way! That's real??" Then they seek it out and you can talk about it with those friends, and you're all in that cool club.
What would be the benefit of pro-gaming becoming more widespread and being broadcast on ESPN? More commercials? A greater chance that players would take the fall for money? The luxury of watching the games on a chair in front of the TV as opposed to a chair in front of the computer? Or do people need validation for their enjoyment of progaming? Like "More people like it, so it's ok I do!"
Someone please explain :/
You don't have to hide it in public anymore like you're a little freak. A lot of time if you accidentally bring it up in public you sound like a freak because you're a minority.
On December 03 2010 13:49 NukeTheStars wrote: Here's something I've never understood and I hope someone can explain it to me... why would anyone want pro-gaming to become popular? One of the main reasons it's so enjoyable (for me) is because it's a niche scene. It's like being in a special club that very few other people know about. You tell your friends about it and they go "No way! That's real??" Then they seek it out and you can talk about it with those friends, and you're all in that cool club.
What would be the benefit of pro-gaming becoming more widespread and being broadcast on ESPN? More commercials? A greater chance that players would take the fall for money? The luxury of watching the games on a chair in front of the TV as opposed to a chair in front of the computer? Or do people need validation for their enjoyment of progaming? Like "More people like it, so it's ok I do!"
Someone please explain :/
I agree with you. Well I guess the truth is I'm neutral. Aside from possible benefits to players, there really isn't all that much benefit to it that I can see. And since I am not and will not become a pro player, of course I'm going to look at it from the point of view of a spectator. I've never had any issues watching starcraft on the computer, dating back to BW I liked heading on over to sc2gg and throwing on some of my favorite casters, including NukeTheStars, while working on homework, or eating dinner, or even with a couple of friends to watch some games.
The difference to me as a spectator between seeing something on TV or the internet is minimal. Especially with the production value we've seen from Korea it's not like we're missing that either. I wouldn't care if starcraft became more mainstream, but I wouldn't care if it didn't either. I am happy with where it's at now.
On December 03 2010 05:34 Holcan wrote: as if 7,000$ prize pools are interesting when ESPN is used to covering athletes with over $100 million. And 10-20 thousand viewers is nothing compared to to the hundred of thousands of viewers they get for individual regular season games, let alone playoffs which yield millions of internationally interested fans. Its a wasted effort to contact ESPN, you'd be better off asking G4TV to have a more dedicated segment, but even still if everything is on the internet for Esports why do you want to include a media outlet that isnt declining in popularity? The people who want to follow sc2, can and do, so trying to force it into the mainstream is futile.
Another good idea would be getting college media outlets to cover the CSL, which probably has the draw of a chess tournament, and a debate team.
Who gives a shit? Try anyway. Nobody ever got anywhere with your kind of attitude. Itd be better to say you tried and get shot down than to not try at all.
I just don't think the audience is there for SC2 to be broadcasted on the biggest sports channel in the US. Poker isn't really a sport but the WSOP brings in a surprisingly large amount of viewers.
This seemed like a retarded idea until I saw cupstacking and darts and spelling bees on ESPN so it's not that far of a stretch. But it's still a far off idea because they'd have to buy the rights to broadcast and it would be at 4 AM and it would cover games 6 months old.
Ignore all the flamers, it's a cool idea and I appreciate the effort.
MLG had some success getting Halo onto cable for a couple of years, I'm not sure if there were ratings problems or if they just decided they could make more money focusing on self-distributing their product via the website.
Eventually, esports will be on TV in America, its just an inevitable result of demographic and cultural shifts... I doubt SC2 will be what makes it happen, but I certainly hope so! And whenever esports does make it onto tv, it will be because of the fans who made themselves and their wants known to networks and sponsors.
On December 03 2010 05:53 optical630 wrote: mention about artosis and tasteless having to broadcast in korea for the english speaking audience
Nooo nononononononononononono that is a bad idea nonono.
I'm not sure that those two have the broadcasting restraint to effectively broadcast in front of the market they would be speaking to on a nationally televised event. If you are remotely offensive on air, you are fired. No exceptions, and CERTAINLY none for a nascent market like SCII. I'm not saying I don't enjoy their casting (I find them quite funny as well as analytically rock-solid), but on their tact and restraint (and their ability to be witty under these restraints) would lie the entire future of e-sports.
Though HD and Husky are by far THE most popular (re: numbers) casters in the english-speaking community (and unfortunately the real ambassadors in the US at this time D: D: D: D: D: ), the casting team that best fits the bill is Day[J]Wheat. While I think that Day9 and Artosis would be a fantastic combination, I'm still not convinced of Artosis's restraint. His analysis? Yes. His restraint, again... more worried about. In this respect, DJWheat is superior. His analysis falls short of Artosis's, but nevertheless, he doesn't need to be the analyst of the two. Day[9]'s pretty analytically solid... at an understatement. Day9 is the most respected member of the community by far, and is thus instrumental in any large-scale American commercial SCII esports venture. DJWheat is also not clueless and has an air of class about him, from what I've seen. Why, yes, that sounds pretentious. Nevertheless, these two would be the ideal casting duo.
ESPN is not "looking for more programming" they have plenty, if you notice espn is basically the only channel that doesnt go infomercials for 4 hours at 3am, and theres a reason for that.
Have you ever watched ESPN at 3 in the morning, or some other early hour? All they do is rerun the same garbage over and over. How many times do they run ESPNews in a day? I was over my friend's house the other day and in the 2 hours I was there drinking, I watched the same damn play on ESPNews 4 damn times, because all ESPNews does is repeat itself for about 12 hours each day. They could do much better if they varied their shows. I highly doubt that they get good viewership at 3 in the morning anyway.
On December 03 2010 14:23 keV. wrote: The amount of viewers repeats of sportscenter gets will always be hundreds of thousands more than SC fans. Sorry guys, it won't happen.
True, but it could still happen on G4. It's far better than playing Cheaters or Cops all day.
You absolutely should find out the names of the people who will read the letter you send it. "To whom it may concern" is a cheap phrase and an immediate turn off.
If I recall they used to broadcast some sort of Halo 2 game play or tournaments (MLG stuff) on G4TV. Might have been back when it was called TechTV not sure though. Anyone remember??
This thread actually made me laugh in real life. I like Starcraft 2 as much as the next guy but I think they'd broadcast stuff like Halo before ever showing something as nerdy as SC2 on their channel.
"Hello ladies and gentlemen, this is Sean 'Day[9]' Plott coming to you live from *insert city name here* broadcasting the *insert tournament name here* Tournament in stunning ESPN high definition!"
On December 03 2010 15:12 Ferrose wrote: I can see it now:
"Hello ladies and gentlemen, this is Sean 'Day[9]' Plott coming to you live from *insert city name here* broadcasting the *insert tournament name here* Tournament in stunning ESPN high definition!"
why would you take a computer game with a community that thrives on the internet when the internet is growing, and try to get it broadcast on cable tv when tv is dying? do you know what tv networks and cable companies are investing in now? the internet. hulu plus, googletv, and all those box setups because internet-savvy people are cancelling cable tv services faster than they're getting new subscribers.
and why ESPN? the Korean sports channels don't show Starcraft. Starcraft is broadcast on Ongamenet and MBC Game. MBC ESPN doesn't even show Starcraft, why would US ESPN?
If this is going to happen, it's much more likely to happen on G4 or SyFy than ESPN. G4, of course, did run MLG broadcasts for a bit, and SyFy seems like it's open to the idea of gaming with WCG Ultimate Gamer.
On December 03 2010 15:28 LegendaryZ wrote: If this is going to happen, it's much more likely to happen on G4 or SyFy than ESPN. G4, of course, did run MLG broadcasts for a bit, and SyFy seems like it's open to the idea of gaming with WCG Ultimate Gamer.
I saw a quote somewhere in which ESPN talked about WCG and about maybe wanting to get involved with esports when the audience was large enough... Let me try and find it now.
On December 03 2010 05:41 gozima wrote: Do you honestly believe ESPN will be remotely interested in promoting some niche RTS game that draws at most some 20-40 thousand online viewers?
ESPN viewership is in the millions, and I doubt advertisers would be interested in promoting SC2.
Lets be happy with our little corner of the internet and help ensure that it stays alive for years to come. Expanding our E-Sports universe is going to take baby steps not giant leaps of faith.
Accessibility is a huge thing about it. If there were no sports at ALL on the TV and there never had been any on the TV, and you needed to download different media players and plugins to watch it with poor quality, how many viewers do you think the currently mainstream sports would have?
On December 03 2010 05:41 gozima wrote: Do you honestly believe ESPN will be remotely interested in promoting some niche RTS game that draws at most some 20-40 thousand online viewers?
ESPN viewership is in the millions, and I doubt advertisers would be interested in promoting SC2.
Lets be happy with our little corner of the internet and help ensure that it stays alive for years to come. Expanding our E-Sports universe is going to take baby steps not giant leaps of faith.
Accessibility is a huge thing about it. If there were no sports at ALL on the TV and there never had been any on the TV, and you needed to download different media players and plugins to watch it with poor quality, how many viewers do you think the currently mainstream sports would have?
a lot. because the currently mainstream sports were popular before tv. but starcraft was never popular or in existence before computers.
Starcraft is more interesting than darts/pool/paintball ect.. i dont see why they wouldnt consider looking at esports with such a rich and growing history behind the scene
ESPN is not "looking for more programming" they have plenty, if you notice espn is basically the only channel that doesnt go infomercials for 4 hours at 3am, and theres a reason for that.
Have you ever watched ESPN at 3 in the morning, or some other early hour? All they do is rerun the same garbage over and over. How many times do they run ESPNews in a day? I was over my friend's house the other day and in the 2 hours I was there drinking, I watched the same damn play on ESPNews 4 damn times, because all ESPNews does is repeat itself for about 12 hours each day. They could do much better if they varied their shows. I highly doubt that they get good viewership at 3 in the morning anyway.
No, the previous poster is correct; ESPN has way more programming than they know what to do with. You mentioned ESPNnews- you do know that ESPNnews is its own channel, right?
The reason ESPN shows Sportscenter so often and repeats at the middle of the night is because the majority of people miss its original airing so they still get a shitload of viewers when they replay it.
ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNnews, ESPNclassic, ABC are all stations that ESPN uses to show their programming- and they still don't have enough room to broadcast all their content. Go to espn3.com- that's where they throw everything else (Premier League Games, Golf, Rugby, Women's Sports, Racing, some NCAA basketball games, etc., and it is ALOT)
On December 03 2010 05:41 gozima wrote: Do you honestly believe ESPN will be remotely interested in promoting some niche RTS game that draws at most some 20-40 thousand online viewers?
ESPN viewership is in the millions, and I doubt advertisers would be interested in promoting SC2.
Lets be happy with our little corner of the internet and help ensure that it stays alive for years to come. Expanding our E-Sports universe is going to take baby steps not giant leaps of faith.
Accessibility is a huge thing about it. If there were no sports at ALL on the TV and there never had been any on the TV, and you needed to download different media players and plugins to watch it with poor quality, how many viewers do you think the currently mainstream sports would have?
a lot. because the currently mainstream sports were popular before tv. but starcraft was never popular or in existence before computers.
Are you sure? I can't think of anyone who's crazy about sports but who'd go through all the trouble of setting up internet streams and downloading media players etc. They mostly just watch what's on the TV, but meh I don't even know. <_>
With the release of Starcraft II, e-Sports is continuing to grow in South Korea and in North America. Starcraft II is considered a national pastime in South Korea and is considered the most successful e-Sport in the world.
How can it be a national pasttime when it basically just came out? Who considers it the most successful e-sport in the world? Hell, can you even consider it a success yet?
With the release of Starcraft II, e-Sports is continuing to grow in South Korea and in North America. Starcraft II is considered a national pastime in South Korea and is considered the most successful e-Sport in the world.
How can it be a national pasttime when it basically just came out? Who considers it the most successful e-sport in the world? Hell, can you even consider it a success yet?
Actually I'd say its a huge success. I agree that it's not yet Korea's national pasttime nor most successful e-sport.
On December 03 2010 05:41 gozima wrote: Do you honestly believe ESPN will be remotely interested in promoting some niche RTS game that draws at most some 20-40 thousand online viewers?
ESPN viewership is in the millions, and I doubt advertisers would be interested in promoting SC2.
Lets be happy with our little corner of the internet and help ensure that it stays alive for years to come. Expanding our E-Sports universe is going to take baby steps not giant leaps of faith.
Accessibility is a huge thing about it. If there were no sports at ALL on the TV and there never had been any on the TV, and you needed to download different media players and plugins to watch it with poor quality, how many viewers do you think the currently mainstream sports would have?
You're very right about this, was about to post the same thing. I have several RL-examples of people that actually stopped following their favorite sport of years and years all together due to a sudden lack of accessibility. It went from being shown on national tv for free to pay-tv. I'm talking Premier League Football.
If you want to get taken seriously, you'd need to mention the fact that the current audience for SC2 matches up with the target market for ESPN, ie: (from Wiki) "Advertising on ESPN is sold out for months in advance. Major advertisers such as Apple, FedEx, and United Parcel Service are continually buying advertisements to reach the 15-35 year old male audience. ESPN's ad revenue averages $441.8 million with an ad rate of $9,446 per 30 second slot."
On December 03 2010 20:26 Garrl wrote: If you want to get taken seriously, you'd need to mention the fact that current ESPN advertising matches up with the target market for ESPN, ie: (from Wiki) "Advertising on ESPN is sold out for months in advance. Major advertisers such as Apple, FedEx, and United Parcel Service are continually buying advertisements to reach the 15-35 year old male audience. ESPN's ad revenue averages $441.8 million with an ad rate of $9,446 per 30 second slot."
Good thing that is the exact audience competitive Starcraft 2 attracts.
On December 03 2010 05:41 gozima wrote: Do you honestly believe ESPN will be remotely interested in promoting some niche RTS game that draws at most some 20-40 thousand online viewers?
ESPN viewership is in the millions, and I doubt advertisers would be interested in promoting SC2.
Lets be happy with our little corner of the internet and help ensure that it stays alive for years to come. Expanding our E-Sports universe is going to take baby steps not giant leaps of faith.
Accessibility is a huge thing about it. If there were no sports at ALL on the TV and there never had been any on the TV, and you needed to download different media players and plugins to watch it with poor quality, how many viewers do you think the currently mainstream sports would have?
a lot. because the currently mainstream sports were popular before tv. but starcraft was never popular or in existence before computers.
Are you sure? I can't think of anyone who's crazy about sports but who'd go through all the trouble of setting up internet streams and downloading media players etc. They mostly just watch what's on the TV, but meh I don't even know. <_>
have you never seen movies or sitcom episodes where the football fan is sneaking game updates during church either from phone calls, a walkman, or even portable tv?
it's hard to say how far people would go if it weren't on TV at all though because it really is so accessible even without TV. there are countless internet sites with live updates for scores, smart phones have apps, and even before i had a smart phone i was able to text message google for scores during work.
baseball/football/basketball/hockey radio broadcasts get a lot of listeners. a radio play-by-play for an e-sport just wouldn't be enough for most fans.
On December 03 2010 20:26 Garrl wrote: If you want to get taken seriously, you'd need to mention the fact that current ESPN advertising matches up with the target market for ESPN, ie: (from Wiki) "Advertising on ESPN is sold out for months in advance. Major advertisers such as Apple, FedEx, and United Parcel Service are continually buying advertisements to reach the 15-35 year old male audience. ESPN's ad revenue averages $441.8 million with an ad rate of $9,446 per 30 second slot."
Good thing that is the exact audience competitive Starcraft 2 attracts.
Oops, I meant "the audience for competitive SC2 matches up with the target market for ESPN", edited to fix.
I dont know if this has been posted yet, but in germany we get a little televised coverage of the Intel Extreme Masters. They cover a few global challenges and show Counterstrike and StarcraftII and follow the teams and players throughout the tournaments and interview them and stuff.
Its pretty decent and they had more than 1million viewers on the first show.
Everyone commenting on the viability of this is really trolling and/or spamming because this thread is not about the viability of it happening.
The worst case scenario of the OPs suggestion is that we lose nothing. If all the people who spend their time trying to explain why it will never happen would just join in and send an email, it would greatly increase any potential impact.
I wanted to be a part of this initiative so I drafted a letter for anyone who would like to use it:
Dear ESPN,
I write you today with gusto over the prospect of introducing you to a wild, untapped world of entertainment. What if I told you there was a programming option that would appeal exclusively to a prime advertising demographic and draw in incredible viewing numbers? Is that something you might be interested in? Of course it is, and I have something very similar!
It’s called Starcraft II. Imagine all the excitement of chess combined with furious clicking and typing and you have Starcraft. It’s like a strategy game… on steroids! I don’t think any of the actual players are on steroids though, so no worries there. Now, you might be asking yourself, “What is Starcraft exactly and how can we get involved?” You also might not be asking yourself that question, but on the off chance that you are, let me give you the answer.
Starcraft is a real-time strategy game that takes place in a probably fictional future, in space. “But wait,” it’s possible you might say, “wouldn’t the physics of space alter our perception of ‘real time’?” Good question and the answer is yes. Starcraft II utilizes a proprietary model of “in-game time” that maintains the integrity of space time in the sense that it is confusing and arbitrary to the viewer. Are you still with me? Since it only makes sense for me to continue writing if you said, “yes,” I’m going to assume you did.
In this inevitable future, the humans, known as “terrans” (probably from the Latin ‘Tyrannis’), do battle with two alien races. You have the zerg, who are basically an infestation of giant, aggressive bugs, and the protoss, a race of energy-manipulating, space-faring telepaths with a confusing fondness for hand-to-hand combat. I know what you’re thinking, and I agree that it’s wholly improbable that we’d ever rebrand ourselves from “humans” or “earthlings” to “terrans”, but you have to remember that it’s partially theoretical so you have to suspend belief a little bit.
The player assumes control of one of the three races and does battle with an opponent who has done the same. The player must juggle a multitude of tasks in harmony to win the game. Some of the things he must do are:
Economy Management: Players must meticulously manage their in-game economy of mineral extraction. The player spends their initial capital and re-invests subsequent earnings into building up a work force of miners. The game raises interesting philosophical questions with the re-introduction of slavery into the futuristic landscape. The miners are forced to work for no pay and receive few, if any, breaks. Armies will frequently target this group of the population, killing them indiscriminately, with little or no regard for the fact that they are essentially an unarmed, untrained group of laborers. How the player manages these slaves and their work flow is crucial.
Micromanagement: Do you enjoy constantly having to tell all your employees what to do for every waking minute of every hour of every day? If so, then you’ll really love Starcraft. After cementing an income from your slave economy, you can pay to train a rag-tag militia of various fighters with different abilities. Some of these fighters have oddly specific abilities that seem largely impractical for the chaos and variables of war, but again this is the future where things will certainly be different and advanced. There are no cowboys in this man’s army! Every soldier awaits your command before doing as much as taking a piss (which they apparently do inside their advanced space-suits, as I am unable to construct a latrine as of yet). You can then manage an attack with your soldiers or choose to let them stand around.
Athletic use of peripheral equipment: Starcraft wouldn’t be a sport if there weren’t rigorous physical demands imposed. The game demands that the user achieve and maintain an unnaturally high clicking and typing rates to be able to execute all the different commands he needs. Viewers will be no doubt impressed with the marvels of “actions per minute” and how fast the screen jumps around.
I hope I haven’t overloaded you with information. I think after one look, you’ll realize the potential here. With viewership in the low to mid-thousands, Starcraft shows are already screamingly popular, and when combined with off-peak timeslot on ESPN2, have the potential to become a juggernaut. If you have any questions please visit the teamliquid forums, but please use the search function as another national network may have already asked your question.
On December 04 2010 00:23 PackofHighly wrote: Everyone commenting on the viability of this is really trolling and/or spamming because this thread is not about the viability of it happening.
The worst case scenario of the OPs suggestion is that we lose nothing. If all the people who spend their time trying to explain why it will never happen would just join in and send an email, it would greatly increase any potential impact.
they sent an email back saying that mass emails will not benefit our position, so no that wont help, in fact all the internet crusaders fighting for sc2 to be mainstream are hindering its growth more than supporting it.
On December 04 2010 01:48 JackMcCoy wrote: If you have any questions please visit the teamliquid forums, but please use the search function as another national network may have already asked your question.
another point: if espn gets broadcasting rights, would that make re-streaming the tournament games without written consent from ESPN and ActiBlizz punishable by law and subject to fines? if so, wouldn't that result in an adverse effect of what this is trying to accomplish? i can see how it would be good for ESPN and ActiBlizz, but how exactly does this help the SC2 community? if the concern is making e-sports bigger in America, just realize that ActiBlizz would profit more from televising tournaments for Call of Duty: Rehash of the Fiscal Quarter than for Starcraft 2.
just put some more thought into things before blindly spam e-mailing a company just because everyone else is doing it. just because it's easy to send an e-mail doesn't make it a good idea.
The issue with sc2 broadcasting is that viewers need to 1) accept gaming or "esports" as a valid medium (not too many americans can) 2) have some general interest in the game. Unlike real sports, sc2 is not intuitive in how it works. With something like basketball casual viewers can tune in and think "ok, so there's fast short guys and slower big guys and they're trying to get ball into that basket. The rest of the details I'll learn over time". Even if they can make out what's happening in a battle, it comes down to more questions than entertainment, "ok, those fat brown things were looking really strong, but now that the other guy has those big spiders, they all die in like 2 seconds? I'm confused. And why doesn't it just kill those octopus things shooting right at it?". SC2 is not at all something a person flipping through channels wouldn't be expected to stop and watch for too long.
So if I was espn, I'd be extremely wary of the success sc2 would have on the channel, and not sure if I would take the risk.
Video games are just hard to watch. Watching someone play SC2 or Halo or CoD or Counter-Strike is just absolutely boring unless you know the intricate details of what's going on. These games don't have the same background as sports do. People here learn the rules of basketball, football, baseball, hockey as they grow up. No one teaches it to you but most people know the rules almost instinctively. It's ingrained into our culture. Learning a game like SC2, where 99% of the action lies in the details (eg he kills 6 probes with a hellion 7 minutes into the game), requires a level of familiarity that most people don't want to get into. For a casual audience, there's almost no way to pick up these details by watching. Sure, we can see that microing marines against banelings is impressive and cool, but to a casual observer, this feat is lost on them. The other problem is that most pro-gamers have interesting personalities to TL.net, but to your casual observer, they just look like skinny, geeked-out nerds. Things like bad manner and trash talking is generally out of view for most sports; it happens on the field and it stays on the field. Arrogance is usually not tolerated very well in most circles. Finally, e-sports is extremely volatile. Games rarely stay popular for more than a couple years. Brood war is the anomaly in the room. Other games such as Halo, CS, CSS, CoD all falter or fail within a few years of making it big. Counter-Strike used to be the biggest e-sport in America. What happened to it? Well the CPL failed and the player base was split between 1.6 and Source. Nowadays, it's a pretty niche market with a bunch of small tournaments and a couple big ones. It's no where near the peak in the early 2000s. There's nothing guaranteeing the same won't happen to SC2.
Remember, things like poker and darts are extremely successful even though it may not seem obvious to you. Any single poker site has a bigger draw than all of Battle.net. There are literally millions of people playing poker on any day of the week. I know more people who player poker than go to bars nowadays. That's the everyman draw to poker. It also suffers all of the problems I listed above, but poker succeeded because it's had 70+ years to fester in our collective consciousness. SC2 hasn't even hit 6 months yet.
Someone needs to produce a show that can be presented to ESPN. Asking ESPN to broadcast SC2 is a dead end. You gotta have content for them in the form of something they can broadcast. And then you gotta show that you can get enough people interested in watching that content to justify it to sponsors so you can sell ad space.
If ESPN produces the show, it's gonna sick. People from e-sports need to have a heavy hand in it.
Tbh, I think have E-Sports as an "On Demand" option that many cable companies offer would be more feasible depending on cost of course. The problem with mainstream TV is they have to cater to all their audiences, and while G4 might be the best option of all the ones you e-mailed, it's still a much tougher sell in NA though E-Sports are definitely catching on.
If you view E-Sports as say NFL or NASCAR, they are entirely driven by advertising in the US pure and simple. Punt return, commercial. Field goal, commercial. Timeout, commercial. With SC2 games sometimes lasting 30 minutes+ it would need to be handled similar to Soccer with the halfs never being interrupted and while Soccer is catching on, think how far behind Europe NA is in this department?
Good to see soemone pushing on the broadcasters to at least consider it though !
Traditional sports is simple, easy to understand. Get the ball in the hole, across the line, over the wall or into the net, all fine and dandy and entertaining to billions of people world wide.
World of Warcraft Arena battle is a pretty simple concept right? Try to eliminate your opponent's health points. As many of us can agree, a WOW arena fight is far easier to watch and understand than a Starcraft 2 match. I had the pleasure to witness one of these simple WOW arena battles during Blizzcon and I have to be honest, I HAD NO IDEA WHAT THE FUCK WAS GOING ON! Keep in mind that I did play WOW for a few years, but these high-end, top of the ladder arena matches were super complicated in my eyes. The WOW arena matches didn't hold my attention and I quickly tuned off. Try showing your parents or girlfriend, that never experienced Starcraft 2 gauge their attention span. I am willing to bet they will walk away within thirty seconds.
Try watching something you have no interest in and see how long you can watch without tuning out. I'd be willing to bet 99% of the US population never played nor have any interested in Starcraft.
This should be Blizzard job, they must convince ESPN the way KESPA convinced ten yeards ago MGN and OGN to broadcast Starcraft 1. If they want e-sport to be big in USA they must find a sponsor and a lot of other stuff. Just you and some emails will solve nothing because the tv station needs money to broadcast anything.
On December 04 2010 08:04 leonardus wrote: This should be Blizzard job, they must convince ESPN the way KESPA convinced ten yeards ago MGN and OGN to broadcast Starcraft 1. If they want e-sport to be big in USA they must find a sponsor and a lot of other stuff. Just you and some emails will solve nothing because the tv station needs money to broadcast anything.
What? KesPA didn't exist then; it only got formed because MBCGame and OnGameNet were broadcasting it.
Syfy would be another channel to email it to. Syfy has that WCG Ultimate Gamer show on it, which inControl was a part of. One of the problems with ESPN is that, at least on the main channel, they love to just replay Sportscenter all through the night, which is when the GSL is going on for us here in the US. ESPN2 would be a hopeful for about 1 tournament a year. G4 and Syfy would be the best shots. I'd love to be able to watch SC2 in HD on a nice tv instead of hooking up my PC to the tv.
ESPN? to broadcast E-Sports? Not a chance on earth.
A smaller broadcasting company maybe , not ESPN , their viewership is well over millions. And they have much much better content to broadcast than SC2. Even the 10th replay of Sportscenter would have more viewers than the GSL.
I think this would really work well if someone in the Starcraft community knew someone at a boradcasting channel. I don't think it necessarily has to be G4/ESPN/SPIKE if even some random channel like AMC ( off the top of my head XD) as long as WE the starcraft community hears about this "tv show" and we show a huge support for the channel with great feedback eventually if the E-Sport grown bigger names will catch on. I know a lot of us want E-Sports to be like Korea but realistically it might be 3-10 years before starcraft really catches on.
Skim read most of the thread and the thing I'm surprised about is how no-one is suggesting non-american networks. I'm sure for the UK there's a small chance the BBC might run it late night on one of their channels (they also have a global i-player in the works) or maybe even channel 4.
Might not lead anywhere, but it's also worth a shot.
On December 04 2010 03:00 Liquid`Tyler wrote: Someone needs to produce a show that can be presented to ESPN. Asking ESPN to broadcast SC2 is a dead end. You gotta have content for them in the form of something they can broadcast. And then you gotta show that you can get enough people interested in watching that content to justify it to sponsors so you can sell ad space.
If ESPN produces the show, it's gonna sick. People from e-sports need to have a heavy hand in it.
LOL??
yeah they get to pay Blizzard 100K per tournament to broadcast it too, isn't that great :D
For what its worth ESPN at one point played Magic: the Gathering (I have a commercial VHS product of this, its hilarious) and Randy Buehler has very publicly said this was one of the worst decisions they ever made. Their game being horrible for spectating aside, apparently working with them as a non-television entity was a nightmare (thought I've never heard why aside from ESPN being more controlling than they wanted).
Of course it won't hurt to try, best of luck with the initiative!
I did this just today, I was thinking it would be nice to have GSL air on a TV channel I gain access too. I love this game a lot and would love to see it on TV. I was gonna torrent GSL and stream it to my Xbox just so I could watch it, but it's always in Korean so I can't understand it. I'm learning Chinese because of where I live, it's more practical than Korean for me.
Versus might also be be a channel to consider. They seem more likely than Spike or ESPN. I think they are about showing anything that is competitive in nature.
The naysayers aren't really providing any reason whatsoever why the OP should not be carried out...
"it will never work!" But there is always some chance that it could. Chance that it works: X > 0 The chance that it would if no letter is sent? Chance that it works: Y = 0. I think it's pretty intuitive for everyone to see that X > Y. [This is, of course, excluding the possibility that some external force would get SC2 TV-time, aka Blizzard. But logically, the chance of Blizzard getting broadcast time is equivalent whether or not a fan/community sends in a letter].
"Boo ESPN, send it to G4/Spike/other alternative TV station." Absolutely no reason why you can't do both.
Why not less "it won't work"s and more "here's some suggestions on how to fix reasons why it won't work"?
This is, of course, assuming that everyone, regardless of their beliefs on whether it would or wouldn't work, would actually like it if it did work. What's there to lose?
I really don't think Starcraft 2 on ESPN is even a good idea, it's not going to gain any new fans on their channels, HOWEVER the G4tv, and even spike tv are great ideas!
edit: Also ESPN is not very friendly to new ideas... If your someone that has been following the progression of soccer in the US, and ESPN's general attitude towards it, you will know what I mean. G4 would be perfect, because the hosts on the channel would be supporting it, you would be introducing the game/sport to tons of "video game people" that aren't into starcraft yet.
anyways, just my thoughts. never a bad thing to throw new idea's around to grow esports.
For what its worth ESPN at one point played Magic: the Gathering (I have a commercial VHS product of this, its hilarious) and Randy Buehler has very publicly said this was one of the worst decisions they ever made. Their game being horrible for spectating aside, apparently working with them as a non-television entity was a nightmare (thought I've never heard why aside from ESPN being more controlling than they wanted).
Of course it won't hurt to try, best of luck with the initiative!
That thread is awesome. Can't believe I missed it.
At first from reading this I thought that there would be absolutely no chance ESPN would consider sc2 but after reading that they've televised magic the gathering and have pro fishing, I think sc2 has a good shot. I don't see ESPN showing sc2 tournaments and bringing in the masses and popularizing the game but instead uniting the sc2 community and giving starcraft gamers a reason to watch tournaments on espn. I of course have no clue how much revenue pro fishing brings in for espn but I know roughly how great the sc2 community is and how nearly every player would record and tune in to espn where they wouldn't before hand. I think it's at least worth a shot for espn to branch out with one of their 20 or so different channels and give esports a shot. As far as g4tv goes, I think the potential is huge. They already gear towards the gaming community and not to mention again the obvious starcraft 2 community, but have a potential to grab more viewers who don't watch starcraft. I strongly believe if G4tv showed and possibly even hosted something equivalent to the gsl, players from different games would tune in to watch all the stress and general high level gameplay that top tier sc2 tournaments bring. I don't watch g4tv or much tv in general but I would be glued to any sc2 segment and I think everyone else here would as well.
On December 13 2010 07:56 fainez wrote: I really don't think Starcraft 2 on ESPN is even a good idea, it's not going to gain any new fans on their channels
anyways, just my thoughts. never a bad thing to throw new idea's around to grow esports.
How so? For example, I never watch ESPN. I love starcraft 2. If espn started showing sc2 tournaments, I would watch espn religiously. Unless you think the sc2 community already watches espn all the time (*wonders what IdrA's favorite football team is*) and therefore nothing new would change whereas nobody from sc2 watches g4tv? Sorta faulty logic isn't it? ESPN would be branching out to a huge community that they didn't have already versus G4tv making a segment dedicated to sc2 viewers who would probably shift their attention from any of their other shows and focus more (and possibly only) to the starcraft 2 segment.
Might help to compare it to something like Poker, which at first was used as a stop-gap during the NHL Hockey strike but, due to it's hardcore audience it managed to attract regular viewership, and eventually draw casual fans.
And it appeals directly to the most coveted demographic, 18 to 35 year old males, the original video game generation.
And considering there are fans like me that stay up to FOUR IN THE MORNING to watch GSL, there is definitely potential to broadcasting the show at midnight or 1 in the morning, when these channels are struggling to find programming.
I really like your idea and your sincerity but fact is there not gonna listen to you, and sadly they don't see that starcraft is growing while bad sports like basseball are in heavy viewing decline do to excrutiatingly boring programming. They still see gaming as an underground nerdy thing, sadly, even though everyone on my hockey and lacrosse team game now so.............
On December 04 2010 02:51 anderkas wrote: The issue with sc2 broadcasting is that viewers need to 1) accept gaming or "esports" as a valid medium (not too many americans can) 2) have some general interest in the game. Unlike real sports, sc2 is not intuitive in how it works.
1) No, if someone changes channel and there's a game of Starcraft II on, they aren't going to say to themselves "THIS GAME CANNOT BE CONSIDERED ANYTHING MORE THAN CHILDS PLAY AND ANY THOUGHTS OTHERWISE OFFEND ME", then proceed to throw their television out the fourth storey window. They'll probably just watch it because... 2) Its a bunch of shit shooting/biting other shit, at it's basic level. How is that not intuitive? There aren't many people who would say no to big fights and stuff, and the casters can bridge the gaps in between the action.
On December 13 2010 10:29 Defacer wrote: And considering there are fans like me that stay up to FOUR IN THE MORNING to watch GSL, there is definitely potential to broadcasting the show at midnight or 1 in the morning, when these channels are struggling to find programming.
I couldn't agree more, i'm am up at 5am EST to watch these people play this great game, i can not see what else they could possibly have to run at that time. Even if its just a rebroadcast at the same time i can see the picture quality being way higher and both ESPN and GomTV making some extra cash from the sponsors. I'm sure they could keep the same sponsors they have now for that time slot until it gains popularity and other perhaps larger sponsors decide they want in on the action. Just a thought, don't see any reason to not try and get this to happen, worst case situation they say no and we are right back to where we are now
On December 13 2010 07:51 LlamaNamedOsama wrote: The naysayers aren't really providing any reason whatsoever why the OP should not be carried out...
"it will never work!" But there is always some chance that it could. Chance that it works: X > 0 The chance that it would if no letter is sent? Chance that it works: Y = 0. I think it's pretty intuitive for everyone to see that X > Y. [This is, of course, excluding the possibility that some external force would get SC2 TV-time, aka Blizzard. But logically, the chance of Blizzard getting broadcast time is equivalent whether or not a fan/community sends in a letter].
"Boo ESPN, send it to G4/Spike/other alternative TV station." Absolutely no reason why you can't do both.
Why not less "it won't work"s and more "here's some suggestions on how to fix reasons why it won't work"?
This is, of course, assuming that everyone, regardless of their beliefs on whether it would or wouldn't work, would actually like it if it did work. What's there to lose?
Letters have a 1 in a bajillion chance of being read by the right person at the right time.
The OP has to not be a pussy, and actually consider CALLING them up and putting forward his case.
If the viewership numbers hold up, they won't care that he's some 16 year old who wants to watch his games on TV, as long as there's some sort of financial opportunity for ESPN. Simple. BUT.. he has to.. CALL THEM UP!!
If they think SC will be more profitable to them than their current programming, they'll give serious consideration into airing it. Right now they don't and I can see why: the biggest SC tourneys attract 10-20k viewers live. The spelling me on ESPN gets easily 250k and actual sports games get millions and millions.
ESPN will never pick this up. Why would they? Let's look at some basic truths:
a) There's no real marketable players. b) 99% of players at the top are barely even paid, if at all. sports pros/poker pros make money c) there is no precedent, or on-going league in North America. d) anything else logical that you can think of
Why would ESPN or any other major network here air SC2 games? There is not even an on-going league, all we have is MLG once every few months...and out of MLG how many players are making their living as a professional gamer? Not many.
Yes, we could make backstories up for players and the events, but it would not be relevant to anyone at all except us who are already in the SC community and in the know-how of it all.
If people really want SC2 to ever be broadcasted seriously in North America then the players would need to get paid to play this game. There'd have to be an on-going league to follow. There'd have to be something you could "keep up with" that viewers can wrap their heads around.
With football, basketball, etc. there are "seasons," there's playoffs, there's plenty of games going on and people can easily keep track. You don't have that with SC2 here, and from the looks of it it either
a) (pessimistic view) it will never ever happen in North America b) (optimistic view) it will happen down the road in about 5-10 years, while in the meantime the rest of us are the on the forefront of it all.
It's pretty ludicrous to mass email ESPN or even think they would broadcast SC2 at this point in time. Sorry to be the downer...but that's the reality.
edit: although, I suppose there are some good points being made that if they can broadcast a goddamn spelling bee, then SC2 could not be a far stretch...LOFL COME ON, A SPELLING BEE FFS!
p.s if I were ESPN I would see a few problems with broadcasting SC2.
1. Are your viewer numbers real, or bullshit? That would be critical question numero uno. If your numbers are an inflated pack of lies, then whoever you reached inside ESPN to pitch this to the head honchos just put his ass on the line for the big fall. Everyone likes protecting their asses, so no one will move to broadcast SC2 without bona fide certified numbers. 2. Can we legally broadcast this? This question relates to the licensing surrounding music, and of course..the actual game. It's all well and good that ESPN may want to broadcast sc2. But if Blizzard say, has entered into some 'exclusive world-wide streaming rights' with GOMTV, then there might be a few problems to say the least. ESPN doesn't ever want to enter into some lawsuit with Blizzard for copyright infringement, let alone some international law suit of the same sort. So, sort out the legal work for them, make it a clean easy thing that they can just do as soon as they decide to, and that's the second step overcome.
3. How do we pitch this to advertisers? Viewer numbers are all well and good. But viewer numbers mean squat if the show can't attract advertisers. ESPN will be worried about this because SC2 broadcasting is a pretty unique proposition. It's not like Poker, or go fishing or the other examples mentioned. It is SORT of like MTG... but MTG has an incredible American base. But that's what you need to do - convince ESPN that the advertisers who pay for ad time during MTG broadcasting would benefit just as much, if not more, from SC2 broadcasting spaces. ESPN doesn't want to have to dig up advertisers, or have only a few advertisers who can dictate ad-space pricing. So cover that base for them (likely/possible advertisers) and you're set to go.
Just a few thoughts. Oh. And
CALL THEM UP!!!
That last one is probably the most important. -___-
ESPN's policy does not allow us to accept for review or consideration any ideas, suggestions, or creative materials not solicited by us or our subsidiaries.
ESPN's policy does not allow us to accept for review or consideration any ideas, suggestions, or creative materials not solicited by us or our subsidiaries.
Sincerely,
xxxxxxx ESPN Viewer Response
Ah, well, can't say I'm surprised by the response, but props for having the balls to try. If anything, breaking esports into popular culture will be a very gradual process, slowly seeping into media and what not, until ESPN realizes there is a market there that they will be able to capitalize upon. If anything, this corporate-esque response supports that idea.
EPT
.
they were showing darts like an hour ago
