EPTOn June 16 2011 03:02 Pyo wrote:
This deservers its own thread/spotlight. Too bad it will be buried in this thread and will forever be forgotten in the annals of the internet.
Show nested quote +
On June 15 2011 23:58 coljbass wrote:
Hey guys, I am a long time reader but first time commenter. I am the other owner of Complexity Gaming with Jason Lake. I am Jason Bass. I usually stay in the background but sometimes I see things that require a comment. For Complexity, I handle the finances and most of the business side of things, ie sponsor acquisition and working with our existing partners/sponsors. I started in eSports with GotFrag many years ago and was the COO of that company and part owner until we sold it to MLG. From there I went to become the Director of Online Marketing at the Championship Gaming Series, where Complexity was one of the two teams purchased by the league. I left CGS about a year before it fell apart and went back to my career in the Industrial Software industry where I am the Director of Marketing for a large company. I joined up with Jason and Complexity about 3 years ago now.
I see a lot of the StarCraft community say things like what I have quoted above. For those of us that have been in eSports for the last ten years of our lives we know that it is NOT ever EASY to get new sponsors. I am not saying VT won't get them or doesn't maybe even have some lined up but to say they will easily get them is simply not true. Most sales cycles in this industry are long and you have to be fairly persistent for a long period of time before you ever get a contract. Simply making a team and having the best players on earth does not get you sponsors. If that were the case there would be TONS of self sufficient organizations out there and in actuality there are about 10-20 with any real funding.
There are several challenges people face when trying to get sponsors in eSports. First, there is usually a period of education on what eSports is and why any company should care about it. You have to show them the size, explain the demographic and explain why it matters. These are all very intangible things and most people fail to ever get a meeting because they don't accomplish this. Once you have gotten this far, you have the next hurdle in convincing the target that you are a company worthy of talking to in this demographic. There is so much more to this than simply saying we win tournaments. You need a fan base, you need business acumen(you have to speak their language), they need to be able to see that there is ROI(return on investment) at the end of the rainbow, and so many other things. Once you have jumped this hurdle, you will just now get a meeting in many cases and then the real sales cycle begins. You basically have converted a lead into an opportunity and many opportunities never close. Again you are selling something that can not be seen or touched so you are value selling. The better you are at selling the value of what you do and this means convincing someone that what you do is important to them and will generate the results they are looking for, the more money you can charge for the service. This last paragraph really just skims the surface of what all is involved and certainly does not include everything. My point is to show people that this is a complicated process and debunk the perception that teams like CompLexity, EG, SK, Fnatic, Dignitas, Liquid, etc. Don't just simply send off a letter saying hi we are great and have great players, give us money and then it just happens. It takes a lot of effort and there is so much more to it.
Even after seeing the above and how complicated it is, once you have signed the partner many times it can be even more difficult to keep them. It is not as simple as slapping a logo on a player and they are happy. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes that fans never see. Promotions, ad campaigns, viral marketing, social media, trade show activations, etc, etc. If you are not good at doing these things many times a partner will never realize the ROI and will drop the team after a short period of time.
So the point is, it is not easy to get sponsors. As this industry grows it will get easier because we become something companies can no longer overlook as fringe or experimental and we get baked into budgets. We are slowly getting there and times are changing but it will never be easy.
Sorry for the long post.
/rant
On June 15 2011 23:07 toadyy wrote:
Did you even read the OP at all, they are under VTG which already has sponsors / won't be hard for them to get them. They have a website under development. Think or actually at least read the OP before you start posting bullshit.
On June 15 2011 22:56 [FSM]Doji wrote:
Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 .
They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors.
Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Don't you guys realize... This is ROOT 2.0 .
They have no sponsor, all they are doing is putting 2 famous player in a team and a few average player (spades,fayth) and hoping to get sponsors.
Kaki and Slush do not care about the PR side of things in SC2, they won't be moving to the pro-house, they didn't do it for root (kaki only moved temporarily) why would they do it now ? This whole reign team is bound to fail... they have no website, how are they gonna attract sponsor with no web traffic...
ROOT didn't work, why would this work?
Did you even read the OP at all, they are under VTG which already has sponsors / won't be hard for them to get them. They have a website under development. Think or actually at least read the OP before you start posting bullshit.
Hey guys, I am a long time reader but first time commenter. I am the other owner of Complexity Gaming with Jason Lake. I am Jason Bass. I usually stay in the background but sometimes I see things that require a comment. For Complexity, I handle the finances and most of the business side of things, ie sponsor acquisition and working with our existing partners/sponsors. I started in eSports with GotFrag many years ago and was the COO of that company and part owner until we sold it to MLG. From there I went to become the Director of Online Marketing at the Championship Gaming Series, where Complexity was one of the two teams purchased by the league. I left CGS about a year before it fell apart and went back to my career in the Industrial Software industry where I am the Director of Marketing for a large company. I joined up with Jason and Complexity about 3 years ago now.
I see a lot of the StarCraft community say things like what I have quoted above. For those of us that have been in eSports for the last ten years of our lives we know that it is NOT ever EASY to get new sponsors. I am not saying VT won't get them or doesn't maybe even have some lined up but to say they will easily get them is simply not true. Most sales cycles in this industry are long and you have to be fairly persistent for a long period of time before you ever get a contract. Simply making a team and having the best players on earth does not get you sponsors. If that were the case there would be TONS of self sufficient organizations out there and in actuality there are about 10-20 with any real funding.
There are several challenges people face when trying to get sponsors in eSports. First, there is usually a period of education on what eSports is and why any company should care about it. You have to show them the size, explain the demographic and explain why it matters. These are all very intangible things and most people fail to ever get a meeting because they don't accomplish this. Once you have gotten this far, you have the next hurdle in convincing the target that you are a company worthy of talking to in this demographic. There is so much more to this than simply saying we win tournaments. You need a fan base, you need business acumen(you have to speak their language), they need to be able to see that there is ROI(return on investment) at the end of the rainbow, and so many other things. Once you have jumped this hurdle, you will just now get a meeting in many cases and then the real sales cycle begins. You basically have converted a lead into an opportunity and many opportunities never close. Again you are selling something that can not be seen or touched so you are value selling. The better you are at selling the value of what you do and this means convincing someone that what you do is important to them and will generate the results they are looking for, the more money you can charge for the service. This last paragraph really just skims the surface of what all is involved and certainly does not include everything. My point is to show people that this is a complicated process and debunk the perception that teams like CompLexity, EG, SK, Fnatic, Dignitas, Liquid, etc. Don't just simply send off a letter saying hi we are great and have great players, give us money and then it just happens. It takes a lot of effort and there is so much more to it.
Even after seeing the above and how complicated it is, once you have signed the partner many times it can be even more difficult to keep them. It is not as simple as slapping a logo on a player and they are happy. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes that fans never see. Promotions, ad campaigns, viral marketing, social media, trade show activations, etc, etc. If you are not good at doing these things many times a partner will never realize the ROI and will drop the team after a short period of time.
So the point is, it is not easy to get sponsors. As this industry grows it will get easier because we become something companies can no longer overlook as fringe or experimental and we get baked into budgets. We are slowly getting there and times are changing but it will never be easy.
Sorry for the long post.
/rant
This deservers its own thread/spotlight. Too bad it will be buried in this thread and will forever be forgotten in the annals of the internet.
Sadly this is true.
. This is definatly deserving of a spotlight and shows people how hard it is to start a team, let alone all of the complications that come with it.
