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I posted this on the Team Reign news post and several people said it should be a spotlight thread. So I am posting it here.
Below is the original post I made. It was in response to a comment I have frequently seen on these forums in other places. Someone said "Team Reign will have no problem getting sponsors."
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
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TLADT24920 Posts
Yes, I do recall reading this in the other thread, definitely interesting, thanks 
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Haha if I ever become the CEO of a food/ gaming accessory company I'll sponsor someone <3
I just don't think people realize that gaming has so many hardcore viewers and marketing potential.
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On June 19 2011 04:02 Chocolate wrote:
Haha if I ever become the CEO of a food/ gaming accessory company I'll sponsor someone <3
I just don't think people realize that gaming has so many hardcore viewers and marketing potential.
You are definitely right. There has been and will continue to be a huge education process to move eSports from experimental or fringe marketing to something that is part of a company's every year budget. It is happening but it has been slowly happening for over 10 years. I have certainly seen an acceleration of this in the last six months and I hope that it continues and think it will.
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Dealing with recruiting and maintaining sponsorships is a pretty tough area. You really have a lot of work to put in. In my past experiences with dealing with sponsors (non SC related) you have to be able to connect with them as well as do so much homework. It pays to research your potential sponsors to no end and show them how their marketing dollars are better spent with you.
To relate this to SC. It would be like getting a comparison of how many stream views in a month vs the companies invested amount of advertising in a magazine. You compare the mag circulation against the stream views to the sponsors target demographic. You have to show that their marketing money is better spent on you. I'm still a bit suprised we haven't seen more teams put out surveys to get some demographic data. I'm also suprised that sponsors haven't gotten more into the streaming aspect. It's pretty much non existent unless you watch tourneys, and then it's only in glimpses.
I think teams could embrace their sponsors more in the current landscape. I'm not talking getting too invasive but one or two mentions of a sponsor in a stream over a several hour session isn't a lot to ask for. A small overlay of a sponsor is another way. I also think incentives could be used a lot more. If you look at grass roots local motorsports they always have incentives that if you have a small decal on your car and win you get a kickback. The money increases as your level increases and you gain more exposure. I really don't want SC to turn into a decal filled gaming nascar. However nascar is a prime example of how to drive sponsorships in sports. It could be a way to swing more potential sponsorship dollars without making a company think they are commiting all of the money. It's also a good way to get your foot in the door and start a relationship. It's also easier for people controlling budgets to get approval for "experimental" sponsorships.
I think that Coke made a nice investment into dreamhack. In the Day 9 stream there are coke bottles up on the desk. I noticed there were 46000 viewers at one point and may have been more. everytime a game ends coke gets put out there. It's not too invasive and gets the point across. Next time I'm in the store and walk past Coke I'll be thinking they support SC and that could swing me away from a competitor purchase.
I don't know the ins and outs of the sponsor contracts that are out there now so all of this is just speculation. I wouldn't be suprised however if we start to see a lot more money being thrown at SC in the near future as well as new innovative ways of getting sponsor names out there.
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I think Coke made a good play at Dreamhack. I truly believe most companies should be looking at eSports at this point. It is growing very fast and should not be ignored.
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On June 19 2011 04:31 bigbadgreen wrote:
I'm also suprised that sponsors haven't gotten more into the streaming aspect. It's pretty much non existent unless you watch tourneys, and then it's only in glimpses.
I agree with this, streaming brings a whole new avenue that wasn't around in years past.
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Coke made an excellent play, at one point Day9's stream had 100k viewers.
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On June 19 2011 04:02 Chocolate wrote:
Haha if I ever become the CEO of a food/ gaming accessory company I'll sponsor someone <3
I just don't think people realize that gaming has so many hardcore viewers and marketing potential.
They might, but they're still not so serious about it.
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Very good post and read, having dealt with sponsors for teams I ran in the past (non star 2 related) it is by far no easy task for any team to get and maintain sponsorship. The amount of hurdles you have to jump just to get some head of marketing somewhere to agree to throw you even as little as a couple hundred bucks is daunting at times.
That's not to say all that hard work isn't entirely worth it, or that there may not be fringe cases where sponsors approach teams or players where it is substantially easier. Just that for the most part it's not as simple as I wave my magic sponsor wand and they appear no matter how good or popular your team is.
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I hope things are going better for you and Lake in SC2 than in CS 1.6. When are we going to see the reign of coL again in 1.6? =D
While I agree with most of the financial issues and concerns that you tackle in your thread, I was wondering if you could shed some light on the recurring problem of players and practice. Many on the TL forums believe that sponsors sometimes hinder their players from practicing by having mandatory blogs, posts, and other side requisites that are not practicing. Many forum-goers have also addressed the idea of the Koreans who have little to no side requisites at all besides practicing 8-10 hours a day and refining their skills compared to the foreigner scene who might not practice as much and might be involved with other things.
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Great post man--separating the hopes from reality. If I was the CFO of a company, honestly, I would not invest in the gaming industry. It must be real rough out there.
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so for those who haven't switched from pepsi to coke yet... do so. Coke supports e-sports!
It's also good to buy products from teams you like and if you can leave a comment after you buy from the company, remember to tell them that a certain SC2 team or stream referred you to them. Companies reads those and certainly will take notice.
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On June 24 2011 01:26 seoul_kiM wrote:
I hope things are going better for you and Lake in SC2 than in CS 1.6. When are we going to see the reign of coL again in 1.6? =D
While I agree with most of the financial issues and concerns that you tackle in your thread, I was wondering if you could shed some light on the recurring problem of players and practice. Many on the TL forums believe that sponsors sometimes hinder their players from practicing by having mandatory blogs, posts, and other side requisites that are not practicing. Many forum-goers have also addressed the idea of the Koreans who have little to no side requisites at all besides practicing 8-10 hours a day and refining their skills compared to the foreigner scene who might not practice as much and might be involved with other things.
From a players perspective, if you can't take 30 minutes to an hour out of your week to do things like that. Well then you are just lazy!
People whose crafts that are way more demanding (example) like any pro athlete, that can find the time to talk to media, do interviews, or even volunteer work. While staying to a very structured schedule of practice and in top shape (high skill level), just shows that sponsored players should be able to come up with a few spare minutes for stuff like that.
In between games, on lunch breaks, there are many ways to fit in a forum post or blog.
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Also a sponsor is more willing to invest in a unit that has stayed together for a long time rather than a team that has been around for awhile but goes through 10000 roster changes
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thanks for sharing this interesting.
Love hearing about the business side of esports.
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On June 24 2011 01:36 coLtwixz wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2011 01:26 seoul_kiM wrote:
I hope things are going better for you and Lake in SC2 than in CS 1.6. When are we going to see the reign of coL again in 1.6? =D
While I agree with most of the financial issues and concerns that you tackle in your thread, I was wondering if you could shed some light on the recurring problem of players and practice. Many on the TL forums believe that sponsors sometimes hinder their players from practicing by having mandatory blogs, posts, and other side requisites that are not practicing. Many forum-goers have also addressed the idea of the Koreans who have little to no side requisites at all besides practicing 8-10 hours a day and refining their skills compared to the foreigner scene who might not practice as much and might be involved with other things. From a players perspective, if you can't take 30 minutes to an hour out of your week to do things like that. Well then you are just lazy! People whose crafts that are way more demanding (example) like any pro athlete, that can find the time to talk to media, do interviews, or even volunteer work. While staying to a very structured schedule of practice and in top shape (high skill level), just shows that sponsored players should be able to come up with a few spare minutes for stuff like that. In between games, on lunch breaks, there are many ways to fit in a forum post or blog.
Much of what you said rings well with me but on the other side there are valid points as well. Korean teams mandate that their players practice a certain amount and do certain things to keep their play up to the top level. Does complexity not have that kind of demand or is it purely based on results and placings? I don't doubt the passion and will to win behind any professional SC2 player but why does it seem like the Koreans practice so much more? I'm sure you ladder for a couples hours every night but what keeps you from going hard (8-10 hours a day, not sure if you do this or not)? It might be too personal to ask but how long do you practice and how do you spend that time practicing? Do you think that's enough or do you just get bored or burnt out?
Pro-athletes have off seasons where most of their charity and external work gets done I believe but they do interviews and shows all the time. Do professional e-athletes have an off-season? Not really and especially in this booming game of SC2 where the tournaments/upcoming events tab is so long I have to actually scroll down.
I feel that getting good results will advance an organization's ability to obtain sponsors and other perks while socially active players that interact with the community might create a fanbase group (which could also help with sponsorships) but hinder a player's results.
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Let me add my thanks for this great post. As others have already stated, it's good to have the reality separated from the fantasy. E-sports looks to have a bright future, but the pioneers are always going to have it the toughest.
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It's true about sponsers and E-sports. If there are two items and I have no prior history with either, and one supports E-sports (or a sports team I support whatever) then yes as that form of advertising I will purchase the one that supports.. (generally, not 100% but more often certainly) They're providing money for the growth of your hobby, so you support them back. It's all fair, sure they're only doing it for money, but they're putting the money up in the first place to help grow things.
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Thanks for sharing, it is indeed interesting to see the business side
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Results are certainly important and practice by the players is very important as well. Things in Korea are significantly different than in the US and most of the world. First there are cultural differences. Second they have had a legitimate eSports industry for years. Those guys and gals are literally rockstars over there and many of them are paid like it. This fact certainly gives organizations more leverage of dictating 10 hours of play a day. In the US we have not reached that level of notoriety yet and therefore the players dont get paid as much.
I can not speak to what the practice regimen in Korea is like for sure but I have heard it is insane more like 12-15 hours a day and many living together and practicing pretty much non-stop. If this is in fact true, I am not sure there are many Americans that would chose to live their life like that. That would be the cultural difference if in fact what I hear is the truth.
Either way an organization needs to have results to gain legitimacy but once they have those results and begin to get sponsors there is a lot more to the equation then winning. They want some players that are well spoken and can represent their brands well at tradeshows. They want some that can write well and put together valid content about why their products are the ones the average consumer should use. At the end of the day it is all about marketing and perception. That is what these companies are paying their money for. Results are important but are only half the battle and in some case maybe only 25% of the battle. I have had some partners over the years that simply don't care about the tournament results. They are much more interested in player personalities, photo shoots, trade show activations, content and number of eyeballs looking at their brand and their ads. Then there are other ones that seem to care a ton about the results and the rest does not matter too much. A lot of times that mentality boils down to your contact at the company you are dealing with. Is that person a huge fan of eSports? Did they come from eSports? Or are they just a pure marketer that have been shown value and ROI and trust you to do what is best for their brand? There are many other factors to this but those are a few.
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Great post. I think that many of the fans in the community oversimplify in their minds the challenges that the players and teams face, even at the very top level.
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On June 24 2011 00:24 kollin wrote:
Coke made an excellent play, at one point Day9's stream had 100k viewers.
That depends on how much they paid for the placement, doesn't it?
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A distinguishing factor about eSports isn't the number of viewers it has - because it's not that much, in comparison to sports or other niche hobbies - but the ability for companies to target to an audience that is much more attuned to their product.
Steelseries, for example, would get far more traction advertising during Dreamhack, sponsoring a LAN event or even paying players to use their products than traditional print/broadcast advertisements. The smaller audience is happy to spend substantial amounts of money on gaming gear ($20-60 on mouse pads, $50-150 on gaming mice, $50-200 on headphones/headsets) and therefore they get a lot more bang for their buck, as it were.
Because they're prepared to make that initial outlay, they're much more receptive to advertisements; which is why sponsorship can be worth it for businesses.
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On June 24 2011 05:11 k!llua wrote:
A distinguishing factor about eSports isn't the number of viewers it has - because it's not that much, in comparison to sports or other niche hobbies - but the ability for companies to target to an audience that is much more attuned to their product.
This is really on the money in my opinion. I think the ability to advertise directly to their core audience in reasonable numbers outweighs advertising to mass market (Tv, news paper, Billboard along the motorway). I see it that it has 2 big advantages, Firstly the viewer is highly likely to actually want the product, and secondary the potential buyer can see that the company is supporting one of their biggest interests (E-sports or in our case SC2/SC:BW).
I think I'm a fantastic example of that. I had some pretty sad headphones that were falling apart, I needed new ones of reasonable quality that wouldn't cost the earth. Watching GSL I saw the Razor Banshee and thought to myself "hmmm I need knew headphones, maybe I should give those a try". So I headed to my local computer store and picked them up. End result is I have a product which works very well and supports SC2 which is an added bonus. I'm pretty sure if I saw an Razor Banshee ad on Tv, I would of glossed over it like I do with everything else.
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On June 24 2011 05:11 k!llua wrote:
A distinguishing factor about eSports isn't the number of viewers it has - because it's not that much, in comparison to sports or other niche hobbies - but the ability for companies to target to an audience that is much more attuned to their product.
Steelseries, for example, would get far more traction advertising during Dreamhack, sponsoring a LAN event or even paying players to use their products than traditional print/broadcast advertisements. The smaller audience is happy to spend substantial amounts of money on gaming gear ($20-60 on mouse pads, $50-150 on gaming mice, $50-200 on headphones/headsets) and therefore they get a lot more bang for their buck, as it were.
Because they're prepared to make that initial outlay, they're much more receptive to advertisements; which is why sponsorship can be worth it for businesses.
This is a key selling point. A. we are considerably cheaper than the mass market advertising and B. They guarantee a big chunk of the demographic they are after.
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On June 24 2011 02:16 seoul_kiM wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2011 01:36 coLtwixz wrote:On June 24 2011 01:26 seoul_kiM wrote:
I hope things are going better for you and Lake in SC2 than in CS 1.6. When are we going to see the reign of coL again in 1.6? =D
While I agree with most of the financial issues and concerns that you tackle in your thread, I was wondering if you could shed some light on the recurring problem of players and practice. Many on the TL forums believe that sponsors sometimes hinder their players from practicing by having mandatory blogs, posts, and other side requisites that are not practicing. Many forum-goers have also addressed the idea of the Koreans who have little to no side requisites at all besides practicing 8-10 hours a day and refining their skills compared to the foreigner scene who might not practice as much and might be involved with other things. From a players perspective, if you can't take 30 minutes to an hour out of your week to do things like that. Well then you are just lazy! People whose crafts that are way more demanding (example) like any pro athlete, that can find the time to talk to media, do interviews, or even volunteer work. While staying to a very structured schedule of practice and in top shape (high skill level), just shows that sponsored players should be able to come up with a few spare minutes for stuff like that. In between games, on lunch breaks, there are many ways to fit in a forum post or blog. Much of what you said rings well with me but on the other side there are valid points as well. Korean teams mandate that their players practice a certain amount and do certain things to keep their play up to the top level. Does complexity not have that kind of demand or is it purely based on results and placings? I don't doubt the passion and will to win behind any professional SC2 player but why does it seem like the Koreans practice so much more? I'm sure you ladder for a couples hours every night but what keeps you from going hard (8-10 hours a day, not sure if you do this or not)? It might be too personal to ask but how long do you practice and how do you spend that time practicing? Do you think that's enough or do you just get bored or burnt out? Pro-athletes have off seasons where most of their charity and external work gets done I believe but they do interviews and shows all the time. Do professional e-athletes have an off-season? Not really and especially in this booming game of SC2 where the tournaments/upcoming events tab is so long I have to actually scroll down. I feel that getting good results will advance an organization's ability to obtain sponsors and other perks while socially active players that interact with the community might create a fanbase group (which could also help with sponsorships) but hinder a player's results.
Well my comparison is really not that fair (since i was pro at another game not sc2), but the way SC was built in Korea did not happen overnight, and it sure did not happen just from winning. So to compare the state of koeans and americans would not really even be fair. They have been at it and on the grind for so long (of course dating back to sc1), if you even watched some of the boxer documentaries on his team right now you can see the struggle he has had and pressure to obtain sponsors.
No sport or league or event was built just on winning, it was the players from the past that did outreaches to the community and interactions with fans that brought everyone to where they are today. Also as a season ticket holder to a major sport I can tell you that the team reaches out many times during the season too.
All I'm saying is even if you put 60 hours a week into SC2 practice you can still find another 30mins to an hour for outside SC2 work (a week). There's really no way around that to me.
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EPT
