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On July 30 2011 05:38 Corrupted wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2011 05:32 s4life wrote:
So he get a million bucks and he raises the prizes by a lot -- say 50%? -- that would make a whooping 7k for first prize... only the UFC pays worse to its players -- relative to their profit -- I believe. To be fair to the UFC, their top fighters make millions per fight. A vast amount of "smaller" tourneys than MLG pay out more in prize money than them. It is an embarrassing issue. They should feel embarrassed about it. I don't have much opinion about what's going on in this thread...but there is no doubt the prize pool is an issue that needs to be talked about. Any discussion of it being lowered are incredibly offensive and should not be discussed. If that was ever actually considered, they should just shut their doors.
The actual figures for UFC fighters -- the most popular ones like Lesnar -- are around 500K per fight... the individual bonuses are not disclosed though... but yeah I agree that MLG is infinitely worse in this respect. You have NASL pays 100K, IPL pays 50K and plenty of small tournaments here and there easily exceed 10-20K in prize money.. to offer 14K as total prize money for SC2 borders on exploitation and it's certainly extremely greedy for a business that turns out 30 million in profits yearly.
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On July 30 2011 07:22 CeriseCherries wrote:
-.- How did offering to increase prize pool become a shitstorm? Right. Because people are ungrateful and cynical. If you don't support it, shush and let the people that do want a pass be happy. If you do support it, then be constructive. Having the potential for a higher prize pool is BETTER than NOT having the potential for a higher prize pool. What did anyone lose?
What people were insulted by was the manner in which he presented it; it was basically phrased like an ultimatum instead of a "hey, if we get enough subscribers, we'll raise the prize pool!".
Basically, it looked like he was taking something the community wanted (larger prize pools) and using that desire to try to take more money from the community.
For clarification, I don't actually feel that way, it's just the way it first appeared when he made that tweet.
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Northern Ireland2557 Posts
On July 30 2011 07:25 sanddbox_tl wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2011 07:22 CeriseCherries wrote:
-.- How did offering to increase prize pool become a shitstorm? Right. Because people are ungrateful and cynical. If you don't support it, shush and let the people that do want a pass be happy. If you do support it, then be constructive. Having the potential for a higher prize pool is BETTER than NOT having the potential for a higher prize pool. What did anyone lose? What people were insulted by was the manner in which he presented it; it was basically phrased like an ultimatum instead of a "hey, if we get enough subscribers, we'll raise the prize pool!". Basically, it looked like he was taking something the community wanted (larger prize pools) and using that desire to try to take more money from the community. For clarification, I don't actually feel that way, it's just the way it first appeared when he made that tweet.
Not just that, but he threatened to reduce the prize pool if we did not oblige... what sundance has done is coercion
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On July 30 2011 07:23 s4life wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2011 05:38 Corrupted wrote:On July 30 2011 05:32 s4life wrote:
So he get a million bucks and he raises the prizes by a lot -- say 50%? -- that would make a whooping 7k for first prize... only the UFC pays worse to its players -- relative to their profit -- I believe. To be fair to the UFC, their top fighters make millions per fight. A vast amount of "smaller" tourneys than MLG pay out more in prize money than them. It is an embarrassing issue. They should feel embarrassed about it. I don't have much opinion about what's going on in this thread...but there is no doubt the prize pool is an issue that needs to be talked about. Any discussion of it being lowered are incredibly offensive and should not be discussed. If that was ever actually considered, they should just shut their doors. The actual figures for UFC fighters -- the most popular ones like Lesnar -- are around 500K per fight... the individual bonuses are not disclosed though... but yeah I agree that MLG is infinitely worse in this respect. You have NASL pays 100K, IPL pays 50K and plenty of small tournaments here and there easily exceed 10-20K in prize money.. to offer 14K as total prize money for SC2 borders on exploitation and it's certainly extremely greedy for a business that turns out 30 million in profits yearly.
Its not 30mil in profits. whoever stated those numbers said revenue. How much do you think running 1 MLG costs? they run 6?(7?) a year. How much staff do they have + equipment+ travel+ renting a convention centre. Not to mention the day-to-day employees and operations at the head office. Its not as simple as " Hey they have 30mil in revenue , wheres my money". Sundance is just stating he needs 100k passes sold to keep this sustainable, and he's pledging to increase the prize pool if it happens.
The lowering prize pool comment amy not ahve been needed, but he was just being honest.
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Got my ticket even though the friday schedule sucks for EU. How many left to go? Cu in the morning.
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On July 30 2011 02:41 SundanceMLG wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2011 14:20 iNcontroL wrote:
Uhhh if you give me a million dollars I will raise the prizepool??? Wow! That is amazing! Months ago you gave me shit about the prize pool and now I'm putting a simple and obtainable goal out there for the entire community and you give me shit again - and that's fine. I still respect you and appreciate what you've done and will continue to do for the scene. My question is this - if the number was 50,000 would you take an issue with my approach? How about 15,000? What if I didn't say a thing and just watched my spreadsheets populate with numbers and kept the community in the dark? Shouldn't the people who love this have some insight into what is needed for success? You're either in or you're out. $30 a year from 100,000 people makes this company a real business and not just a passion project from a guy with a hippy name who refuses to quit. $30 a year from 10,000 people means that we're all wrong and there isn't enough fan support to sustain a business of scale. Less than a dime a day from less than 10% of the people who visit our site over the course of an event weekend allows me to flip a switch and change next year to a structure that supports 24 live events & 28 meaningful ladders. 52 competitions with nearly 2 million dollars of prize money and stipends. Again - I don't care if you think I'm an asshole or a money grubbing prick. I just want to find out if what we do is actually meaningful to enough of you to step up.
That's nice. Except, your still confused on what we actually wanted from you. I would be surprised if there were 100,000 people willing to give up 30$, considering the largest broadcasts of sc2 to date have been around the 80k concurrent range. Considering that a fraction of people will actually pay for anything, that's around say 40k at most, would be willing to buy your pass.
That is, if you didn't cast your self as someone who isn't really "in touch" with its user base. By that, i mean the fact that you think that we want "more prize pool". While more prize pool would be nice (and i'm not complaining), its NOT what was asked for from the community, and on SOTG.
What Tyler was referring too, and what made you the laughing stock of the community, was the fact that the prize pool distribution is way too heavy for the winner of mlg, and gives nothing for the top most players. He/We were suggesting that instead of first place being 5000, and so on down the line, paying out till 8th place, he wanted something that was of a lower first place, and paid more, say, for the people who placed in the top 14 or so. (3000 1st, 2000 2nd, 1500 3rd, 1200 4th, 1000 5th, 800 6-8th, etc. Same prize pool) *These arn't the exact numbers, just something i came up with on the top of my head.
Of course, you wouldn't actually be able to sign out and give that very large check, with the cool background, and the higher prize pool on it. (Ego anyone?) Instead, you turn the table, and change the problem to what it would take for a large prize pool.
We know that you will be able to give more if you get more. Its common sense. What we need is a slight taste, relating that back to a previous success (like how your moving sc2 to the main stage area).
What we don't need is for someone to shove t-shirts down our throats, products to buy, and being told that if your not buying, your not helping. Saying these things makes the value of your brand go down, and makes you seem a little bit obtuse.
When football started out as a professional sport, do you think the owners of teams went around the stadiums, making speeches, going on newspaper and radio, and talking about the financial stability of the sport, and begging people to throw money at him? (no, they did this in private, talking to investors and sponsors)
MLG will succeed or fail, not due to the amount of people that throw money at you, but because of your sponsorships and viewer numbers. (Which is something that you cannot ask directly for.) Increased viewer numbers (premium or not), will increase sponsorship interest, which will in turn help generate that 3 million you are asking for.
So instead of asking people for their money, please, ask just for their willingness to watch MLG, (people might be more interested in buying an mlg membership if they can "trust" the company they are buying it from). In the long run, becoming a sustainable business (or professional sport) has whole lot to do with how you present your product, and how many people you can get to watch it.
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Funny how people who dont have a chance of getting a big chunk of the prizepool saying its little.
IMO most spectators don't really care about the prizepool but more about the type of tournament + quality.
So what if first place get $5k more? What if the $5k was spent elsewhere, e.g better HQ streams or more seats at the venue or a bigger venue.
And then people complain about koreans flying over to talk 'their' money away
if you cant keep up with them then a) retire or b) stfu and get better
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If people feel the need to hand over more money to increase prizes, MLG is a bad choice. Very little of your subscription fees will actually end up in the players' hands. Instead, I suggest you donate to events like TB's tournaments where 100% of the money you give goes directly to the players.
On July 30 2011 07:30 Nuttyguy wrote:
Funny how people who dont have a chance of getting a big chunk of the prizepool saying its little.
IMO most spectators don't really care about the prizepool but more about the type of tournament + quality.
So what if first place get $5k more? What if the $5k was spent elsewhere, e.g better HQ streams or more seats at the venue or a bigger venue.
And then people complain about koreans flying over to talk 'their' money away
if you cant keep up with them then a) retire or b) stfu and get better
Money generates hype. When there's a lot of it on the line, shit gets more exciting.
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inControl said in an earlier post that Sundance should have simply asked people to "Buy MLG subscriptions to support e-sports!". Bullshit. It's too vague, provides no practical reason for purchasing the sub, and really, why should we "support e-sports" to begin with?
"Buy passes to support the players and allow us to run bigger and better events." That's something I can buy into. Sundance has asked us to buy tickets, and given us a reason why we should. It's a basic business strategy because it WORKS. Look at the new NHL team in Winnipeg. Betman said "We need to sell 11000 season tickets to make this a worthwhile venture, prove to us that you deserve this team." And in within 3 days, they'd hit that goal. Do you think they would have done so well if Betman had just said "Buy season tickets to support your team!!!" HELL NO!
Sundance, keep doing what you're doing man. It's clear that you have a vision, and strategy in place to reach that goal. If you don't succeed, no one will ever be able to say it's due to a lack of effort.
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On July 30 2011 07:23 s4life wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2011 05:38 Corrupted wrote:On July 30 2011 05:32 s4life wrote:
So he get a million bucks and he raises the prizes by a lot -- say 50%? -- that would make a whooping 7k for first prize... only the UFC pays worse to its players -- relative to their profit -- I believe. To be fair to the UFC, their top fighters make millions per fight. A vast amount of "smaller" tourneys than MLG pay out more in prize money than them. It is an embarrassing issue. They should feel embarrassed about it. I don't have much opinion about what's going on in this thread...but there is no doubt the prize pool is an issue that needs to be talked about. Any discussion of it being lowered are incredibly offensive and should not be discussed. If that was ever actually considered, they should just shut their doors. The actual figures for UFC fighters -- the most popular ones like Lesnar -- are around 500K per fight... the individual bonuses are not disclosed though... but yeah I agree that MLG is infinitely worse in this respect. You have NASL pays 100K, IPL pays 50K and plenty of small tournaments here and there easily exceed 10-20K in prize money.. to offer 14K as total prize money for SC2 borders on exploitation and it's certainly extremely greedy for a business that turns out 30 million in profits yearly.
MLG loses money yearly, at best it breaks even, or makes a very, very small profit. You're talking about $30 million in "revenue", which is simply a measure of the money coming into the business, before measuring the costs associated with running the business in the first place.
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On July 30 2011 07:30 Nuttyguy wrote:
Funny how people who dont have a chance of getting a big chunk of the prizepool saying its little.
IMO most spectators don't really care about the prizepool but more about the type of tournament + quality.
So what if first place get $5k more? What if the $5k was spent elsewhere, e.g better HQ streams or more seats at the venue or a bigger venue.
And then people complain about koreans flying over to talk 'their' money away
if you cant keep up with them then a) retire or b) stfu and get better
Keep in mind, there has to be more than just exposure to send out international pros overseas as I already pointed out before. If the prize pool is relatively small a lot of the teams won't bother sending their players. It's small enough as is and top heavy as many people have pointed out before.
There are other methods to cut down your costs. I don't know why anyone would automatically think about cutting down the prize money when the con's outweigh the pro's.
It really comes down to how you pitch something. If there is something that most organizers lack... it's PR. There are better ways to pitch your brand.
At least they are very out-spoken.
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You cant realy compare to NASL/IPL since there is no way of telling if they can make it work without takeing losses yet.
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On July 30 2011 07:34 Nemireck wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2011 07:23 s4life wrote:On July 30 2011 05:38 Corrupted wrote:On July 30 2011 05:32 s4life wrote:
So he get a million bucks and he raises the prizes by a lot -- say 50%? -- that would make a whooping 7k for first prize... only the UFC pays worse to its players -- relative to their profit -- I believe. To be fair to the UFC, their top fighters make millions per fight. A vast amount of "smaller" tourneys than MLG pay out more in prize money than them. It is an embarrassing issue. They should feel embarrassed about it. I don't have much opinion about what's going on in this thread...but there is no doubt the prize pool is an issue that needs to be talked about. Any discussion of it being lowered are incredibly offensive and should not be discussed. If that was ever actually considered, they should just shut their doors. The actual figures for UFC fighters -- the most popular ones like Lesnar -- are around 500K per fight... the individual bonuses are not disclosed though... but yeah I agree that MLG is infinitely worse in this respect. You have NASL pays 100K, IPL pays 50K and plenty of small tournaments here and there easily exceed 10-20K in prize money.. to offer 14K as total prize money for SC2 borders on exploitation and it's certainly extremely greedy for a business that turns out 30 million in profits yearly. MLG loses money yearly, at best it breaks even, or makes a very, very small profit. You're talking about $30 million in "revenue", which is simply a measure of the money coming into the business, before measuring the costs associated with running the business in the first place.
If they break even, that's $30 million in costs. $190k are the starcraft prizes, the total should be around $1m for all games. That's 3.3% of their budget. I'm absolutely certain that number is at least an order of magnitude smaller than ANY other major tournament's cost structure.
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On July 30 2011 07:34 Nemireck wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2011 07:23 s4life wrote:On July 30 2011 05:38 Corrupted wrote:On July 30 2011 05:32 s4life wrote:
So he get a million bucks and he raises the prizes by a lot -- say 50%? -- that would make a whooping 7k for first prize... only the UFC pays worse to its players -- relative to their profit -- I believe. To be fair to the UFC, their top fighters make millions per fight. A vast amount of "smaller" tourneys than MLG pay out more in prize money than them. It is an embarrassing issue. They should feel embarrassed about it. I don't have much opinion about what's going on in this thread...but there is no doubt the prize pool is an issue that needs to be talked about. Any discussion of it being lowered are incredibly offensive and should not be discussed. If that was ever actually considered, they should just shut their doors. The actual figures for UFC fighters -- the most popular ones like Lesnar -- are around 500K per fight... the individual bonuses are not disclosed though... but yeah I agree that MLG is infinitely worse in this respect. You have NASL pays 100K, IPL pays 50K and plenty of small tournaments here and there easily exceed 10-20K in prize money.. to offer 14K as total prize money for SC2 borders on exploitation and it's certainly extremely greedy for a business that turns out 30 million in profits yearly. MLG loses money yearly, at best it breaks even, or makes a very, very small profit. You're talking about $30 million in "revenue", which is simply a measure of the money coming into the business, before measuring the costs associated with running the business in the first place.
why does mlg continue then? theres got to be at least some incentive to continue and its prob not some bullshit like doing it for the fans because everything is for profits.
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Okay i think we've given Sundance enough shit for today. MLG is going to be awesome no matter the prize pool.
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On July 30 2011 07:39 Immolate wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2011 07:34 Nemireck wrote:On July 30 2011 07:23 s4life wrote:On July 30 2011 05:38 Corrupted wrote:On July 30 2011 05:32 s4life wrote:
So he get a million bucks and he raises the prizes by a lot -- say 50%? -- that would make a whooping 7k for first prize... only the UFC pays worse to its players -- relative to their profit -- I believe. To be fair to the UFC, their top fighters make millions per fight. A vast amount of "smaller" tourneys than MLG pay out more in prize money than them. It is an embarrassing issue. They should feel embarrassed about it. I don't have much opinion about what's going on in this thread...but there is no doubt the prize pool is an issue that needs to be talked about. Any discussion of it being lowered are incredibly offensive and should not be discussed. If that was ever actually considered, they should just shut their doors. The actual figures for UFC fighters -- the most popular ones like Lesnar -- are around 500K per fight... the individual bonuses are not disclosed though... but yeah I agree that MLG is infinitely worse in this respect. You have NASL pays 100K, IPL pays 50K and plenty of small tournaments here and there easily exceed 10-20K in prize money.. to offer 14K as total prize money for SC2 borders on exploitation and it's certainly extremely greedy for a business that turns out 30 million in profits yearly. MLG loses money yearly, at best it breaks even, or makes a very, very small profit. You're talking about $30 million in "revenue", which is simply a measure of the money coming into the business, before measuring the costs associated with running the business in the first place. why does mlg continue then? theres got to be at least some incentive to continue and its prob not some bullshit like doing it for the fans because everything is for profits.
MLG is a Venture Capital Project. Most investors expect a loss in the first few years of operations but expect empirical evidence of sustainability within that time span. To do this Sundance is trying to get the subscriptions up, otherwise as he pointed out they could lose future funding. Leading to cuts across the board which he acknowledged in his second post.
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On July 30 2011 07:29 hellsan631 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2011 02:41 SundanceMLG wrote:On July 29 2011 14:20 iNcontroL wrote:
Uhhh if you give me a million dollars I will raise the prizepool??? Wow! That is amazing! Months ago you gave me shit about the prize pool and now I'm putting a simple and obtainable goal out there for the entire community and you give me shit again - and that's fine. I still respect you and appreciate what you've done and will continue to do for the scene. My question is this - if the number was 50,000 would you take an issue with my approach? How about 15,000? What if I didn't say a thing and just watched my spreadsheets populate with numbers and kept the community in the dark? Shouldn't the people who love this have some insight into what is needed for success? You're either in or you're out. $30 a year from 100,000 people makes this company a real business and not just a passion project from a guy with a hippy name who refuses to quit. $30 a year from 10,000 people means that we're all wrong and there isn't enough fan support to sustain a business of scale. Less than a dime a day from less than 10% of the people who visit our site over the course of an event weekend allows me to flip a switch and change next year to a structure that supports 24 live events & 28 meaningful ladders. 52 competitions with nearly 2 million dollars of prize money and stipends. Again - I don't care if you think I'm an asshole or a money grubbing prick. I just want to find out if what we do is actually meaningful to enough of you to step up. That's nice. Except, your still confused on what we actually wanted from you. I would be surprised if there were 100,000 people willing to give up 30$, considering the largest broadcasts of sc2 to date have been around the 80k concurrent range. Considering that a fraction of people will actually pay for anything, that's around say 40k at most, would be willing to buy your pass. That is, if you didn't cast your self as someone who isn't really "in touch" with its user base. By that, i mean the fact that you think that we want "more prize pool". While more prize pool would be nice (and i'm not complaining), its NOT what was asked for from the community, and on SOTG. What Tyler was referring too, and what made you the laughing stock of the community, was the fact that the prize pool distribution is way too heavy for the winner of mlg, and gives nothing for the top most players. He/We were suggesting that instead of first place being 5000, and so on down the line, paying out till 8th place, he wanted something that was of a lower first place, and paid more, say, for the people who placed in the top 14 or so. (3000 1st, 2000 2nd, 1500 3rd, 1200 4th, 1000 5th, 800 6-8th, etc. Same prize pool) *These arn't the exact numbers, just something i came up with on the top of my head. Of course, you wouldn't actually be able to sign out and give that very large check, with the cool background, and the higher prize pool on it. (Ego anyone?) Instead, you turn the table, and change the problem to what it would take for a large prize pool. We know that you will be able to give more if you get more. Its common sense. What we need is a slight taste, relating that back to a previous success (like how your moving sc2 to the main stage area). What we don't need is for someone to shove t-shirts down our throats, products to buy, and being told that if your not buying, your not helping. Saying these things makes the value of your brand go down, and makes you seem a little bit obtuse. When football started out as a professional sport, do you think the owners of teams went around the stadiums, making speeches, going on newspaper and radio, and talking about the financial stability of the sport, and begging people to throw money at him? (no, they did this in private, talking to investors and sponsors) MLG will succeed or fail, not due to the amount of people that throw money at you, but because of your sponsorships and viewer numbers. (Which is something that you cannot ask directly for.) Increased viewer numbers (premium or not), will increase sponsorship interest, which will in turn help generate that 3 million you are asking for. So instead of asking people for their money, please, ask just for their willingness to watch MLG, (people might be more interested in buying an mlg membership if they can "trust" the company they are buying it from). In the long run, becoming a sustainable business (or professional sport) has whole lot to do with how you present your product, and how many people you can get to watch it.
Tyler suggested that some of the MLG National Championship money be spread throughout the other 6 events. IE instead of a 50k grand prize 25k and make each MLG champion in the regular season get 10k. He did not suggest lowering the normal circuit events first place prize.
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On July 30 2011 07:43 GrapeD wrote:
Okay i think we've given Sundance enough shit for today. MLG is going to be awesome no matter the prize pool.
yes!!!!! can't wait for DRG to get his code S pass!!!!!!
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On July 30 2011 07:34 Nemireck wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2011 07:23 s4life wrote:On July 30 2011 05:38 Corrupted wrote:On July 30 2011 05:32 s4life wrote:
So he get a million bucks and he raises the prizes by a lot -- say 50%? -- that would make a whooping 7k for first prize... only the UFC pays worse to its players -- relative to their profit -- I believe. To be fair to the UFC, their top fighters make millions per fight. A vast amount of "smaller" tourneys than MLG pay out more in prize money than them. It is an embarrassing issue. They should feel embarrassed about it. I don't have much opinion about what's going on in this thread...but there is no doubt the prize pool is an issue that needs to be talked about. Any discussion of it being lowered are incredibly offensive and should not be discussed. If that was ever actually considered, they should just shut their doors. The actual figures for UFC fighters -- the most popular ones like Lesnar -- are around 500K per fight... the individual bonuses are not disclosed though... but yeah I agree that MLG is infinitely worse in this respect. You have NASL pays 100K, IPL pays 50K and plenty of small tournaments here and there easily exceed 10-20K in prize money.. to offer 14K as total prize money for SC2 borders on exploitation and it's certainly extremely greedy for a business that turns out 30 million in profits yearly. MLG loses money yearly, at best it breaks even, or makes a very, very small profit. You're talking about $30 million in "revenue", which is simply a measure of the money coming into the business, before measuring the costs associated with running the business in the first place.
what's your source on that? I seem to remember reading an article a while ago saying that mlg actually made a ton of money off the event it was written after. I can't remember where that article is it was so long ago, maybe someone else knows, but i'm pretty sure they aren't losing money or breaking even.
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Incontrol is know for being extremely inconsistent so his post does not shock me
I admire Sundance for getting in his face and protecting his
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EPT
