BW Teams playing Starcraft 2 - Page 169

We all know the answer is simply money; anyways, let's do analysis of sponsors of current (7 + 1 brand brand new) bw teams and "why they are in esports". Useful link is here, the major corporations in south korea on wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_of_South_Korea

spoiler is just some compiled financial data; not too relevant. just shows how large the sponsoring companies are (doesn't mean they give to the team, but they are big big companies; compared to something like primezzang or korean sc2 sponsors at this point)
+ Show Spoiler +

skipping that spoiler well, the above spoiler just establishes that major corporations in korea are sponsoring bw, and have been for many years (elaboration down below). 2 teams that disbanded after the last season (Wemade and hwaseung) were a bit smaller corporations. MBC game is shutting down as the overall company MBC (media network) is turning it into a kpop channel.

As far as advertising goes, hwaseung doesn't really seem to have the same type of "electronics/gaming" sector that some of the other large companies clearly have and could benefit from sponsoring ESPORTS (samsung, sk telecom, kt (another telecom company/internet), cj which does quite a bit of entertainment/media/internet in addition to their food services). Wemade is an online games company so it's a bit surprising to me they cut their team, but I guess they decided it was too costly for the benefit or were having internal problems. STX is a ship builder and woongjin is an ??? company (website said it started as educational/publication company, and now says its a holdings company)

It's no surprise that those 4 teams--sky, kt, samsung, cj--are older (all have been in their current form with same sponsorship since 2006 or older) and have always been viewed as having more "money" than the other teams. STX soul has been in the form of STX since 2004. Woongjin changed to woongjin in 2008. Air Force Ace is a special case. Hwaseung, wemade, and mbc game were comparably smaller sponsors than the other teams in the modern era (when nada was on wemade, I get the impression it may have been larger).

summary of stability--good news!: Of the 7 current teams (not counting the brand brand new team put together), 5 (skt, kt, cj, and samsung, air force ace) are pretty much "incredibly stable" in my view. They are sponsored by huge companies in south korea that have been sponsoring the teams for years (latest change was 2006 for CJ as far as I can tell), that all have significant shares in electronic/esports industry; air force ace also is a different type of team. The teams "at risk", in my view, are STX and Woongjin--STX had some internal problems recently (put all players up for draft; not that it's disbanding, but they did some move like that at end of last proleague season) and I can't tell how much woongjin is invested. Both woongjin and STX are seen as "lower money" teams as far as I can tell than teams like kt and skt who cough up those large salaries for players. Jaedong, the best zerg of all time, always had a much lower salary on hwaseung than he "could have had" with other teams.

KT and SKT also sends its players on vacations, and Samsung players always have to say how they get the new samsung products in their interviews (Stork talking about his samsung galaxy, etc). The companies are paying the players well, have been doing so for a long time, and even use them as forms of advertisement. Their sponsorship is rock solid for years to come.

The proleague has been sponsored since 2007 by the same (major) corporation, shinhan bank. Proleague has had steady sponsorship for a while. The starleagues have had mixed success in finding high end sponsors recently, but they still bring in some nice sponsors (like korean air sponsoring 2 leagues in 2010).

So, basically, it's kind of bad timing that hwaseung dropped it's sponsorship (it had been sponsoring since 2006; it was lecaf from 2006-2009, but lecaf is just a subsidiary of hwaseung) at the same time as wemade and mbc. MBC game is a factor of whether esports can survive on television--they're dropping of their team just indicates bw may have to rely on internet broadcasts, like sc2 does, in the future. It would make the scene smaller, but the scene would exist. Wemade I guess just didn't have the financials/didn't care anymore, but again they kind of surprised me as they are a large online game company.

But we saw the weaker sponsorships drop, and it's not a bad thing. When proleague starts up again with the 8 teams, missing 1 or 2 teams isn't too detrimental and can even liven up the scene some.

What would make bw not last 3 years or longer in its current form?
A) the broadcasting channels for it goes away. OGN (ongamenetwork) is the television channel that will now broadcast all the games as mbc is shutting down it's gaming channel (unless another network picks it up). A lot of bw fans are casual--in fact a huge portion of the audience is women. There are a lot of casual fans of bw, and if it has to go entirely to online streams new sponsors may not be too interested in it (or sponsors would be specifically companies relating to electronics/gaming, which most of the time means smaller sponsors). We already know that bw numbers are huge in china online, but that doesn't help attract the big corporate sponsors. MBC dropped because it's corporation must have decided broadcasted esports was too much work when they think they can get the same results with a generic kpop channel; that just means bw may have to go to a more online form.
B) some more scandals; bw was rocked a bit by the betting scandal. Those things hurt the image of esports, particularly to sponsors (I'd imagine). Scandals could just kill bw forever, and is really only option I think that could do that.
C) decline of esports period, which is possible in korea. A lot of people play games like MMORPG's or flash games, etc etc. That is just as bad for sc2 as it would be for bw.
D) the teams aren't as stable as I think they are; I really do believe that ~6 teams would be stable for as long as bw is televised in korea. I have complete faith in 4 teams being totally stable for years to come; as long as the league doesn't really dip below 7 teams, you can have a pretty legit competition year-round (may have to change it some).
E) the league doesn't get sponsorship. Again, I don't think this will really happen. Shinhan bank has sponsored proleague since 2007, and I can't imagine it's a huge investment. The prize pool isn't completely gigantic.