MLG Winter Arena to be PPV - Page 180

On February 16 2012 08:34 Nausea wrote:
They should put the first day for free to hook people on the action and the possible plotlines of the second and third day, and then require people to pay. And they should probably make it so you just pay per day. Say 7$ per day, that is 14$ for two days and if you don't have time to watch both days you just buy a ticket for one of the days.

I think this would work much better than just blocking everyone and asking for 20$ up front without the customer having any idea of what quality the production will have.

On February 16 2012 07:32 legaton wrote:


Perfect example of all the wishful thinking, fallacies and plain stupidity we read on this thread. There's no miracle solution for business and all the "options" you mention have already been tried. Did you forget that MLG fired several persons (Slasher) that worked on media content not directly related to events? Didn't you realize that, unlike IPL, MLG doesn't use prime convention centers, but tries to goes to more medium sized towns or suburbs on highly populated areas (as a European, i've discover several new places in North America as Providence or Raleigh thanks to MLG. More importantly, do you even know how a "negotiation" works? You say "Renegotiate with sponsors for money earned per commercial". May i ask what leverage MLG has to ask for more money from sponsors? 250K unique hits? Wow, i'm pretty sure the marketing and the sales director from Dr Pepper are going to be really impressed... Renegotiating the terms of a contract is not as easy as you believe...

And as a side note, greedy Sundance and MLG didn't paid their cars thanks to you or the e-sports scene, and that's what's worrisome. I posted the SEC fillings from MLG yesterday. They have sold 50 millions dollars on equity parts and 7 millions on debt backed securities. Today, MLG exists and expands thanks to the gullibility of retarded investors trying to hit the new -and unknown- internet fancy. God bless America because it seems there's a lot of stupid private equity funds trying to set a foot on "new technologies" and "media related ventures". But this system is just not sustainable. You can live on equity forever, you have to turn a profit.

I'm not saying people should pay MLG. I have never bought anything from MLG and i'm not going to start now. I'm just saying that the "freemium" business model doesn't exist. You have a venture capital based models (MLG but also platforms like justinTV) trying to monetize trafic. It seems it didn't work. Now, they want to try the PPV model. It's probably going to fail and it's going to shatter the illusions of lots of people of the "scene"

On February 16 2012 08:34 frozenrb wrote:


Then people will just watch only finals maybe second day...

On February 16 2012 08:40 Myles wrote:

Look at it this way:

Charging $20 for everything means far less viewers than an average event, which I'll assume is 100k. Based on poll here, only 10% of people are going to pay, and that's on a site that draws all the hardcore fans. Taking casuals who fill up the majority of viewership into account, they'll be lucky to draw 5% of average. So that's $100,000.

If they charge $7 per day with the first free, they only need to get 7,500 viewers per day to exceed $100,000. I think they'd get way more than that.

On February 16 2012 08:45 Trentelshark wrote:
It costs me more than $20 one way for a cab from my house to downtown on the weekends for a night out with friends (so > $40 there and back). I'll have to see the lineup of Assembly versus MLG, whichever is best, I'll watch even if I have to spend a measly $20.

On February 16 2012 08:15 legaton wrote:


Cutting the quotes the way you did is intellectually dishonest, as i just stated haven't and won't pay for MLG. I do agree they did a lot of bad decisions. Most notably, they sold the pitch of a booming industry, with a 150% yearly growth of viewer-ship. If they based their activities on those numbers, they probably overextended and they are now paying the prize for it.

Still, people should stop thinking that "free content" exists. There's always someone covering the costs of it, and somewhere, somebody needs to generate revenue. Sponsorship and ads are an awful business models as the viewer-ship is way to small to make ad revenue a viable source of growth for esports, and sponsorship puts you on a position of total dependence towards the primary sponsors (the day ASUS or Intel changes his policy towards progaming, the european tournaments are instantly dead).

Therefore, it is fair to search for a new business model. I just don't believe there is one, for plenty of reasons. And i'm not even worried as i would really love to see something closer to the fighting scene here (more diversity, more fun, less serious business, less uptight, less corporation ridden, less annoying "stars" and drama related stars).

On February 16 2012 08:46 frozenrb wrote:


Just watch and compare players, people think that MLG have sickest lineup ? Just because Koreans will come, many Koreans... will probably dominate whole tournament. Sure there is some Korean players in Assembly but...

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Assembly_Winter_2012

vs

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/2012_MLG_Pro_Circuit/Winter/Arena

I want to watch TLO, Jinro, Stephano, Mana, Bling, White-Ra, Select the foreginers i root for, i like to watch and i know they will provide good games.

On February 16 2012 08:46 frozenrb wrote:


Just watch and compare players, people think that MLG have sickest lineup ? Just because Koreans will come, many Koreans... will probably dominate whole tournament. Sure there is some Korean players in Assembly but...

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Assembly_Winter_2012

vs

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/2012_MLG_Pro_Circuit/Winter/Arena

I want to watch TLO, Jinro, Stephano, Mana, Bling, White-Ra, Select the foreginers i root for, i like to watch and i know they will provide good games.

On February 16 2012 08:51 NoobSkills wrote:


On a side note I wish these two events didn't conflict and the top players from both could compete in both. Unfortunately assembly got the short stick. Puma or Stephano wins that event with mean leaning towars stephano. This was a poor choice from both events would love to see a headline like X player wins MLG Winter Arena proceedes to dominate Assembly and is now going back to korea to compete in GSL season 2 or whatever. Too bad

On February 16 2012 08:57 frozenrb wrote:


I don't think that games leaning to either side.

On February 16 2012 08:36 NoobSkills wrote:


Raleigh's convention center is ALWAYS filled. And providence is huge. IPL rents casino space NOT Madison Square Garden. The leverage in negotiation and yes I know they're probably under a yearly contract would be that becauase this even right here is probably the sickest mixture of top players from every region it could potentially hit 500k-1million concurrents. I don't know if there are a million fans out there who follow SC2 regularily but by putting forth this model now they won't find out. If this event run in this fashion gets that many they know the next events are going to be worth running an next year can renew with a different contract. That was one point though. It wasn't my enitre argument. Stop fucking nitpicking I'm saying there are areas that can be changed to allow for more revenue and profit to be made, not that this idea must work because I think it should. Nobody knows shit about what their expenses are, but things can be done in ALL buisnesses to become more efficient.

Now you did post those numbers and I do find them intersting, but how do you continue to get these investorys if your company is failing? Also we don't have all the numbers. Knowing what people are willing to invest doesn't explain MLG's financial situation. They could be suckering people into investing year after year, but most likely those who are investing have some reason to believe it is worth investing after this period of time.

You can say the freemium model doesn't exist all you want, but it does exist sir. Again every show you watch on TV every sports event they're all FREE. If you argue that you pay for cable. You pay for cable once a month. During that month you have access to 1000's of shows and events, so the price of let's say the Super Bowl is less than a cent and almost free.

On February 16 2012 09:06 NoobSkills wrote:


On the bias (which is allowed) of you liking European players then yes that event benefits you.
On the bias of watching to see the better players, sorry MLG has them that weekend.

On February 16 2012 09:08 frozenrb wrote:


Ok, you may pay 20$ for your weekend. I'm out of here.. and comparing MLG to UFC is stiupid.

On February 16 2012 09:10 Adreme wrote:


Its actually a pretty good comparison if you realise how cult MMA was just 10 years ago. It was basically on the verge of being banned back then.

On February 16 2012 09:08 frozenrb wrote:


Ok, you may pay 20$ for your weekend. I'm out of here.. and comparing MLG to UFC is stiupid.