On March 15 2012 16:32 Hipsv wrote:
I don't understand why people think that PPV is going to hurt the growth of eSports when most profitable sports started as "PPV" long before they could sustain a free TV model.

They don't. They just want it for free because they would rather "somebody else" (the sponsors) pay for it. Self-entitled. It's not about what's good for eSports. It's about what's better for themselves.

I like you, you're funny. Earlier you said, MLG's only interest is the bottom line. That seems to be very true with the PPV model. Also you ignore the lie that Sundance told us when he said "I want to help eSport grow."

What you seem to ignore is that PPV does not attract new viewers. Sidestep here: Did european football charge PPV in its early days? Nope, around 1900 they certainly did not charge PPV as there was no television. Did american football do that? Doubt it, pretty old sport as well. Basketball? Baseball? Tennis? Shit none of these great sports charged PPV, so whatever sport Hipsv was talking about, I'd sure like an example that is not some obscure new age x-game sport.

And again, when I think of my buddies and if MLG would attract them, I'd have to say YES! If it's free to watch. They don't know SC2, they don't give a shit about an Idra or a Huk. Now if I went to them and said "Hey, let's watch this fun tournament, it's about SC2 and once you get to know it, it's really fun to watch." they might even say "Heck, why not..." But then I'd have to say "Oh darn, this great event is PPV, could you cough up 10 bucks so we can share the PPV?" - "Errr, you're kidding right?"

What I mean to say is, they don't even know what they are paying for. I don't see how this is growing eSport. No PPV event will attract new viewers. So basically you're left on your current viewer numbers and have to develop new ways to milk their pockets for money.

HOW IS THAT GOOD FOR ESPORT? It's not. It's only good for MLGs pockets and indirectly for their investors. MLG is in the process of selling out eSport and Sundance has the guts to get on LO3 and say "I want to help eSport". And the really funny bit is that people on here justify him and say he's a genius. Huh?

Of course, you can call this a big community entitlement party, but honestly? I don't give a flying fuck. I don't own eSport, MLG, any team and certainly nothing else. I'm a mere viewer. I don't even play that much, because I suck too much. But this platform enables me to say my mind. And I'm saying right now PPV is the wrong business model if you want to help eSport grow. Because the majority of western culture knows fuck all about eSport or SC2. If Sundance or anyone else wants to help eSport grow, he should go out and promote it. AND NOT TO THE TL COMMUNITY, because the people here obviously know what it's all about.

He should get on fucking talkshows and tell people what a spectacle it can be. And please stop nerding out on "outside" events just like that conference of sports analysis. That was so very close to being a nerdfest. Kudos to Day9 and Sundance for keeping it somewhat focused on media and viewership issues and business as well. If Sundance did more of those events, he'd do more for eSport than this PPV thing did. Because as much as I detest his need to lie about his intentions, I'd bet he could sell truckloads of horsepoo, if he needs to. He's that type of person.

Actually, you're the funny one. One counter-example derails your entire PPV argument (*cough UFC cough*). UFC continues to grow and can hardly be defined as "some obscure new age x-age sport."

You also conveniently disregard the many other events and games that MLG sponsors. I neither explicitly support Sundance nor MLG, but your blatantly myopic perspective insinuates that MLG's decision to institute a PPV business model is the harbinger of esports. Grow up. If anything, MLG feels confident that esports, and particularly SCII, has matured to the point where PPV is viable. Profits entice investors, investors offer capital, capital leads to more viewers.

First off, don't take offense, but who the fuck is UFC? I'm talking Football where one of several tournaments this year throws out 800 mill in prize money, and you're coming with some local exotic bullshit that half the world has no clue about? Ok, if you want eSport to be like that, great idea to go for PPV!

I only wish eSport would end up where you can say "Yep, we have the Champions League and sooner rather than later we can say we are giving out 1 billion in prize money. Why? Because a whole fucking continent watches it, not just 250k people..."

And I'm not disregarding what else MLG does, I like MLG and I find Sundance a rather amiable person. In my opinion, though, he's taking the wrong turn way too soon. That's all, dude. Oh and I can't stand it when people lie to my face (or "The people's face", rather) and expect me to believe the bullshit they're yapping. It insults my intelligence and I wonder why the fuck I bother. Makes me want to go back to Football even more. At least their bullshit is traditional and I can relate to that.

Edit: I HAVE to come back to this. How exactly equals capital = more viewers? I mean really, HOW does that work? Do I want to tune in more, because they got their 11m funding? Erm, no idea why you watch shows, but I don't give a fuck how much money they just got. Either I like the content, or I don't.

The only way this is going to work is if he dumps the whole investment into massive marketing. For MLG and primarily for eSport. Once he does that, I'll take everything back and say he's da man. But I highly doubt that's going to happen. It never does in business. Fairy Tales don't happen irl.

Doodsmack

United States7224 Posts

March 16 2012 13:29 GMT

#344

^ The only fairy tale here is you wanting esports to be as big as soccer rofl...do you realize SC2 viewer numbers have stagnated or gone down even as prize money and investment into tournaments has gone up? And do you realize that in order to get to the point where millions of people watched SC2 we would need to dumb it down to the non-players and have the likes of John Yoo (or whatever that GSL guy's name was) casting? When the casual non-player hears the jokes that Tastosis put out there (which are funny to us because of how intentionally terrible they are) they don't see the humor.

sharky246

1197 Posts

March 16 2012 13:31 GMT

#345

I hate how sundance was talking like mlg is under hard times in that state of the game talk (or was it live on 3?) and now we see this.

LeSioN

United States325 Posts

March 16 2012 22:09 GMT

#346

why do people still argue about how much money mlg made? pretty simple math; according to thispoll about 58% of the people that watched paid(take note;the people who watched a restream are not counted because they did not add to the viewer count on twitch.) the stream had about 40k viewers at peek. so thats approximately 23k people who paid. not taking into account the amount of people who paid and where not watching(ie. not every single person who paid was watching at the same time.)
mlg said that they paid $100,000 for the players travel expenses. add the 26k prize pool, and you have your base possible profit this of course can not take into account unknown expenses but i doubt the would be more than 100k.

tldr;
$460k - from paid subscriptions
-100k -players travel
-26k - prize pool
=
$334,000 profit .

now obviously this is innaccurate, not taking into account the cost of admins and paying the rent of their offices and possible revenue sharing with twitch / caster wages. also this is a conservative estimate on the amount of people that paid considering there is no accurate way to conclude this from live viewers, eg providence had 240k concurrent viewers but over 1 million different viewers over the whole event.

Gorsameth

Netherlands22122 Posts

March 16 2012 22:15 GMT

#347

Considering a lot of SC2 tournaments have trouble breaking the 50k i find it hard to believe 40k watched the winter arena without official numbers.

LeSioN

United States325 Posts

March 17 2012 01:59 GMT

#348

On March 17 2012 07:15 Gorsameth wrote:
Considering a lot of SC2 tournaments have trouble breaking the 50k i find it hard to believe 40k watched the winter arena without official numbers.

considering mlg's previous tournament leading into this hit the highest number out of any sc2 tournament ever, besides (possibly) gsl. i dont know why you would think they couldnt post the same numbers as a mid size tourny. i guess you can believe what you want, but the fact is they did hit almost 40k at the highest i counted.

denverprogaming

United States32 Posts

March 03 2014 05:25 GMT

#349

A "Freemium" model would probably work best. Let everyone watch the main stream but give the real fanboys say another 10 cameras to switch between. Allow pause/rewind/forward controls. Give premium access cameras of individual players, hear player voice chat as they play live, perform simultaneous additional side interviews (let them listen the interview of their favorite team, not the most popular team from the main stream), and any other innovative behind the scenes content that would enhance the experience for viewers who strongly follow a particular player. Also include full access to the content at a later date via multiple viewing platforms.

Son of Gnome

United States777 Posts

March 03 2014 05:37 GMT

#350

On March 03 2014 14:25 denverprogaming wrote:
A "Freemium" model would probably work best. Let everyone watch the main stream but give the real fanboys say another 10 cameras to switch between. Allow pause/rewind/forward controls. Give premium access cameras of individual players, hear player voice chat as they play live, perform simultaneous additional side interviews (let them listen the interview of their favorite team, not the most popular team from the main stream), and any other innovative behind the scenes content that would enhance the experience for viewers who strongly follow a particular player. Also include full access to the content at a later date via multiple viewing platforms.

Well that was out of no where...