EPTOn April 12 2012 10:36 usethis2 wrote:
I think the FXOBoss has a point about the Kespa being too insular. Whatever good deeds they might have done, being a sort of bureaucracy, players will have less freedom under their governance. More difficult for new comers to join, a small elite group of stars being overworked and overpaid (I know that sounds oxymoron but you get the point), etc.
Kespa requires "license" for both the teams and the players to join its leagues. Compare that to GSL, which anyone and everyone with skill can apply to and compete for. The downside is that everyone is kind of poor (except Slayers that has big seed money from big sponsers) because of limited number of leagues and there is only one winner like every other month. But still they enjoy freedom to participate in foreign tournaments and GOM seems committed to work with Blizzard to make SC2 more global, which can't be said of Kespa. (Will there even be an english broadcast, if Kespa's sponsors are not into the international market?)
I think the FXOBoss has a point about the Kespa being too insular. Whatever good deeds they might have done, being a sort of bureaucracy, players will have less freedom under their governance. More difficult for new comers to join, a small elite group of stars being overworked and overpaid (I know that sounds oxymoron but you get the point), etc.
Kespa requires "license" for both the teams and the players to join its leagues. Compare that to GSL, which anyone and everyone with skill can apply to and compete for. The downside is that everyone is kind of poor (except Slayers that has big seed money from big sponsers) because of limited number of leagues and there is only one winner like every other month. But still they enjoy freedom to participate in foreign tournaments and GOM seems committed to work with Blizzard to make SC2 more global, which can't be said of Kespa. (Will there even be an english broadcast, if Kespa's sponsors are not into the international market?)
The "license" was simply winning a tournament (similar to Code B in GSL) or given by progaming teams themselves (which can be compared to seeds to Code A and Code S given by GSL except the teams themselves decide who to give it to).
Also, KeSPA does want to get into the global scene because that would mean more money. They already have an official channel here for foreigners (only thing they don't have atm is English casters but again, that's because the Brood War's foreign scene and spectators are too few to invest in).
The only reason KeSPA didn't try to expand internationally in BW was because the foreign scene was almost non existent (hence why focus on a nearly non-existent foreign scene when it can simply work to boost the Korean scene?) which is not the case this time with SC2.
Foreigners can participate in BW (Idra did for example) by attracting the attention of a team (with good results) or by winning the Courage tournament which grants them a progamer's license (basically "Code B" in the GSL except once you won it, you won't ever need to participate again).
KeSPA isn't without its faults but KeSPA never shunned any foreigners nor did KeSPA (purposely) try to keep things Korea only. Again, it's just at the time of BW, the there was almost no foreign scene at all, which means there was no benefit for them to expand. In SC2, there is a benefit to both expand and attract foreigners.
