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I actually think, that's a pretty interesting view. The similarities never occured to me, despite playing tennis and sc2 for quite some time.
But I think, sc2 will never be able to evolve to a point that you can compare it with tennis.Tennis has an extremely huge fanbase, mainly because it exists for a pretty long time already and because it is somehow simple. Both players have racket, don't shoot the ball into the net, don't shoot too far, count the points. It is easy to play and hard to master.
Starcraft 2 on the contrary is hard to play and impossible to master. If you show a game of sc2 that is commented (for example by husky) to somebody, who has never played sc2 - they won't understand what's going on. Do the same with tennis and watch the difference.
Because the game isn't easy to understand, you have to play it yourself to understand how difficult it is and how extraordinary good, the pro gamers actually are. Then you can begin to admire the game and cheer for someone. Otherwise you just won't notice the difference in play of a progamer and any other gamer.
And this is the barrier, at which the fanbase of sc2 won't climb anymore: You need to play the game. As you can imagine, most of the elder population just won't want to do that, or won't have a PC with enoug processing power to handle the game.
Other than that, a lot of gamers aren't into a game as stressful as sc2 or strategy games in general. They prefer shooters, mmo or rpgs.
Because of the relatively small fanbase of sc, you just won't as many sponsors or rich sponsors as in tennis. Tennis is known and watched all over the globe, I believe sc2 won't ever reach that status (even if I desperately hope that I'm wrong). So how do the pro gamers finance themselves? They can't win every tournament they enter or even hope to gain price money. They are dependent on their sponsors. Famous pro gamers will be able to find sponsors for themselves without a problem, of course. But what's with the yet unknown and upcoming players? What if they have potential and want to enter pro gaming, but are afraid of not finding sponsors that can financially back up their decision.
Of course there is the possibility to stream your personal games and become a partner of twitch. But it really is hard to gain viewership, if you don't have success in tournaments and you can't be really successful, if you can't concentrate on gaming.
I believe teams are some kind of an assurance for players. Somehow unrelated to their recent success, they are secured. The have trainers and other gamers to speak to.
The world of Tennis is pretty scary, if you're alone. That's why you join clubs, to be able to train and meet people in the tennis club. You play practice games against your club mates. You may enter the club team and play games against teams by other clubs. Clubs pay professional tennis players to compete in this team vs team games (I'm sorry, if this sounds amateur like, I only know the german vocabulary :/ ). So actually you have a similar systems in tennis as we now have in sc2. Clubs are like a ramp to catapult you into professional gaming, the concentration on players really only starts in professional competition. Why not stay with a team system in sc2?
And the most important argument: Come on, how awesome is Team Liquid? :D
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As both a tennis instructor and a StarCraft player, I really do see a lot of similarities between the games/ sports, and I think tennis is the most relatable traditional sport to StarCraft.
Nice job with the explanation, OP 
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On April 10 2012 23:35 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:As both a tennis instructor and a StarCraft player, I really do see a lot of similarities between the games/ sports, and I think tennis is the most relatable traditional sport to StarCraft. Nice job with the explanation, OP
As an ex-player (trained with one of the guys on your top earners list  ) I completely agree. I would love for a tournament to implement a 2 week offline tournament like one of the Tennis majors.
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On April 10 2012 09:07 YMCApylons wrote:
Proleague or GSTL. Yes, I am aware of SKT1 and KT. I've been watching the VODs on-and-off for five years. I acknowledged the unique environment in Korea. But it works in BW because players stick with their teams for life, unless they join the military. Developing snipers for players on opposing teams, creating race-matchup specialists...like Sundance, I get it. It's interesting. But the central drama of the match is the match, which is one player against another. If you want e-sports to go mainstream, cut out the fat, and focus on that.
Nah that's more than an exaggeration, it's just wrong. Players change in bw fairly regularly. I remember Kwanro from CJ --> Stars --> SKT1, Light from MBCHeros --> Stars, ForGG from Oz --> KT and then there are countless other historical examples. More recently, there have been less, but that's mainly to do with all the teams folding and thus players being picked up by other teams or retiring in some cases (and it would be wrong to see them as "transfers" as they are forced).
Granted, there seems to be more movement in sc2, but if we exclude players moving from Korean teams to foreigner teams, I would say it isn't much more than about double the transfer rate from Korean to Korean team, compared to BW.
I think that people do care about the sc2 teams. And that will continue to grow.
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The future of SC2 proscene is BW proscene...
BW was/is the N°1 esport in korea
With a bigger audience, sponsors, better teams, tv shows, etc
SC2 needs to make the public change
The future is already stablish... be as big as broodwar =)
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On April 10 2012 23:30 Zcience wrote:
And this is the barrier, at which the fanbase of sc2 won't climb anymore: You need to play the game. As you can imagine, most of the elder population just won't want to do that, or won't have a PC with enoug processing power to handle the game.
Other than that, a lot of gamers aren't into a game as stressful as sc2 or strategy games in general. They prefer shooters, mmo or rpgs.
Number one problem just listed here. It's also the last thing anyone ever talks about in any rational manner. Truth is, even though Tennis is an easier game to comprehend and has a much larger fan base, this is also the number one issue with growing Tennis as a sport.
How do you get more people to play your sport?
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Team leagues are going to be a big thing in sc history if it isn't already. Most fans enjoy watching multiple players, and if those players are all part of the same team the team leagues can bring that global competition together. What I'm using to say is I agree with the tennis and sc comparison, but the way teams are set up as sport agencies is being vague to their description. Playing any video game can be taxing which is why most people suggest them in small doses. The team commmunity not only helps players mental focus but their practice routine as well.
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The positives: Excellent writeup, you make some great points about the nature of 1v1 SC2, how it relates to tennis' established ranking/tournament system, and how making the switch to an ATP-like system would be good for storylines/seeding in SC2. Tennis really is the best model for SC2 *from an INDIVIDUAL perspective.*
The negative: Team leagues are so important to SC2's growth I can't even explain it in this post. The NFL and Baseball are likely many times as popular as professional tennis for the simple reason that they are team sports. Getting true team leagues in NA and EU are what will take SC2 from being almost non-existent in the public's consciousness to something that people will talk about (even if its very few people). In my honest opinion, without teams, SC2 will simply die off.
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On April 10 2012 10:07 turdburgler wrote:davis cup is the wcg of tennis aka no one cares
davis cup brings out the most epic sports athmospheres i've ever seen. serbia (winning in 2010) had one hell of an enthusiastic crowd in the finals against france
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On April 10 2012 22:17 Escape wrote:
I agree with the OP's idea.
The only problem is that the current SC2 fan base is not big enough to support it yet. Maybe LoL can.
How to grow the SC2 fan base you ask? Easy. Make SC2 Multiplayer FREE, and charge only for Campaign or other add-on Content.
If SC2 Multiplayer were free, there would be no SC2. One difference between Tennis and SC2 is nobody "owns" Tennis. Also, tennis has been around many, many years, and understanding the game as an incoming fan is much easier. SC2 is too complicated to hava a widespread fanbase, outside of those interested in playing video games.
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Really cool point this. I like it.
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At first I thought this was one of those joke threads. And then I read it...it's actually a pretty good write-up.
I agree somewhat, but I still feel that the players need teams to arrange the practice partners, but how can these organizations exist without an image? How can you captivate a player to join your organization and provider the services of a good partner for a given race if you aren't know and don't show results for yourself?
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Tennis is an awful sport so I hope SC2 becomes nothing like it. Long live team leagues!
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On April 11 2012 00:19 UndoneJin wrote:
The positives: Excellent writeup, you make some great points about the nature of 1v1 SC2, how it relates to tennis' established ranking/tournament system, and how making the switch to an ATP-like system would be good for storylines/seeding in SC2. Tennis really is the best model for SC2 *from an INDIVIDUAL perspective.*
The negative: Team leagues are so important to SC2's growth I can't even explain it in this post. The NFL and Baseball are likely many times as popular as professional tennis for the simple reason that they are team sports. Getting true team leagues in NA and EU are what will take SC2 from being almost non-existent in the public's consciousness to something that people will talk about (even if its very few people). In my honest opinion, without teams, SC2 will simply die off.
Football and baseball are team sports. It is literally impossible to play them without a team. You form a team and they individually compete versus eachother. Tennis, golf, badminton (and many more) are individual sports, but you can modify them in such a way that it becomes somewhat of a team sport. The team version in these sports is usually less exciting and less popular than the individual leagues.
I personally don't dislike SC2 team leagues, it's just that I don't care about them. Most teams (especially western ones) are artificial constructs that aren't even 'teams', just a random group of players that happen to be contracted by the same overlapping organization. Does anyone honestly think the EG korea guys regularly practice with the NA guys? Or liquid KR with liquid EU? I honestly don't believe so, and while it might be interesting to project a 'team image' as such a close group of friends (or whatever), I don't think its reality.
On April 11 2012 00:51 ravemir wrote:
At first I thought this was one of those joke threads. And then I read it...it's actually a pretty good write-up.
I agree somewhat, but I still feel that the players need teams to arrange the practice partners, but how can these organizations exist without an image? How can you captivate a player to join your organization and provider the services of a good partner for a given race if you aren't know and don't show results for yourself?
You do what EG does. Wave money around and convince people that if they join your team they obtain certain benefits that will help a player further both their career and your organization. Teams are simply facilitators. All major tennis players are part of 'teams', lots of them probably have the same representation when it comes to certain aspects of their professional lives (such as travel, sponsorships, etc), usually in exchange for a fixed percentage or something similar.
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I agree with everything the OP said.
I have thought the same thing since eSports really started to make it outside of Korea (~2009). Tennis provides a great example and precedent to follow for the SC2 pro-gamers and teams.
Thank you for taking the time to put these opinions into formal word.
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I like the idea of the ranking system but I don't think I can be easily implemented in SC2 scene. Since there are too many new tournaments popping up and many of the current ones do not have a fixed scheduling, unlike tennis where the grand slams happens invariably once a year. TLPD does a good job of tracking a section of the scene but not the entirety.
Also, in term of skill, tennis has a very large skill gap where almost every tournament, the top seeded ( 1 and 2 will almost make it to the finals ) the skill gap in SC2 is not quite as large where any underdog has a reasonably amount of chance to win. I think the difference comes from the amount of games play within an 1v1. In tennis, its essentially BO11 layered within another BO5 series - relating a game in tennis to a game in SC and a set in tennis to a series in SC. This decreases the chance of an upset by quite a lot.
From a person who follows both tennis and SC2, I like this comparison post. However, I have doubts to whether SC2 should follow any preexisting model of sport.
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On April 11 2012 00:03 therockmanxx wrote:
The future of SC2 proscene is BW proscene...
BW was/is the N°1 esport in korea
With a bigger audience, sponsors, better teams, tv shows, etc
SC2 needs to make the public change
The future is already stablish... be as big as broodwar =)
Being as big as BW would be a failure IMO. While it's awesome that BW is as big as it is in korea, an exceptionally large majority of people out of that country have never heard of it. To say that BW is what SC2 proscene should aspire too seems.. just limiting and stupid to me. BW was successful because it filled a niche market in a small asian country and that's really the only place in the world there was wide recognition, following the same model as last time seems almost silly when we now easily have the potential to go world wide even more so than now.
Just from anecdotal evidence, most people i know only give a passing glance to team leagues in SC2, if someone could pull up some figures i'd guarantee that tournaments that focus on individuals bring in alot more viewers than teams do.
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On April 11 2012 00:53 Amlitzer wrote:
Tennis is an awful sport so I hope SC2 becomes nothing like it. Long live team leagues!
........................................What makes you say such a thing?
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the biggest difference is teams are practically a necesity in Starcraft, unlike in tennis starcraft has a wide range of skills that need to be honed and specific build and build counters to work on and the best way to do that is to be a part of a group of gamers who you can trust and mutually work on getting better
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EPT
