On June 01 2012 07:24 AeroEffect wrote:
this means that pretty soon, there is going to be a serious change on how we watch tournaments and everything. I wouldnt be surprised if they made you pay for EVERYTHING now.

...Why? The entire point of advertising is that you don't pay.

Innovation

United States284 Posts

May 31 2012 22:30 GMT

#142

this means that pretty soon, there is going to be a serious change on how we watch tournaments and everything. I wouldnt be surprised if they made you pay for EVERYTHING now.

Actually it's exactly the opposite. We're more likely to receive more content, better quality, and have to actually pay for less because of the increased advertising revenue. Advertising is what pays for our "free" content.

BuddhaMonk

781 Posts

May 31 2012 22:31 GMT

#143

People talking about "lack of competition" have no idea what they're talking about.

One of the major failings of esports up to this point has been that they have an attractive demographic, but events are either too fragmented or too small or don't have the know-how to sell advertising to the degree that they could.

If you pool all of the ad inventory of esports suddenly the numbers are much bigger and therefore much more attractive to advertisers. Likewise, they have the know-how and relationships with advertisers to sell the inventory correctly and get the most out of it (no more MLG's with the same Dr. Pepper ad over and over). This was one of the reasons why IGN getting into esports was exciting because they have similar advertising experience.

With respect to the question of a "monopoly" there's no such thing because the reality is that esports advertising is competing directly side-by-side with other entertainment and media ad space. If I'm Proctor and Gamble, I might have to decide to buy an ad for some esports events or a basketball game. It's way better if CBSi can offer up combined numbers for the whole scene rather than just for an individual tournament. Keep in mind that every tournament will get their cut of the revenue, so in reality everyone wins. The only loser here are other companies who could have also brokered the ad sales, but I don't think there was a long list of companies looking to do this. Frankly, CBSi is ahead of the curve here.

AKomrade

United States582 Posts

May 31 2012 22:31 GMT

#144

YES. Now to bribe the ESPN officials too..

FreudianTrip

Switzerland1983 Posts

May 31 2012 22:44 GMT

#145

How people manage to get so hype over the same press release with less facts is incredible.

Vei

United States2845 Posts

May 31 2012 22:45 GMT

#146

On June 01 2012 04:52 Catch]22 wrote:
Great to see people noticing esports! Time to take your tinfoil hats off guys.

agreed agreed. This is some stellar news, imo. ESPORTS gettin big.. =]

Veldril

Thailand1817 Posts

May 31 2012 22:47 GMT

#147

On June 01 2012 07:16 Lasbike wrote:
That's weird..

Dreamhack uses Twitch.tv, which is in agreement with CBSi so CBSi will also look after Dreamhack's ads in the US by default.

Innovation

United States284 Posts

May 31 2012 22:56 GMT

#148

BuddhaMonk is correct. The larger the pool of eSports inventory available the more attractive it is to advertisers. This has been a trend within the digital advertising world for years. The progression of inventory is as follows.

1. Individual site advertising
2. Parent sites (own a couple other URLs)
3. Networks (Own the rights to sell a portion of inventory on multiple sites that are not directly owned by them)
4. Exchanges (combination of multiple networks which offer real time bidding access to inventory)
5. DSP's (Ability to bid for inventory across multiple exchanges)
6. DMP's (Ability to bid for inventory across multiple exchanges & ad formats; digital, search, mobile, social, TV)

At each level reach increases (reach = total volume of unique users) which is more valuable to advertisers.

By allowing their inventory to be sold by a network (CBSi) they have made their inventory more accessible to advertisers and will ultimately generate more revenue.

Cocoba

Canada352 Posts

May 31 2012 23:01 GMT

#149

One small step for CBS, a giant mouse click for eSports.

RenSC2

United States1060 Posts

May 31 2012 23:08 GMT

#150

Overall this is a good thing. If you're worried about a monopoly, those things are much less dangerous when dealing with internet businesses that have very low startup costs. It takes a huge amount of money to build a factory and distribution to compete against some widget maker and thus a monopoly of that kind is dangerous, but it only takes a server and an internet connection to compete with the biggest of internet companies. That's why a little startup like Facebook was able to crush MySpace even after it had grabbed a very large market share... and why Facebook investors should be afraid of someone else doing the same to them.

If Twitch and OwnTV go to crap for the streamers because CBSi is taking too big of a cut, those streamers can always go to uStream, LiveStream, or some other startup company. You should only be concerned about a monopoly if it includes signing players to long term contracts to only play in one league or only use one streaming service. This CBSi thing isn't anything even remotely close to that.

KrazyTrumpet

United States2520 Posts

May 31 2012 23:10 GMT

#151

On June 01 2012 05:50 Plansix wrote:
Here lets break it down for some folks who are having a rough time with the report:

CBSi: Hey, Esports you have a ton of viewers and we think that is great. They seem to watch your stuff for HOURS.

Esports: Thanks CBSi, we have worked really hard to get all our streaming content up and going. Its rough though , getting ads is hard when we are all running tournaments and attempting to make a living.

CBSi: Well that’s why we called. You see, your views are males between the ages of 18-34. We cannot get ads to these bastards. They are to smart and tech savy to fall for any traditional ads and mostly watch Netflix. But they love you guys and we think they would love the ads we sell.

Esports: That’s awesome, we would love to show your ads on our streams. It will be a huge help if you guys are getting the sponsors and providing us with the ads.

CBSi: Not a problem. We also have these news sites, like Giant Bomb and GameSpot that report on this sort of stuff. Could you get us some access to players and teams for interviews and such.

Esports: No problem, we can do that. Glad to have you join the scene.

This is pretty much the best sum up of this situation. +1

On June 01 2012 08:01 Cocoba wrote:
One small step for CBS, a giant mouse click for eSports.

haha, this was pretty good, too

MCXD

Australia2738 Posts

May 31 2012 23:15 GMT

#152

Sounds good to me, provided CBSi doesn't collapse or do something insane any time soon.

Utinni

Canada1196 Posts

May 31 2012 23:25 GMT

#153

How is this anything but good?

Structure and knowledge = money spent more efficiently towards e-sports causes. I am happy.

Yoshi Kirishima

United States10345 Posts

June 01 2012 00:39 GMT

#154

This is great.

I can't believe it.

It will keep growing just like I knew and believe. Double every 2 years nice.

It's refreshing to see a pro-esports article. It's extremely awesome that it is accurate, not embarrassing, etc.

It even poses the good, accurate question: Is eSports fit for TV?

This is great. CBS fighting!

Wow those numbers are good! didn't know the concurrent viewers were that good!

They didn't mention esports being huge in korea, but i guess that's slightly off topic

Ireniicus

United Kingdom374 Posts

June 01 2012 00:46 GMT

#155

I think this is good

Nonexistent

United States50 Posts

June 01 2012 00:56 GMT

#156

It sounds like the man is getting his whory hands on our beloved scene, Expect to see it gutted for profits.....

Cyrc

Canada28 Posts

June 01 2012 01:47 GMT

#157

Yay! In most tournaments I see in Quebec, there are very few ads passing over and over. I'm glad they'll have more reach. The only things that worries me here is how quickly people predict vastly exaggerated things... Take it for what it is guys, no more no less. If they invest in the scene they'll want it to prosper, not destroy it.

Divergence

Canada363 Posts

June 01 2012 03:13 GMT

#158

On June 01 2012 09:56 Nonexistent wrote:
It sounds like the man is getting his whory hands on our beloved scene, Expect to see it gutted for profits.....

Gutted for profits? What does that even mean?

You realize that if they do this poorly it will not be profitable for them. They have to provide something the consumer wants.

LimitSEA

Australia9580 Posts

June 01 2012 03:44 GMT

#159

Hopefully this is another huge step into getting eSports out there and into the mainstream. I'm not sure how this will all work, but it feels like a good thing.