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Fenrax
United States5018 Posts
I am afraid that we might soon read an announcement that either the next GSTL season or the next Proleague season is on its way without an inclusion of the other side. I made this thread is to talk about the advantages of a combined League and my fear that the bad blood between ESF, Kespa and Blizzard might result in a self destructive self-denial of these advantages.
The current situation is that with the withdrawal of Airforce Ace we currently have a 7-team Proleague. It has recently ended with a victory of CJ Entus over Samsung Khan. And then we have the GSTL which will end at November, the 24th. It has currently 9 teams, 10 if you count teamliquid (like you should with the addition of Liquid.Sea). I hope I can say without offending anyone that continuing this split would benefit no one. Neither the fans of either league nor the teams themselves, nor the organizers. Let me explain:
I enjoyed the last season of Proleague and I am enjoying this season of GSTL but neither compares in any form or shape to how much I would enjoy a big 16-18 team Proleague / GSTL. Compare it to a situation in football where instead of the Champions League you would get to see the Champions Trophy with Manchester, Bayern, Real and Juventus and the European Club Championships with Barcelona, Chelsea, Milan and Dortmund. Or an NBA in which Western and Eastern Conference teams never play each other. Wouldn't that feel incomplete?
For this season it was fine. CJ Entus is the undisputed split BW/SC2 champion and the GSTL champion will be the undisputed SC2 champion. But imagine another split season. Then who is the real Korean/World team Champion when both are done? Who is the best team? The team that wins Proleague or the team that wins the GSTL? Please don't argue about this, it would be fruitless. It would be like asking who the real NBA champion was if Western and Eastern teams never faced each other. You would have a lot of local fans claiming one way or the other but no one could really say. Both titles will lose their legitimacy if they don't face the good teams from the other Leagues. We would have two titles but no Champion.
Both Leagues by themselves are not big enough to create the same big time feeling that a combined League could give us fans. I noticed during last season's Proleague how big the difference between a 8 team League is from what used to be a 12-team League for a long time (after losing MBCGame HERO, hite SPARKYZ, WeMade FOX and eSTRO in the last couple of years). It was still good but it got repetitive relatively quickly compared to what used to be. Of course the number of different matchups rises exponentionally which each new team. So losing a third of the teams (from 12 to 8) resulted in far less than half different matchups (from 66 to 28).
Two 8-team Leagues have 28 different matchups for each League, 56 combined. A 16-team League on the other hand has 120 different matchups, more than twice as much as both combined and more than 4 times as many fresh matchups as a single Team League. This will create more Starcraft total as well as more fresh matchups total. And it is not overkill by any means. 16-20 team leagues are absolutely standard in European football andit works just fine. In American Sports you even have far bigger Leagues and you don't hear the fans complain "oh no, not more of my favorite team playing my favorite sport against awesome opponents". From a fan standpoint a combined League is the only option you should ever want. Even if you are a hardcore Kespa/GSTL fan: can you imagine an FC Barcelona or a Real Madrid fan wanting to have the two teams play in seperate leagues and not face each other twice a year for the most epic showdown in Spanish football?
Then the marketing possibilities are much more better for a unified team League. With ESF's grab on the International market and Kespa's grab on the Korean market an agreement seems like an obvious choice. Both companies would not only benefit from each other's strengths on different markets, they would also balance out the weakness of not having enough teams for making a big League. On top of that more fresh matchups are not only better for the fans, they are also much easier to sell and advertisement on them sells for more. More money for everyone would be the only possible outcome of an agreement of the two Leagues.
And it should happen now. There simply is no benefit in waiting because there is nothing that is worth waiting for. The end of the Kespa/ESF trade lock? That does not force you to make less money. Wait for HotS? Why? You could simply transition to HotS during the League and it would even give your League as well as HotS a huge boost in interest. Wait for Kespa players to catch up? They already provide good results and will catch up quicker in a tough competition.
In short a combined team league would provide a better product for the fans and make more money for the organizers. Usually if you ask a company if they want more money while making their customers happy you wouldn't have to wait long for a positive answer. The only reason why we haven't read an announcement about an agreement has to be the extremely spiteful situation between ESF, Kespa and Blizzard. Usually in a capitalism "if it makes money it will be done" but my fear is that there has been enough bad blood and hurt pride that people are willing to deny their organization money only to spite their enemy. I hope they will come to terms and I also hope that the fans will pressure the organizations enough to force them into an agreement that they want anyway and that this thread helps at that.
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would create way too many teams thus way too many matches which takes up massive amounts of time imho, they should make qualifiers then a 10 or 12 team bracket if it were to merge
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United Kingdom31935 Posts
I agree. Here in Germany I love watching Bundesliga (our football as you know  ) because I pretty much have something to watch every week and you can build up a better support and general feeling if the seasons are longer and have more teams :D
If ESF and Kespa could agree would be another question but if it would work I would be all for it!
Excellent read and thank you for bringing it up :D
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Fenrax
United States5018 Posts
On October 08 2012 21:25 X3GoldDot wrote:
would create way too many teams thus way too many matches which takes up massive amounts of time imho, they should make qualifiers then a 10 or 12 team bracket if it were to merge
Why? It works incredibly well in Football, Basketball, Ice Hockey, American Football. Everyone makes money and the fans love it. So why not in SC2? You don't have to do Bo9s, that might be overkill. BO7s (maybe BO5s) would be fine though.
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Kespa's main attraction is the Team League
ESF's main attraction is the Individual League
Doing both would take way to much time especially considering all the weekend long foreign events.
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On October 08 2012 21:28 Fenrax wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2012 21:25 X3GoldDot wrote:
would create way too many teams thus way too many matches which takes up massive amounts of time imho, they should make qualifiers then a 10 or 12 team bracket if it were to merge Why? It works incredibly well in Football, Basketball, Ice Hockey, American Football. So why not in SC2? You don't have to do Bo9s. BO7s or BO5s would be fine.
becuz there arent 3 or more channels to view gstls/proleagues on, also teamleague matches take more time than real sport matches. Also, there constantly is GSLs/ OSLs/foreign tournaments happening which would make it a matter of having no time for this format to work
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Fenrax
United States5018 Posts
On October 08 2012 21:30 X3GoldDot wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2012 21:28 Fenrax wrote:On October 08 2012 21:25 X3GoldDot wrote:
would create way too many teams thus way too many matches which takes up massive amounts of time imho, they should make qualifiers then a 10 or 12 team bracket if it were to merge Why? It works incredibly well in Football, Basketball, Ice Hockey, American Football. So why not in SC2? You don't have to do Bo9s. BO7s or BO5s would be fine. becuz there arent 3 or more channels to view gstls/proleagues on, also teamleague matches take more time than real sport matches. Also, there constantly is GSLs/ OSLs/foreign tournaments happening which would make it a matter of having no time for this format to work
For football there is also only one German PPV channel on which you can watch it and it is enough.
There are national Team Leagues with up to 40 games/Season as well as Champions League and the national Cups. And friendly games. And World/Continental Championships, and qualifiers for those, and friendly national games.
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Why not at the end of a season of PL and GSTL have the champions from both sides just face off for an "Undisputed Champion" title? Sounds simpler lol.
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regarding 1 big proleague, count me in!
However, at the moment (although i am not quite the insider) i do see some difficulties on the way. Who will broadcast it? What will be the format? I think gom will not be eager to let their gstl go, and ongamenet their proleague. I don't know.
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Italy12246 Posts
On October 08 2012 21:39 Zerothegreat wrote:
Why not at the end of a season of PL and GSTL have the champions from both sides just face off for an "Undisputed Champion" title? Sounds simpler lol.
AFC vs NFC yo  With a schedule format kinda like the NFL, it might be the best compromise.
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More teams =/= better. I definitely would not want a huge 16 team proleague. Too many uninteresting matchups. A quick tournament between the best teams from each federation spread over a month would be cool though. Take the top 4 finishers in the GSTL and the top 4 finishers in proleague and put them in an 8 team tournament like the first 3 GSTLs. I'd definitely tune in for that.
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I know this is gonna happen someday.It's pretty sad it didn't happen already.We support eSports, we support the same game yet we're still divided.As the saying goes "United we stand, divided we fall"
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Sign me up, either teamleague could collapse at any given moment, you just need a few more teams to fall. Even now it feels a bit like 2 groups of kids sticking to their own playgrounds. United teamleague would have a whole new level of prestige with new eyeballs and sponsorship opportunities for both sides.
People arguing that too many teams would make it uninteresting - you don't have to watch everything, in fact if you tried to, you would probably burn out after a few rounds. Pick one team or just check out the recommended matches, just like the old times.
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On October 08 2012 21:39 Zerothegreat wrote:
Why not at the end of a season of PL and GSTL have the champions from both sides just face off for an "Undisputed Champion" title? Sounds simpler lol.
Yeah, this is what I thought would be more likely. Maybe make it one match with PL set up and one with the all kill GSL style. Not sure how you'd decide it - maybe just a bo3 between the aces or something, though that would arguably favour the PL format.
Of course, there would be a lot of pressure on GOM and KeSPA - if one league's winner got destroyed it would look awful for the league in general, so that's one reason it might never happen. Another is just all the sponsor issues.
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So far GSTL has always been a bit disappointing for me because it always seemed to lack importance so I stopped watching it at some point. I won't watch PL either if it only consists of 8 teams. In the end I think a big league would be a lot more exciting and it would really be a lot more beneficial for everyone.
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Fenrax
United States5018 Posts
On October 08 2012 22:32 FuzzyJAM wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2012 21:39 Zerothegreat wrote:
Why not at the end of a season of PL and GSTL have the champions from both sides just face off for an "Undisputed Champion" title? Sounds simpler lol. Yeah, this is what I thought would be more likely. Maybe make it one match with PL set up and one with the all kill GSL style. Not sure how you'd decide it - maybe just a bo3 between the aces or something, though that would arguably favour the PL format. Of course, there would be a lot of pressure on GOM and KeSPA - if one league's winner got destroyed it would look awful for the league in general, so that's one reason it might never happen. Another is just all the sponsor issues.
This of course would not create additional games like a combined League.
About the prestige of such a match: There was an "Intercontinental Cup" in Football. The winner of the European Champion's league played against the winner of the South American Copa Libertadores. Nobody gave a flying fuck about this match because there was no League behind it to back it up. The big matches were the Champion's League final and the Copa Libertadores final because you played a full League beforehand and not just one random match. Even the teams didn't care too much about the title even though it had such a meaningful name. Preventing injuries and saving stamina was far more important than winning this game. So it was eventually cancelled in 2004.
Maybe a PL winner vs. a GSTL winner game would be a bit more prestigous. But it would still be just one random match out of nowhere between two teams that have nothing to do with each other and it would by all means not mean much.
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On October 08 2012 22:32 FuzzyJAM wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2012 21:39 Zerothegreat wrote:
Why not at the end of a season of PL and GSTL have the champions from both sides just face off for an "Undisputed Champion" title? Sounds simpler lol. Yeah, this is what I thought would be more likely. Maybe make it one match with PL set up and one with the all kill GSL style. Not sure how you'd decide it - maybe just a bo3 between the aces or something, though that would arguably favour the PL format. Of course, there would be a lot of pressure on GOM and KeSPA - if one league's winner got destroyed it would look awful for the league in general, so that's one reason it might never happen. Another is just all the sponsor issues.
I've always supported the KeSPA format. It's the real "team battle" format I would say. It hinges more on the entire team instead of just 1 player on a rampage carrying his team to victory. For some reason 1 player defeating an entire team kinda takes away the teamwork out of "team" league.
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Just give it a few more months for Slayers, Woongjin and HoSeo to fold, and you'd have 6 ESF teams and 6 Kespa teams -> 12 team proleague of old.
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On October 08 2012 22:54 Zerothegreat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2012 22:32 FuzzyJAM wrote:On October 08 2012 21:39 Zerothegreat wrote:
Why not at the end of a season of PL and GSTL have the champions from both sides just face off for an "Undisputed Champion" title? Sounds simpler lol. Yeah, this is what I thought would be more likely. Maybe make it one match with PL set up and one with the all kill GSL style. Not sure how you'd decide it - maybe just a bo3 between the aces or something, though that would arguably favour the PL format. Of course, there would be a lot of pressure on GOM and KeSPA - if one league's winner got destroyed it would look awful for the league in general, so that's one reason it might never happen. Another is just all the sponsor issues. I've always supported the KeSPA format. It's the real "team battle" format I would say. It hinges more on the entire team instead of just 1 player on a rampage carrying his team to victory. For some reason 1 player defeating an entire team kinda takes away the teamwork out of "team" league. I agree with this.
The kespa format feels like it has more tension on every match somehow. Dunno why exactly.
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They could have maybe two seasons a year, though putting all the teams in one tournament would be pretty cool to see. I like the team league format since I think it's interesting how the coaches choose to send out certain players against other players so I reckon the more TL stuff the better
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SC2 is not really a team game though. It is an individual thing. Players prioritise GSL and other individual tournaments over team-leagues. The only way you can get them to prioritise a team-league would be to incentivise them with appearance money. Also I suspect Kespa will try and set up a seperate SC2 domestic scene to try and diminish GOM and GSL's importance.
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On October 08 2012 23:16 revel8 wrote:
SC2 is not really a team game though. It is an individual thing. Players prioritise GSL and other individual tournaments over team-leagues. The only way you can get them to prioritise a team-league would be to incentivise them with appearance money. Also I suspect Kespa will try and set up a seperate SC2 domestic scene to try and diminish GOM and GSL's importance.
The amazing thing about proleague was that it was able to create such a prestigious climate that players would practice for it above and beyond individual leagues. And that was with a negligible prize pool! Basically that's what made BW such a huge deal, because people could follow teams and not just players. The game itself is played individually, but the excitement was in the team aspect (like, if your star player failed, and then suddenly one of your slumping players performs amazingly and gives your ace a chance to redeem himself in the ace match).
I think this is the future. Unfortunately, I also things many teams will be sacrificed to reach this. I see a solid 6 surviving in KeSPA (SKT, KT, CJ, KHAN, STX, Stars - sorry T8 fans) and 4 in GSL/ESF (IM, ST, MVP, TSL - sorry Slayers fans)
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I totally agree. I would love to see this happen!!!!!! I would totally buy a season pass for it
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Best way to make a Champions Team League work is to take the top 4 from each side and have them play off in a tournament. That'd be great, I think.
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On October 08 2012 21:25 X3GoldDot wrote:
would create way too many teams thus way too many matches which takes up massive amounts of time imho, they should make qualifiers then a 10 or 12 team bracket if it were to merge
You don´t NEED to see every game.
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I would love to see the teamleagues merged but 16 teams in a PL format wouldn't work(imagine how many months it will take)And while the GSTL format is good and not time-consuming the KeSPA fans would be majorly disappointed and KeSPA absolutely doesn't want that to happen.
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On October 08 2012 23:32 Caladbolg wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2012 23:16 revel8 wrote:
SC2 is not really a team game though. It is an individual thing. Players prioritise GSL and other individual tournaments over team-leagues. The only way you can get them to prioritise a team-league would be to incentivise them with appearance money. Also I suspect Kespa will try and set up a seperate SC2 domestic scene to try and diminish GOM and GSL's importance. The amazing thing about proleague was that it was able to create such a prestigious climate that players would practice for it above and beyond individual leagues. And that was with a negligible prize pool! Basically that's what made BW such a huge deal, because people could follow teams and not just players. The game itself is played individually, but the excitement was in the team aspect (like, if your star player failed, and then suddenly one of your slumping players performs amazingly and gives your ace a chance to redeem himself in the ace match). I think this is the future. Unfortunately, I also things many teams will be sacrificed to reach this. I see a solid 6 surviving in KeSPA (SKT, KT, CJ, KHAN, STX, Stars - sorry T8 fans) and 4 in GSL/ESF (IM, ST, MVP, TSL - sorry Slayers fans)
Well I am not the person to talk about BW, however I think that the KESPA players were paid salary (at least the top players) so the actual prize money was not required as such. Kespa considers itself a bigger player than GOM, so I cannot see a situation where they will accept the status quo in SC2, where GSL is the number 1 SC2 tournament in Korea. GSL is what players want to win, Code S is where players want to qualify for and GSL is the tournament where Domestic and Foreign fans pay money to watch. Where does this leave Kespa SC2 tournaments? In the shade of GSL as it currently stands. I cannot see Kespa being happy to see GOM get all the prestige and attention that they get from GSL.
I really think that Kespa will setup a rival tournament to GSL, maybe a revamped OSL or something new to compete. Kespa players will not play in GSL next year and only play in Kespa tournaments and possible a Foreign Tournament or two. The Korean domestic scene will be split in two. This is what I predict will happen once the Kespa pros are on par with eSF players. They seem to be getting there already, at least for some Kespa players. If this is indeed Kespa's aims for next year, then I cannot see a combined team-league occuring. I think a major factor in deciding the future of Korean SC2 scene is whether Kespa has managed to bring over the BW fans domestically to follow them in SC2. I don't know the viewing figues post transition, so cannot really see whether the Kespa model is sustainable or not in SC2. If it is, then I predict a split scene next year. This is just my speculation, so my fears may turn out unfounded.
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I think it would be incredibly entertaining to see that many teams play. Why would it matter if it takes longer? Fantasy proleague!
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They should do it like NBA conference style. Champions of Proleague play Champions of GSTL at the end of each respective season.
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There is too many individual tournaments that the player's prioritizes for that to be viable. Some like an IPL TAC-format however might work out
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I like the idea, also because a 7-team proleague would be horrible to follow.
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Given what's happening (from few sources), they might need to do joint team league or one side might not have enough teams.
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On October 08 2012 23:32 Caladbolg wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2012 23:16 revel8 wrote:
SC2 is not really a team game though. It is an individual thing. Players prioritise GSL and other individual tournaments over team-leagues. The only way you can get them to prioritise a team-league would be to incentivise them with appearance money. Also I suspect Kespa will try and set up a seperate SC2 domestic scene to try and diminish GOM and GSL's importance. The amazing thing about proleague was that it was able to create such a prestigious climate that players would practice for it above and beyond individual leagues. And that was with a negligible prize pool! Basically that's what made BW such a huge deal, because people could follow teams and not just players. The game itself is played individually, but the excitement was in the team aspect (like, if your star player failed, and then suddenly one of your slumping players performs amazingly and gives your ace a chance to redeem himself in the ace match). I think this is the future. Unfortunately, I also things many teams will be sacrificed to reach this. I see a solid 6 surviving in KeSPA (SKT, KT, CJ, KHAN, STX, Stars - sorry T8 fans) and 4 in GSL/ESF (IM, ST, MVP, TSL - sorry Slayers fans)
Like someone pointed out earlier, the actual prize pool is fairly small compare to the salary some of these top players make. And I would think the salary is dependent a lot on team league performance as well. So it is not surprising some players focused on team leagues over individual leagues. Not saying that they are selfish or anything like that, but we cannot ignore this factor when discussing difference between PL and GSTL.
I think some foreign fans might not like a joint league. Because it will at least be just as long and involve as many games as PL (Kespa/sponsors won't settle for anything less and they shouldn't since korea is still their main target audience). So we are looking like 3-3.5 months with most teams playing each weekend. Which means a lot of conflict with foreign tournaments. And since I don't see Kespa players choosing to play in foreigners events over PL, we get 2 scenarios
1) Some eSF players still come to foreign events and skip the team league. So say STX beats MVP (but Keen/DRG is at MLG). There will be questions as to whether it is a 'legit' win.
2) eSF don't come to foreign events during the 'season'
Neither seem to be too appealing. Maybe they can schedule around the 'big' tournaments (which GSTL tries to do). But I am not sure you can schedule around MLG, IPL, Dreamhack, ASUS ROG, etc etc in a season which is already long.
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Too many analogies regarding with Football, it's not the same 1 is a National Sport, 1 is a eSport.
No one's picked up on that NASL takes longer than 3-4 months per event yet most people concern about how long a team league would last - The solution is obvious by using the NASL format, the only problem with that it being an online tournament is the Team Ace could easily imposter and play all the games for them.
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On October 09 2012 01:25 Mackus wrote:
Too many analogies regarding with Football, it's not the same 1 is a National Sport, 1 is a eSport.
No one's picked up on that NASL takes longer than 3-4 months per event yet most people concern about how long a team league would last - The solution is obvious by using the NASL format, the only problem with that it being an online tournament is the Team Ace could easily imposter and play all the games for them.
No. Live offline team leagues is SO much better in terms of atmosphere and seeing player interactions. Which is the best thing about PL and GSTL.
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If you would do a round robin (like they doe 3 times in proleague) it would take to much time. But some form of elimination tournament could work with a lot of teams.
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On October 09 2012 00:48 vthree wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2012 23:32 Caladbolg wrote:On October 08 2012 23:16 revel8 wrote:
SC2 is not really a team game though. It is an individual thing. Players prioritise GSL and other individual tournaments over team-leagues. The only way you can get them to prioritise a team-league would be to incentivise them with appearance money. Also I suspect Kespa will try and set up a seperate SC2 domestic scene to try and diminish GOM and GSL's importance. The amazing thing about proleague was that it was able to create such a prestigious climate that players would practice for it above and beyond individual leagues. And that was with a negligible prize pool! Basically that's what made BW such a huge deal, because people could follow teams and not just players. The game itself is played individually, but the excitement was in the team aspect (like, if your star player failed, and then suddenly one of your slumping players performs amazingly and gives your ace a chance to redeem himself in the ace match). I think this is the future. Unfortunately, I also things many teams will be sacrificed to reach this. I see a solid 6 surviving in KeSPA (SKT, KT, CJ, KHAN, STX, Stars - sorry T8 fans) and 4 in GSL/ESF (IM, ST, MVP, TSL - sorry Slayers fans) Like someone pointed out earlier, the actual prize pool is fairly small compare to the salary some of these top players make. And I would think the salary is dependent a lot on team league performance as well. So it is not surprising some players focused on team leagues over individual leagues. Not saying that they are selfish or anything like that, but we cannot ignore this factor when discussing difference between PL and GSTL. I think some foreign fans might not like a joint league. Because it will at least be just as long and involve as many games as PL (Kespa/sponsors won't settle for anything less and they shouldn't since korea is still their main target audience). So we are looking like 3-3.5 months with most teams playing each weekend. Which means a lot of conflict with foreign tournaments. And since I don't see Kespa players choosing to play in foreigners events over PL, we get 2 scenarios 1) Some eSF players still come to foreign events and skip the team league. So say STX beats MVP (but Keen/DRG is at MLG). There will be questions as to whether it is a 'legit' win. 2) eSF don't come to foreign events during the 'season' Neither seem to be too appealing. Maybe they can schedule around the 'big' tournaments (which GSTL tries to do). But I am not sure you can schedule around MLG, IPL, Dreamhack, ASUS ROG, etc etc in a season which is already long.
The salary makes them comfortable, but it's the exposure that amped up proleague to great heights, due to their TV timeslot over the past few years. I think there will be problems with foreign tournaments though, but maybe the contraction will do everyone good, since teams now have a larger talent pool and can afford to send their aces to foreign tournaments without compromising the teamleague.
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On October 09 2012 01:53 vthree wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2012 01:25 Mackus wrote:
Too many analogies regarding with Football, it's not the same 1 is a National Sport, 1 is a eSport.
No one's picked up on that NASL takes longer than 3-4 months per event yet most people concern about how long a team league would last - The solution is obvious by using the NASL format, the only problem with that it being an online tournament is the Team Ace could easily imposter and play all the games for them. No. Live offline team leagues is SO much better in terms of atmosphere and seeing player interactions. Which is the best thing about PL and GSTL.
It's too costly to fly teams about for Offline shows over an extreme long period
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On October 09 2012 03:09 Mackus wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2012 01:53 vthree wrote:On October 09 2012 01:25 Mackus wrote:
Too many analogies regarding with Football, it's not the same 1 is a National Sport, 1 is a eSport.
No one's picked up on that NASL takes longer than 3-4 months per event yet most people concern about how long a team league would last - The solution is obvious by using the NASL format, the only problem with that it being an online tournament is the Team Ace could easily imposter and play all the games for them. No. Live offline team leagues is SO much better in terms of atmosphere and seeing player interactions. Which is the best thing about PL and GSTL. It's too costly to fly teams about for Offline shows over an extreme long period
Why fly? It's all in Seoul. Or did I misunderstand you?
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Would definitely be cool, but I could see some issues with broadcasting rights (which matches Gom airs and which games OGN airs).
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how much was the prizepool in the proleague?
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16 Teams will require a 1 year long League ( to the new guys: Proleague used to be 1year long). You cant really trust that some GSTL teams will not disband during that period.
I think best format will be instead of each league playoffs, get the top 2 from each league and make a Ro4 bracket to finals.
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On October 09 2012 05:30 GolemMadness wrote:
Would definitely be cool, but I could see some issues with broadcasting rights (which matches Gom airs and which games OGN airs).
If MBC and OGN could make it work, for years, I certainly wouldn't see this as a problem. I think joint league would be benefitial for both parties at this point, fighting and cutting their audiences up would not help them, and introducing a half year long Combined Super PL could work well to hype domestic audiences.
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On October 09 2012 05:38 insanet wrote:
16 Teams will require a 1 year long League ( to the new guys: Proleague used to be 1year long). You cant really trust that some GSTL teams will not disband during that period.
I think best format will be instead of each league playoffs, get the top 2 from each league and make a Ro4 bracket to finals.
I would die to see another Winner's League.
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That sounds good. I agree with you, OP.
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On October 09 2012 06:01 PVJ wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2012 05:38 insanet wrote:
16 Teams will require a 1 year long League ( to the new guys: Proleague used to be 1year long). You cant really trust that some GSTL teams will not disband during that period.
I think best format will be instead of each league playoffs, get the top 2 from each league and make a Ro4 bracket to finals.
I would die to see another Winner's League.
They can do both.
A few years ago a single Proleague season had 6 rounds, 2 of them Winner's League style.
It leads to a super epic playoffs and finals.
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I totally agree with the OP, I have been wanting the GSTL to have more of a 'regular season' like they have in the NHL, NBA, NFL, etc. for a long time now. They made an attempt awhile ago and it was great; there was Fantasy GSTL, games that weren't life-or-death where teams felt comfortable playing some of my favorite players that aren't in top form, and a long season where stories/rivalries could arise. Next season, however, it was back to a 3 week bracket system where my favorite team could get eliminated in 2 matches, and if a team's ace had a bad single game you didn't really get to see him again until the next tournament.
As far as broadcasting is concerned, the SCII model for viewing (where given the time difference, most foreign viewers watch VODs anyway) is actually much better than most mainstream sports for handling a large amount of games. In the NHL or NBA, for instance, a ton of games are played throughout the week, many at the same time, but only a few are broadcast nationally (local broadcasts are available for you home team, but for the sake of my argument, lets pretend you also want to watch at least one team that isn't your home team). Fans watch what they can when teams they like are on, and for the rest must go on ESPN or something similar to look at the stats and find out what happened in games that way. For a SCII league, they could do the same thing. Have many matches played, even multiple matches at the same time, but only put full production on and broadcast a few a week. For the games not broadcast, there are many options. The TL writing staff always does a great job with match summaries, the replays of the games could be released, or the games could even be casted in post-production from the replays and still released as VODs, just without the production of the matches chosen to be broadcast live. Its hard to do a full, well produced, live stream of a team event and have it look as good as GOM does, so doing every match like that would probably be out of the question, but it is not hard to host a team event that will just be cast from the replays. All GOM would need really is another random room.
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I would very much like that. I guess the field would be narrowed down to 12-14 teams pretty quickly, play two games per day like in the old OGN/MBC days, just with GOM/OGN. Needs to run at least 3 nights per week though, which would actually be awesome. Just one round of games for half a year (like 13weeks of games) and have a champion every six months. As it stands now, I barely remember who won the last GSTL.
As of now, I don't care for either GSTL nor SPL very much, so on some level I believe this league has to happen.
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On October 08 2012 21:30 X3GoldDot wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2012 21:28 Fenrax wrote:On October 08 2012 21:25 X3GoldDot wrote:
would create way too many teams thus way too many matches which takes up massive amounts of time imho, they should make qualifiers then a 10 or 12 team bracket if it were to merge Why? It works incredibly well in Football, Basketball, Ice Hockey, American Football. So why not in SC2? You don't have to do Bo9s. BO7s or BO5s would be fine. becuz there arent 3 or more channels to view gstls/proleagues on, also teamleague matches take more time than real sport matches. Also, there constantly is GSLs/ OSLs/foreign tournaments happening which would make it a matter of having no time for this format to work
Both GSL and OnGamenet can broadcast matches, that is 2 channels, enough imo
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Hmm, I would like it if GSTL and SPL feeded into a shared playoff bracket, so we'd have the two teams from each regiment advancing and facing eachother. Or perhaps something along the lines of the winner of SPL facing the winner of GSTL.
Both ways we ensure that both teams from Kespa and ESF (+whoever else would participate in GSTL) can go far in the teamleague. The downside is naturally that one league may become easier than the other, resulting in poor and/or uninteresting playoffs (I doubt this, since both sides sits on tons of talent).
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I think this would be awesome (ESF team vs. Kespa team would make much more interesting matchups right now), but unfortunately, I don't think this is going to be happening any time soon, simply because it would require a lot of cooperation and compromise from both sides, and I'm not certain they're there yet.
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On October 08 2012 21:30 X3GoldDot wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2012 21:28 Fenrax wrote:On October 08 2012 21:25 X3GoldDot wrote:
would create way too many teams thus way too many matches which takes up massive amounts of time imho, they should make qualifiers then a 10 or 12 team bracket if it were to merge Why? It works incredibly well in Football, Basketball, Ice Hockey, American Football. So why not in SC2? You don't have to do Bo9s. BO7s or BO5s would be fine. becuz there arent 3 or more channels to view gstls/proleagues on, also teamleague matches take more time than real sport matches. Also, there constantly is GSLs/ OSLs/foreign tournaments happening which would make it a matter of having no time for this format to work
Infinite channels is worse than less channels????
Ever heard of boxing people =) There are five titles there.
The problem with the team league is that it's not a team league. It's just your regular 1v1 where you root for teams instead of players. I am just so much more into players than teams. I wanna see pros duke it out in 4v4. The battles would reach a new kind of legendary epicness never seen before. Imagine an 800 vs 800 battle with 3200 apm ^^ Can you dig it!
Might be a lot harder to cast good though. Since there would be much more action all over the place. Builds and strategies would be harder to analyze since they're not one dimensional anymore.
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I think there should be a team league this big, even if it takes a long time, maybe only twice a year or something similar. The live events might probably be restricted to the top 8 teams, with the rest being qualifiers.
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ye i would look forward to real championship games.
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United Kingdom16710 Posts
It won't happen until Kespa magically loosens up their sphincter or gets desperate enough to even consider it. They could, however, be open to the idea of a proleague champion vs gstl champion showdown. Sort of like the Super Cup between CL and Europa League winners. That would be pretty cool.
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On October 09 2012 05:37 xuanzue wrote:
how much was the prizepool in the proleague?
100 M₩ (90 k$). Current GSTL is 63 M₩ (57 k$).
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WCS teamleague IMO. That would be sick. Have two conferences, and 3 divisions, just like in MLB/NHL/NFL or watever other proleague that holds to a similar format. Have a fairly extended regular season ending in playoffs and relegation matches. Losers play against other hopeful teams to requalify for the next regular season.
I would be psyched to see something of this magnitude. It really would be the premier SC2 and even premier Esports tournament and might go pretty far to legitimize our sport in the eyes of the average, non esport enthusiast. Needless to say though the amount of effort, infrastructure and resources that would be needed to pull something like this off makes it a little unrealistic. As it stands now the game is too global and latency too much of an issue to make this feasible.
The most realistic alternative we would be looking at would be something like a combined korean proleague. I think that's the most likely possibility to be realized. I think the differences between ESF and KesPA though make even this difficult to pull off. If it was run by a third party organization with a large prize pool and quality production then I could see ESF and Kespa going for it. Otherwise it might be a bit of a pipedream.
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On October 09 2012 06:01 PVJ wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2012 05:38 insanet wrote:
16 Teams will require a 1 year long League ( to the new guys: Proleague used to be 1year long). You cant really trust that some GSTL teams will not disband during that period.
I think best format will be instead of each league playoffs, get the top 2 from each league and make a Ro4 bracket to finals.
I would die to see another Winner's League.
I'm fine without it. It's what most clan wars seem to be is winners league. GSTL for example is only winners league. I would kill for them to swap on and off. 1 season normal 4 1v1's with possible ace, and 1 season of winners league. That was always nice in bw and I always wished GOM would do that again but they refuse it seems TT.
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United States23455 Posts
I'm kind of confused as to why Liquid should only count now that they have Sea... They have had players who are better than him for a while now.
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Definitely agree. Proleague especially would be hurt by only 7 teams
I hope we get back to the old Proleague formats in a combined form, ie proleague format for x weeks, followed by winner's league, than next round proleague then playoffs, in some form or anothgber
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+1!
User was warned for this post
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KeSPA will have to do something eventually because we already know that ACE is going away, and they already rejected having a 7-team Proleague. Unless they create teams 7, 6, 5... then at some point they will eventually have to accept more teams into Proleague in some way.
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Creating a unified TeamLeague is a great idea, and kinda a no-brainer if you think about it. I'm surprised this hasn't been more discussed. There would be some formatting and scheduling issues, but the idea itself is great. If ESF and KeSPA can get along that is.
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On October 08 2012 21:59 Teoita wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2012 21:39 Zerothegreat wrote:
Why not at the end of a season of PL and GSTL have the champions from both sides just face off for an "Undisputed Champion" title? Sounds simpler lol. AFC vs NFC yo With a schedule format kinda like the NFL, it might be the best compromise.
NO. AL vs. NL. No DH.
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It sounds good on paper not sure if it'll be possible though
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They seem to already be on board with this idea, it's just a matter of negotiations between the two entities o:
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The only team that could legitimately replace Air Force ACE is LG-IM because LG is the only sponsor on par with KeSPA teams.
I could see 8th Team dying if they don't find a sponsor, also.
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Kespa style team league is the best, imo. Like team leagues in real sports like the NFL, NBA, etc., it gets fans caring about players they normally would not care about. It also gets fans caring about the developmental players their teams have. It builds a rapport between fans and future stars long before they actually break out.
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On October 09 2012 05:59 PVJ wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2012 05:30 GolemMadness wrote:
Would definitely be cool, but I could see some issues with broadcasting rights (which matches Gom airs and which games OGN airs). If MBC and OGN could make it work, for years, I certainly wouldn't see this as a problem. I think joint league would be benefitial for both parties at this point, fighting and cutting their audiences up would not help them, and introducing a half year long Combined Super PL could work well to hype domestic audiences.
That was all under Kespa, though. This is two different companies and two different "unions". Plus the rivalry and bad blood between Kespa and Gom in the past.
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It's an interesting idea, but to those talking about it working in football/soccer/basketball etc. just remember that these leagues run once a year, over a full season, while GOM has built its business around running shorter, more frequent tournaments. It's a question of who is going to shift and how much.
This would be wicked for the fans, but who gets to broadcast it? Who gets to be in charge? Whose studio is it held in? I feel like we're more likely to see a partnership in the way of GSL/OSL where they try not to schedule against one another and players/teams are free to enter both. If one league becomes deprecated then clearly the fans have chosen which they prefer and all will head over there, while the other fades.
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Well I presumed that they would accept eSF teams into pro league because of the gap now left by Ace (and maybe Woonjin Stars and Team 8). Its interesting what will happen soon if those teams die. As for a champions league kind of thing, I would love to first see a combined league that got players who win events like every GSL winner in a year, every OSL winner in a year every MLG winner in a year, IPL, Dreamhack...etc all of the major tournaments. I think that would be really cool if someone could do it.
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Fenrax
United States5018 Posts
On October 09 2012 00:42 supernovamaniac wrote:
Given what's happening (from few sources), they might need to do joint team league or one side might not have enough teams.
They certainly need to. Let's hope they actually do.
On October 10 2012 19:58 VTJRaen wrote:
It's an interesting idea, but to those talking about it working in football/soccer/basketball etc. just remember that these leagues run once a year, over a full season, while GOM has built its business around running shorter, more frequent tournaments. It's a question of who is going to shift and how much.
This would be wicked for the fans, but who gets to broadcast it? Who gets to be in charge? Whose studio is it held in? I feel like we're more likely to see a partnership in the way of GSL/OSL where they try not to schedule against one another and players/teams are free to enter both. If one league becomes deprecated then clearly the fans have chosen which they prefer and all will head over there, while the other fades.
Code A and Code S are GOM's big draws atm and they won't be affected. GSTL is a small thing for GOM currently so it would be only natural to take a chance to expand it.
The broadcasting and the question who is in charge is easily managed. They can either split it to let GOM broadcast outside of Korea and Kespa inside Korea but imo a better solution would be to do what OGN and MBC did when they broadcasted Proleague. When there were two games each station could broadcast one game on their channel. So one would be in GOM studio, one would be in OGN studio and then it comes down to math and negotiations who gets how many games and who gets which games.
It is only two sides and both sides would profit massively from each other. Kespa needs more teams for their team league broadcasts and they wouldn't mind access to the international market, GOM needs access to the Korean market and they wouldn't mind more teams for their team league broadcasts. Points like who gets how many games, who gets which games and who broadcasts the finals would have to be negotiated but that should not be a big deal. Both are gaining so a simple fair agreement is pretty much the easiest thing in the world. In theory that is. In reality I fear that they are fucking idiots and hate each other so much that they will screw it up, somehow.
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First question how big is the cake ? Truly how big SC2 is in Korea? This will further help deduce what type of moves both parties will make.
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if kespa can give 90k and GOM another 60k, and the teams give 50k (anything like 3k per team, 16 teams), they can have a good tournament with 200k of prizes
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Fenrax
United States5018 Posts
It is not about the prize money, though. The NBA comparisons might get a bit old, but it fits very well here because the NBA champion gets no prize money whatsoever (as far as I know). For the fans the prestige is far more important than a prize cheque and for the teams the sponsorship value and TV money share is worth more than any realistic prize cheque.
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EPT
