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Okay, so first I want to mention – this thread is sort of piggybacking off of the Team Academies/Communities thread, which really isn't getting as much attention as it deserves. My premise, though, is a bit different. In that thread there's talk about creating community level teams that allow for general public engagement and association with the professional North American teams and beyond. This is a great idea, and the whole discussion got me thinking about the state of the North American professional scene, and how it does seem true that the players and teams here are (in general) lagging behind our European and Korean counterparts. And I asked myself:
Where are the Minor Leagues?
Let me be clear – when I say Minor Leagues, I'm referring to a system like that which exists in Major League Baseball (among many other competitive sports around the world). The idea being that the professional level teams (which in this case would be teams like Complexity, EG, Team Liquid, Fnatic, Quantic, Root, etc) have a system of minor league teams where they take players who they believe have a lot of potential and talent and develop them over the course of time into professional level players who are then called up to the Major League team. This is not talking about community level teams, this isn't talking about the mid-tier masters level players on the server. This sort of system would exist for those who are almost there – those who are extremely strong players who may just need a bit more seasoning, a bit more time, or a bit more in the way of opportunities.
The Complexity Academy
The Complexity Academy is a great example of a model that can work – based on what I've seen (I'm not at all associated or involved with it in any way), Complexity offers players a serious chance – in house tournaments, participation in team wars, and serious team practice – all with the mindset that if the players improve and perform well enough, they can move up to the main professional team and become a part of the roster. The rewards are significant - new equipment, exposure, and the chance to potentially make a living as a pro player. And the system clearly benefits Complexity as well. They have a serious systematic way of developing players and finding new up and coming talent. They help develop the NA scene into something that might be able to compete internationally – and hell, they look good for helping the esports scene develop.
The Costs
Of course, there's the issue of cost. Again, I don't know Complexity, but it seems like the greatest barrier to entry in this sort of enterprise is simply time itself. There's very little cost associated with a system like this – the monetary investment need not be high. It simply requires a commitment to what is essentially research and development. Maybe there's more than I'm thinking of right now – but the cost here seems to be simply one that could be counted in man-hours, not dollars. There are other risks as well – players who are a part of a minor league system to represent the team, and if they make mistakes (of any kind, really) it could reflect poorly on the team at large. But that risk is one that feels like it could be mitigated by strong management and well worded contracts.
Going Forward
So, if we take this all as at least somewhat true, the question becomes why this isn't a popular model for North American teams (or really foreign teams in general). There are some communities out there (like TDS for FXO now that they acquired LgN), but there's a general dearth of B-Teams and Minor League systems among foreign teams. As far as I know, EG doesn't have one, Liquid doesn't have one, Quantic doesn't have one. Why not? What is there to lose?
While talking with Kifire (who posted a bunch in the Academies thread) he made this excellent point:
Professional sports and esports teams look for the exact same things. But professional sports grow their players, while esports teams expect them to appear from nowhere.
So why don't we stop expecting our players to just appear? There are a number of really strong players who are able to compete at high levels and yet are unable to break through the glass ceiling. Playhems and Zotac cups are dominated by Koreans like Hyun and Revival – not being able to beat top tier Koreans should hardly prevent players from gaining some notice and respect.
Hell, if the development of this scene truly came to fruition, there could even be a minor league circuit, in which the teams from EG, Col Academy, Quantic, and others could compete in a Minor League Team league – it'd be great from a spectator's point of view: we would be tuning in to see the players that might be become the next Scarlett, the next Masa, the next Suppy, etc. It feels like there's a market here, and one that everyone would truly benefit from.
So why don't these teams give it a try? There's a lot of press and publicity and positive feeling to be gained, and so very little to lose.
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Well the thing is esports is simply not big enough. For example the LA dodgers support the ABQ Isotopes. But the dodgers make a ton of money, and they have an incentive to support the Isotopes because if someone gets hurt they have the minior league team where they can pull players in to fill that slot. SC 2 is not really a team game, If HuK can't perform at a tournament due to an injury, EG doesn't replace him like that because HuK isn't critical to the overall team success. Basically there is no point in having a minior league because there is no money for that.
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On November 02 2012 09:17 HeeroFX wrote:
Well the thing is esports is simply not big enough. For example the LA dodgers support the ABQ Isotopes. But the dodgers make a ton of money, and they have an incentive to support the Isotopes because if someone gets hurt they have the minior league team where they can pull players in to fill that slot. SC 2 is not really a team game, If HuK can't perform at a tournament due to an injury, EG doesn't replace him like that because HuK isn't critical to the overall team success. Basically there is no point in having a minior league because there is no money for that.
Well, to be fair, there are team leagues. Also, shouldn't teams want the up and coming stars to come up and star with them? It would be in everyone's best interest to have players grow and develop with those teams, Goswser is a perfect example of the potential a system like this would have.
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I have thought about this a lot recently. In Korea they seem to grow talent, talent searches or simply picking up relative no names, then working with them in a team house to develop them over a long period of time. In the west you need to do that yourself.
Time and effort is of course the major issue. Complexity has a manager that is in charge of the academy, i'm not sure if he is full time etc, but it takes effort to get something like this to work. On top of that, the players are unlikely to simply become very good by themselves, so you need to work with them, whether by working on practice schedules, or organising practice sessions to make sure the players are moving in the right direction. This again takes lots of time.
I think it's something to look into for sure, but it does takes lots of time from someone that is very passionate about making a project like this work, which is hard to find.
On the topic of the leagues, I would love for this to happen, a semi-pro league (then you get into the argument of what makes a pro) for players to make a name for themselves and get potentially talent scouted. Two problems can be seen. One is who is going to make the league and put the money and time into it, the second is who will watch? There are already a few leagues such as ISTL based around building semi-pro players and teams, but the fact they deal in semi-pro's their viewers are considerably lower than most other leagues
For this to work, you need to somehow get fans interested in the unknown players
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perhaps bigger teams should just absorb the amateur teams. The players don't cost anything. You just need to find someone to manage them.
I think the greatest barrier for teams and why they don't invest in academies is because of focus. Teams are so dependent to win big tournaments and when they don't, they take their toll mentally. They don't want to have extra players/goals to worry about. The A team is already barely hanging on (performance wise) so anymore parts to the team is just more problems.
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On November 02 2012 09:28 Tidus Mino wrote:
For this to work, you need to somehow get fans interested in the unknown players
Absolutely, absolutely. But one could argue that they would be MUCH more interested if the players are from EG, Liquid, Quantic, etc, as opposed to being from random teams nobody has heard of.
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On November 02 2012 09:31 Northern_iight wrote:
perhaps bigger teams should just absorb the amateur teams. The players don't cost anything. You just need to find someone to manage them.
I think the greatest barrier for teams and why they don't invest in academies is because of focus. Teams are so dependent to win big tournaments and when they don't, they take their toll mentally. They don't want to have extra players/goals to worry about. The A team is already barely hanging on (performance wise) so anymore parts to the team is just more problems.
I would manage them for free if they give the opportunity
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I feel terrible saying this, but aren't foreign teams the little leagues?
I mean... most Korean teams just stamp out foreign teams with a few small exceptions... from foreign teams with Koreans on them.
So there. I said it. GSTL is the Major League. MCSL, NASTL, and IPTL are minor leagues because they generally have lower caliber games, generally have less thought behind player lineups, and often have server lag.
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On November 02 2012 09:41 JakeKorste wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2012 09:31 Northern_iight wrote:
perhaps bigger teams should just absorb the amateur teams. The players don't cost anything. You just need to find someone to manage them.
I think the greatest barrier for teams and why they don't invest in academies is because of focus. Teams are so dependent to win big tournaments and when they don't, they take their toll mentally. They don't want to have extra players/goals to worry about. The A team is already barely hanging on (performance wise) so anymore parts to the team is just more problems. I would manage them for free if they give the opportunity
And I feel like you're probably not the only one.
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I don't see how giving less known players more exposure will benefit anything.
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On November 02 2012 09:42 ShatterZer0 wrote:
I feel terrible saying this, but aren't foreign teams the little leagues?
I mean... most Korean teams just stamp out foreign teams with a few small exceptions... from foreign teams with Koreans on them.
So there. I said it. GSTL is the Major League. MCSL, NASTL, and IPTL are minor leagues because they generally have lower caliber games, generally have less thought behind player lineups, and often have server lag.
The point is partly that if teams had a much more organized system of training and develop players (ala Korean B-teams) then perhaps this wouldn't be the case.
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Hey Zennith. It's up to the clans.... The problem is that we have no method of really communicating to the masses the minor leagues.
A year ago, I was in charge of TDS and The Legion's sc2 division. I ran 2 NASL-style tournaments with $50 in prizes, broken down by league. I can hint that we are now playing that in TDS now, but we are waiting for things to stablize before we move forward with that.
We can't really announce it though, because TL will frown upon us advertising the team and tournament here. And blizzard's forums make me want to punch babies.
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In Warcraft 3, the North American scene was really strong in the way of amateur and "semi-pro" leagues as we called it. There were never less than five of these leagues going on at a time and as a result there were always teams up and coming, and always teams merging to become stronger so they could win more of these leagues.
I was disappointed when this never transferred over to SC2
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Katowice25012 Posts
On November 02 2012 09:10 Zennith wrote:
The Costs
Of course, there's the issue of cost. Again, I don't know Complexity, but it seems like the greatest barrier to entry in this sort of enterprise is simply time itself. There's very little cost associated with a system like this – the monetary investment need not be high. It simply requires a commitment to what is essentially research and development. Maybe there's more than I'm thinking of right now – but the cost here seems to be simply one that could be counted in man-hours, not dollars. There are other risks as well – players who are a part of a minor league system to represent the team, and if they make mistakes (of any kind, really) it could reflect poorly on the team at large. But that risk is one that feels like it could be mitigated by strong management and well worded contracts.
You found the answer here and then reached the opposite conclusion. It may cost very little in salary to the players but man hours are costly, it's hard enough to find a few people who can help coordinate one team, much less two. While it would be nice this just isn't the kind of project that a lot of organizations have the luxury of prioritizing.
Not to mention that the big teams do sign up-and-coming players before their potential is realized. Off the top of my head Suppy, Heart, and HerO were all signed as little known amateurs to huge teams - even TaeJa may fall into that category depending on how you slice it.
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On November 02 2012 09:55 heyoka wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2012 09:10 Zennith wrote:
The Costs
Of course, there's the issue of cost. Again, I don't know Complexity, but it seems like the greatest barrier to entry in this sort of enterprise is simply time itself. There's very little cost associated with a system like this – the monetary investment need not be high. It simply requires a commitment to what is essentially research and development. Maybe there's more than I'm thinking of right now – but the cost here seems to be simply one that could be counted in man-hours, not dollars. There are other risks as well – players who are a part of a minor league system to represent the team, and if they make mistakes (of any kind, really) it could reflect poorly on the team at large. But that risk is one that feels like it could be mitigated by strong management and well worded contracts. You found the answer here and then reached the opposite conclusion. It may cost very little in salary to the players but man hours are costly, it's hard enough to find a few people who can help coordinate one team, much less two. While it would be nice this just isn't the kind of project that a lot of organizations have the luxury of prioritizing.
Yeah, absolutely. It would definitely require a significant investment, and man-hours can be hard to find. But as some have posted, there are people who would be interested in getting involved - there are teams and managers who do a great job at the lower levels who would likely work for very little money/for free. This is an obstacle that I feel could be overcome.
Not to mention that the big teams do sign up-and-coming players before their potential is realized. Off the top of my head Suppy, Heart, and HerO were all signed as little known amateurs to huge teams - even TaeJa may fall into that category depending on how you slice it.
Totally. The idea would be to make it more systemic, that's all - with a potentially wider reach.
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On November 02 2012 09:42 ShatterZer0 wrote:
I feel terrible saying this, but aren't foreign teams the little leagues?
I mean... most Korean teams just stamp out foreign teams with a few small exceptions... from foreign teams with Koreans on them.
So there. I said it. GSTL is the Major League. MCSL, NASTL, and IPTL are minor leagues because they generally have lower caliber games, generally have less thought behind player lineups, and often have server lag.
IPTL isn't "minor league", IPTL is exactly what the OP is asking about.
IPTL has a European style promotion and relegation system and runs more than one league. More amateur teams can enter at the lower levels and compete using amateur players.
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/IGN_Pro_Team_League_Season_1#Information
The main league has half the GSTL teams in it, so it can't be called minor, although some of the other points are valid, but the overall structure is basically the same as European football (and other sport) leagues.
Some of the teams in the lower leagues don't even have Liquipedia pages!
As for the OP, there are also competitions like the CSL, which runs tournaments for college kids in the US/Canada mainly, and they are typically full of amateurs, although it's slightly restricting on who can play, but it's still effectively minor league/amateur as most of these guys are studying full time, and can't devote to playing (except when the odd high level player goes to a college which is participating).
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Money.
That stuff all costs money and time and unfortunately the scene isn't yet to the point it can sustain that imo. As others have said SCII is not really a team sport, and while we do have large team leagues, its individuals earning the results in them. I think someday we could see a more organized system revolving around "majors" and "minors" but we aren't there yet.
This is basically the same discussion going on here http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=378974 in regards to promoting lower league play through community groups on teams. The bottom line is a team has to see true benefits out of the time and money it takes to host prepare these players. I think it is possible, but I also think some players who current get paid, even if its a small amount, might need to bite the bullet and realize they aren't good enough to get paid and just hope to get on a team that will give them an opportunity to get better practice.
We just need a more organized tournament/league "NFL style" system if we could use that to show these up and coming players. Right now its like you see guys winning some off the wall Zeek tournaments but that doesn't mean anything to say a more organized community tournament or established tournament with more well known players. There's also so many tournaments its hard to see them coming up.
In regards to helping those lower level players build up, it is up to the teams to create environments for that and a community to recognize it. In that linked above thread this is how I said my team does it (adding that Im just an amateur who can't pay players and offers no contracts, but I try and work hard). Bottom line is, we'll get there eventually, we just aren't there yet. To many chiefs maybe?
How we do it:
+ Show Spoiler +Good thread, but I think a lot of teams already do academies or community groups, they just don't get a lot of attention. A community isn't a community without its members and we need teams that are accessible by everyone. I think a big problem we have is so many people expect to be paid for playing when it just isn't feasible. It is also, in my humble opinion, why we see new teams pop up with decent rosters only to fade away fairly quickly, due to the pressure of contracts they can't afford to maintain. At any rate, to add to what others have said, my team, NOOB Gaming (No One Owns Better) http://www.noobgaming.org, also has a community group. We do things a bit different tho than most teams with the way our community group operates that I think benefits them. Many of these plans start Nov. 1st as our team is fairly young. We have an 8 member A-Team of Masters and above, a 30 man B-Team of Platinum and above, and then a C-Team which is our community group. On November 1st, after a successful test month, we start our "Activity Ladder". A-Team members and B-Team members are required to participate and any Gold league C-Team player or above can participate if they wish. C-Team members are not required to participate. If any Masters or above B-Team player outscores an A-Team member at the end of the month they can take that A-Team members position, and the last 10 B-Team positions are also up for grabs by C-Team members who can outscore members of the B-Team. The members earn points by simply playing. We award various points for tournament wins, playing in clan wars, showing up as a sub for clan wars, just participating in tournaments, and even playing fellow members in best of 3's. Attending practices also earns points for the members and they simply claim the points via a submissions form on the site. What this allows us to do is build a strong team off of members who stick with us overtime. We allow them to be involved by participating in the Ladder at a very low level (Gold) and also play higher level members to earn points, which works for both of them and gives them good experience. Through this they could essentially move from a casual Community Group member to an A or B team position through activity and practice. The system works very well. At any rate I think it would be good for teams to do stuff like this as it promotes a better community and gets more people involved. Having a community group is essentially a player farm for teams, just like we see in professional sports. It should be no different here. long live e-sports!
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On November 02 2012 10:03 ExPresident wrote:Money. That stuff all costs money and time and unfortunately the scene isn't yet to the point it can sustain that imo. As others have said SCII is not really a team sport, and while we do have large team leagues, its individuals earning the results in them. I think someday we could see a more organized system revolving around "majors" and "minors" but we aren't there yet. This is basically the same discussion going on here http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=378974 in regards to promoting lower league play through community groups on teams. The bottom line is a team has to see true benefits out of the time and money it takes to host prepare these players. I think it is possible, but I also think some players who current get paid, even if its a small amount, might need to bite the bullet and realize they aren't good enough to get paid and just hope to get on a team that will give them an opportunity to get better practice. We just need a more organized tournament/league "NFL style" system if we could use that to show these up and coming players. Right now its like you see guys winning some off the wall Zeek tournaments but that doesn't mean anything to say a more organized community tournament or established tournament with more well known players. There's also so many tournaments its hard to see them coming up. In regards to helping those lower level players build up, it is up to the teams to create environments for that and a community to recognize it. In that linked above thread this is how I said my team does it (adding that Im just an amateur who can't pay players and offers no contracts, but I try and work hard). Bottom line is, we'll get there eventually, we just aren't there yet. To many chiefs maybe? How we do it: + Show Spoiler +Good thread, but I think a lot of teams already do academies or community groups, they just don't get a lot of attention. A community isn't a community without its members and we need teams that are accessible by everyone. I think a big problem we have is so many people expect to be paid for playing when it just isn't feasible. It is also, in my humble opinion, why we see new teams pop up with decent rosters only to fade away fairly quickly, due to the pressure of contracts they can't afford to maintain. At any rate, to add to what others have said, my team, NOOB Gaming (No One Owns Better) http://www.noobgaming.org, also has a community group. We do things a bit different tho than most teams with the way our community group operates that I think benefits them. Many of these plans start Nov. 1st as our team is fairly young. We have an 8 member A-Team of Masters and above, a 30 man B-Team of Platinum and above, and then a C-Team which is our community group. On November 1st, after a successful test month, we start our "Activity Ladder". A-Team members and B-Team members are required to participate and any Gold league C-Team player or above can participate if they wish. C-Team members are not required to participate. If any Masters or above B-Team player outscores an A-Team member at the end of the month they can take that A-Team members position, and the last 10 B-Team positions are also up for grabs by C-Team members who can outscore members of the B-Team. The members earn points by simply playing. We award various points for tournament wins, playing in clan wars, showing up as a sub for clan wars, just participating in tournaments, and even playing fellow members in best of 3's. Attending practices also earns points for the members and they simply claim the points via a submissions form on the site. What this allows us to do is build a strong team off of members who stick with us overtime. We allow them to be involved by participating in the Ladder at a very low level (Gold) and also play higher level members to earn points, which works for both of them and gives them good experience. Through this they could essentially move from a casual Community Group member to an A or B team position through activity and practice. The system works very well. At any rate I think it would be good for teams to do stuff like this as it promotes a better community and gets more people involved. Having a community group is essentially a player farm for teams, just like we see in professional sports. It should be no different here. long live e-sports!
Again, I'm not referring to community teams. The minor leagues I'm talking about would still be absolutely top tier players - just players on the verge of becoming great - not mid-masters players. I really don't think this is something amateur teams can really make happen - I manage one myself. I think this is something that has to come from the top tier teams. They have to want to invest in the scene and in real player development.
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On November 02 2012 09:10 Zennith wrote:
Professional sports and esports teams look for the exact same things. But professional sports grow their players, while esports teams expect them to appear from nowhere.
I think that this is still something that also hasn't been addressed - why do we just expect players to appear from nowhere? Why don't we invest in talent at earlier stages? Obviously it takes time, but it's something that's done in the KR scene that has allowed for an explosive growth in talented players. Shouldn't North American teams want the same thing?
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EPT
