EPTOk. Some new updates, but not able to translate the full thing since it's originally from fomos (Edit: Not that I translate straight from fomos anyway I guess haha. I go by what the Chinese translation says.). There'll be a press conference on 4 December about the new season of Proleague.
- According to reports, it's confirmed that there will be a foreign team, to be official revealed at the conference
- SK Planet will be sponsoring one more year
- SPL to have English broadcasts
- New season to revert to a 1 year schedule, with 6 rounds, 4 matchdays and 8 matches a week
- 2nd round and 5th round to be SWL played with a KOF format
- Regular season to be Bo7, with an Ace
- Format reverted to that of a pre-announced team style, instead of revealing the team on the spot
On November 25 2012 19:10 FXOBoSs wrote:
Its not FXO, and fnatic doesnt have enough players.. so I wonder who it must be.... *rolls eyes*
Its not FXO, and fnatic doesnt have enough players.. so I wonder who it must be.... *rolls eyes*
Translated from http://s.163.com/12/1125/01/8H4CET2I00314D0E.html
TLDR Version:
- Proleague starts 8 December, no Airforce Ace, rumour that a foreign team will be the replacement, foreign team rumoured to be possibly FXO, Fnatic, or EG
- Probably same schedule as previous season
- Introduction of new broadcaster SPOTV. OGN to take weekend matches, SPOTV to take weekday matches
SPL Proleague, the team league organised by Kespa, is preparing to usher in a new season.
From its creation in 2003, Proleague is about to go into its tenth year on this journey. The new season of Proleague will completely switch over from Starcraft 1 to Starcraft 2. The version of the game used will still be Wings of Liberty, and when Heart of the Swarm is released in March, changes to the game version used will be decided based on the situation then. Because it is an expansion to the same game, the change should not have too much of an effect on the league.
Regarding the Participating Teams
The new season has basically been confirmed to be starting on 8 December, and at the moment, it is estimated that the Kespa teams have all already started on their preparations for this upcoming season. Previously, it had already been confirmed by many parties that Airforce Ace will not be taking part in the upcoming season, and the chances of a foreign team replacing it and taking part in the league is quite high.
Airforce Ace had already announced in the previous season that they won't be taking in new members. Due to the way it is linked to the military, the members of the team are chosen from the players from each team who voluntarily serve in the army and applied for the Airforce. Even though the team is usually able to snipe some strong teams, they are unable to escape the fate of sitting at the bottom at the end of each season.
Airforce Ace has already expressed that they will not be taking part in Proleague anymore, and as a result, the number of teams in the league has been reduced to 7, and this has severely affected the scheduling of the league. As a result, Kespa has been trying to invite a famous foreign team to fill the gap, and according to a reliable source, a lot of progress has already been made regarding this matter.
As of now, there is no confirmation about which foreign team it is. A fee has to be paid in order to take part in SPL, and there is only a small handful of big teams which would be able to pay that fee. Therefore, it is probably safe to say that the possibilities of which team it could be can be reduced to just a few. At the moment, most of the attention in the discussion amongst the fans is focused on teams like EG, Fnatic, and FXO - Teams with good financial backing, teams with enough players, teams which probably do not have any hindrances should they choose to take part in Proleague.
The rest of the teams taking part are SKT, Eighth Team, CJ, Samsung, Woongjin, STX, and KT.
Regarding the Schedule of the Tournament
The schedule of the new season of Proleague has been a matter of interest to many. In the previous season, there were 4 days of games each week - Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. There is a good chance that the new season will continue on the pattern of having 4 days of games each week.
But there are many practical problems which have to be considered as well. OGN, the cable TV channel which independently produced and broadcasted the league in the previous season, also has to broadcast the LoL league this season. Because of that, they are unable to find enough time for the broadcast. As a result, a new IPTV channel called SPOTV has announced that it will also independently produce and broadcast the Proleague tournament. The games played over the weekend will still be broadcasted by OGN, but the games on the 2 weekday match days will be passed on to be broadcasted by SPOTV.
OGN has already updated their December timetable, and from the table, it seems like there will be live HD broadcasts of Proleague on the Saturdays and Sundays of December.
Regarding the Tournament Location
The new tournament season will be broadcasted by both OGN and SPOTV. As the creator of Proleague, OGN has tons of experience in organising and broadcasting tournaments, and this season shouldn't pose any problems for them. On the other hand, as a newer channel, SPOTV does not have any experience in organising and broadcasting tournaments. Even though they did do the broadcast of the MvP Invitational, that was afterall a purely online tournament, and the scale of production cannot be compared to that of Proleague.
The introduction of SPOTV for the broadcasting also implies that there will be a new place for the games to take place. Within Seoul, the places which have held eSports tournaments include COEX mall (WCG Korea Preliminaries, Finals of previous SPL season) and the Shin-Do-Rim TechnoMart Intel eStadium (GSL Preliminaries). Both are potential locations which could possibly be used for the tournament.
What is SPOTV
SPOTV is a Korean IPTV channel, and mainly broadcasts sporting tournaments. The previous broadcasting of the MvP Invitiational that they did was their first foray into the eSports scene. At that time, they even found two casters from Gomtv to help them out.
The company that SPOTV belongs to is actually under the flag of IEG. In the year 2007, IEG was once responsible for the sales of the broadcasting rights of SPL. They also created team eSTRO (Which gave us players like Action, Flying, hyvaa, killer, and even Parting supposedly was once a trainee there), and joined Kespa. Even now, IEG is still helping to manage the broadcasting rights of Proleague, and plays an important role in the partnership of Kespa and MLG.
The introduction of a new broadcaster for Proleague is something which makes a lot of fans happy. After MBCGame stopped in 2011, OGN has been holding the stage alone. Also, it is reported that SPOTV provides a clearer stream than OGN.
Translated from http://s.163.com/12/1125/01/8H4D2K0U00314D0E.html
Original article at http://www.thisisgame.com/board/view.php?category=13439&id=1368708
ThisIsGame article about how SPL needs to consider the foreign Starcraft 2 scene to progress
When the new season of Proleague was revealed to be starting on the 8th of next month, another very meaningful piece of information was heard. This information is that there is a high possibility of a foreign team taking part in the tournament. If this rumour proves to be true, this will be a really major occasion in the history of Proleague.
As everyone probably already knows, the new season of Proleague will officially switch to Starcraft 2, and there are many more Starcraft 2 fans outside of Korea than in Korea. If they manage to get a foreign team to take part in the tournament, it'll be able to attract attention from around the world. This point can be seen from the attention that the GSL games with foreigners playing in them get.
Actually, foreign teams taking part in a Korean league is not a really new issue. In the GSTL organised by GomTV, we have foreign teams like TL, FXO, and Fnatic taking part. But to have a foreign team appear in the Kespa organised Proleague is actually something that is new and refreshing.
One thing that is different between Kespa and GSL is that the Kespa teams are anchored on major corporations, and it's not just a simple and innocent sponsorship style of working. This causes many practical problems to arise.
Due to the economic downturn, many major corporations have taken out their investments one by one, and the teams under Kespa that are owned by corporations has been reduced to only 6. Also, Team 8, which is made up of the top players from 3 disbanded teams, still hasn't been able to find an owner, and this causes fans to feel unsettled. Under such circumstances, Kespa can only start looking for foreign teams to take part. The way this is going, it really makes people look forward to Proleague becoming an open league like GSTL.
Up to now, in Starcraft 2, only Korea has a professional team league. The Korean side also realises that they cannot just purely do stuff within themselves, and further and better development for the leagues can only be achieved by developing the foreign market. Regarding this point, Proleague is still very much lacking when compared to GSL and GSTL. As such, this move to invite a foreign team is an amazing one which can help to make up for this particular shortcoming.
Even though we can't be certain for now which team it is that will take part, but from reliable sources from various parties, FXO and Fnatic, which already have a foot in Korea, have the support of many fans. Also, there is still the possibility that a big team like EG would set up in Korea and take part in Proleague and step into the Korean market using the opportunity.
This reporter personally thinks that the introduction of EG would be really attractive. EG already has the experience of playing in Korea through the partnership with Slayers. and they also recruited former Fnatic manager Hwanni. Furthermore, there are many popular foreign players which the Korean fans know about under the EG flag, such as Stephano, and also Korean players such as JYP and Puma.
This reporter has been to almost all the major tournaments after the release of Wings of Liberty for the purpose of doing interviews. He/she doesn't just follow foreign teams closely, but also knows quite a bit of information and has personal networks.
We understand that if the Starcraft 2 leagues were to have good development, the reactions of foreign fans is very important. We think that Proleague really needs to shake off its rigid format, and go through some changes. Therefore, if a foreign team really were to appear on the 8th of December at Proleage, that will be a really exciting and exhilarating news.
Any tips? 
