On January 03 2013 17:50 WhiteSatin wrote: Companies don't wanna sponsor a game with a limited viewership number like SC2, and if the trend continues, unfortunately I see this happening for other teams soon.
2011 was probably one of the best years for SC2, so unfortunate that stagnation of map pool, terrible balance decisions that brought the game to a shitty metagame that is super boring to watch, are slowly killing viewership number and by consequences, teams 2012 was super terrible. I hope 2013 will be a great year for SC2 and can go back to its 2011 numbers and even better, but I am pretty negative because I think Blizzard will manage to fuck it up, yet again T_T
This is absolutely not the case, people really need to stop saying this. Any sport from top to bottom can find sponsorships based on viewership numbers. Just because there is something bigger out there does not mean there is no worth. If that were the case no sport below the largest would be able to find sponsors. There is plenty of opportunity for sponsorship dollars in StarCraft2.
The issue is too many people want to be a part of it. It is only natural to lose some along the way when that happens. This goes for tournaments, teams, and players. There are simply too many teams in Korea and only the ones with the best business structure will survive in the long run. Korean teams never evolved with the scene. They took a laid back BroodWar approach of no streaming, no social media, no websites. In BroodWar the teams were carried by being on TV. In StarCraft2 they did not have such a pitch and never got their act together.
Thanks for saying this. It sucks that this is happening, but coming from you, it makes it easier to understand that this didn't come out of nowhere.
On January 03 2013 18:06 FXOBoSs wrote: Hate to be a stick in the mud.. But there are two reasons why this is happening, and will continue to happen quickly this year.
1) People dont know what it takes to obtain sponsors 2) Players are not willing to do what it takes to obtain sponsors.
It takes alot more than just playing and winning to lure decent sponsorships. None of the korean teams, including KESPA teams, do this properly and that includes FXO.
Getting a Korean "star" player to stream is like trying to pull your fingernails out with a feather.
Is it arrogance or ignorance? Can this be changed? I'm genuinely concerned that we're 2 years in now and they still haven't made much progress. Can this be educated in or is it a culturally (for lack of a better word) driven desire / lack of desire?
I don't want to be too cynical, but it reminds me of all the times you hear young player wanting to leave Korean Team to 'join foreign team' as though it's some mythical golden goose. The more i see this kinda stuff going down, the more i feel that there's some truth to that in the sense that the Korean scene is either unwilling or unable to source funds effectively themselves. The players thus know this (or are complicit in it) and seek to escape to the promised land where money actually exists.
I'm really concerned right now edit: quoted wrong
It can only be changed by stars not getting offers they should get. The joining foreign team is purely money based. For some reason there is an illusion that "As long as I play, I should get paid".
The truth is, a long as you do you job to promote your sponsors, you should get paid.
EG for instance, is good at promoting the players on the players behalf, but they have a big staff budget compared to almost every other organisation. Sometimes, the players need to promote themselves, even if it is to get a bigger team with more money.
The whole MMA transaction comes to mind, where everyone in the industry knew how much he was asking. And at that moment in time, he would do almost nothing for sponsors that would be worth the asking price. Not to throw MMA under the bus or anything, I am just using it as an example, but its extremely common for Korean "Stars" to expect money for nothing.
Boss and Nazgul in the house spitting truth. These are the reasons teams are going down and why Koreans aren't always the best thing for teams. A lot more to keep teams around and getting sponsors than winning games there is a reason Tim Tebow is better for your bottom line than 90% of other quarterbacks and its not because he's good. He is popular, he is in 100% ,and he moves merchandise.
Yep. It's not about how good your food is, it's about how you run the restaurant effectively or not. In the grand scheme of things, players are employees, and they are dispensable; while teams are employers. Unlike Kespa's teams, ESF teams were found and run by people who have no business/administration background, and have no idea how to keep a business running. It's expected that more than half of the newfound businesses to be failed/bankrupted in the first 2-4 years. Teams who are able to adapt will survive, others will fail, it's normal. Players don't die, teams die.
But lets be honest we saw this coming, and I think the players did too, but it almost seems like he is putting Revival and Polt in a negative light with that comment, maybe its just me 0.o
On January 03 2013 18:06 FXOBoSs wrote: Hate to be a stick in the mud.. But there are two reasons why this is happening, and will continue to happen quickly this year.
1) People dont know what it takes to obtain sponsors 2) Players are not willing to do what it takes to obtain sponsors.
It takes alot more than just playing and winning to lure decent sponsorships. None of the korean teams, including KESPA teams, do this properly and that includes FXO.
Getting a Korean "star" player to stream is like trying to pull your fingernails out with a feather.
Is it arrogance or ignorance? Can this be changed? I'm genuinely concerned that we're 2 years in now and they still haven't made much progress. Can this be educated in or is it a culturally (for lack of a better word) driven desire / lack of desire?
I don't want to be too cynical, but it reminds me of all the times you hear young player wanting to leave Korean Team to 'join foreign team' as though it's some mythical golden goose. The more i see this kinda stuff going down, the more i feel that there's some truth to that in the sense that the Korean scene is either unwilling or unable to source funds effectively themselves. The players thus know this (or are complicit in it) and seek to escape to the promised land where money actually exists.
I'm really concerned right now edit: quoted wrong
It can only be changed by stars not getting offers they should get. The joining foreign team is purely money based. For some reason there is an illusion that "As long as I play, I should get paid".
The truth is, a long as you do you job to promote your sponsors, you should get paid.
EG for instance, is good at promoting the players on the players behalf, but they have a big staff budget compared to almost every other organisation. Sometimes, the players need to promote themselves, even if it is to get a bigger team with more money.
The whole MMA transaction comes to mind, where everyone in the industry knew how much he was asking. And at that moment in time, he would do almost nothing for sponsors that would be worth the asking price. Not to throw MMA under the bus or anything, I am just using it as an example, but its extremely common for Korean "Stars" to expect money for nothing.
But its hard to judge, they are the remnants of BW culture, where some sort of athlete-mindset was created. As Nazgul said it was ok because marketing was not as crucial as it is nowadays. In ideal space, stars or anyone should be only occupied by the game, however Esport is not an ideal space, and this should be properly layed out to those players. Teams have to properly teach players the importance of their own brand because now its part of they play as well
thats what the team should be there for, promoting sponsors through players, the players shouldnt have to be creative themselves and do it themselves, if they have to do it,w hats the point of even having a team? they might as well get individual sponsorship's if they have to take care of everything anyway.
On January 03 2013 18:06 FXOBoSs wrote: Hate to be a stick in the mud.. But there are two reasons why this is happening, and will continue to happen quickly this year.
1) People dont know what it takes to obtain sponsors 2) Players are not willing to do what it takes to obtain sponsors.
It takes alot more than just playing and winning to lure decent sponsorships. None of the korean teams, including KESPA teams, do this properly and that includes FXO.
Getting a Korean "star" player to stream is like trying to pull your fingernails out with a feather.
So true
this is also a reason why zergs stream more than other races. Zerg is a reactive race, hence laddering will 100% contribute to learning, except for 3 pylon blocks and whatnot. As toss and terran streaming will give out so much for your next opponent who wants to study you. I hope this problem will fixed in hots where each race can play defensive reactive style, instead of only zerg at the moment.
I'm not sure if that is why Zergs stream more (it is not in my experience), but your theory on being a reactive race and thus less telling is very accurate. However the way the StarCraft2 scene works you pretty much don't have a lot to hide unless you are in GSL/Proleague. Even when eliminated from GSL Koreans never want to stream, and there really isn't much of an excuse for that from a team owners/sponsor perspective.
I have to disagree, the differentiation of style between the top zerg players and the other top players of toss and terran is way smaller. For example hero and seed is much more different than stephano and leenock. Just to give an example, as a zerg on high masters eu, if i hit the same guy twice. Most of the time if I loose the first game, I will win the second one. In fact I cannot recall when I would ever loose twice in a row to the same person. However this is just my opinion and 2 cents.
That's funny because I agreed with you and I agree again.
This is so sad I'm not worrying that much for players like Symbol and HyuN as they have already achieved good results in 2012 and they will not have trouble finding a new team but I really hope that someone will pick up Center pretty soon, he showed potential in Code A and i'm sure that he could become really good in the next months.
On January 03 2013 18:06 FXOBoSs wrote: Hate to be a stick in the mud.. But there are two reasons why this is happening, and will continue to happen quickly this year.
1) People dont know what it takes to obtain sponsors 2) Players are not willing to do what it takes to obtain sponsors.
It takes alot more than just playing and winning to lure decent sponsorships. None of the korean teams, including KESPA teams, do this properly and that includes FXO.
Getting a Korean "star" player to stream is like trying to pull your fingernails out with a feather.
Is it arrogance or ignorance? Can this be changed? I'm genuinely concerned that we're 2 years in now and they still haven't made much progress. Can this be educated in or is it a culturally (for lack of a better word) driven desire / lack of desire?
I don't want to be too cynical, but it reminds me of all the times you hear young player wanting to leave Korean Team to 'join foreign team' as though it's some mythical golden goose. The more i see this kinda stuff going down, the more i feel that there's some truth to that in the sense that the Korean scene is either unwilling or unable to source funds effectively themselves. The players thus know this (or are complicit in it) and seek to escape to the promised land where money actually exists.
I'm really concerned right now edit: quoted wrong
It can only be changed by stars not getting offers they should get. The joining foreign team is purely money based. For some reason there is an illusion that "As long as I play, I should get paid".
The truth is, a long as you do you job to promote your sponsors, you should get paid.
EG for instance, is good at promoting the players on the players behalf, but they have a big staff budget compared to almost every other organisation. Sometimes, the players need to promote themselves, even if it is to get a bigger team with more money.
The whole MMA transaction comes to mind, where everyone in the industry knew how much he was asking. And at that moment in time, he would do almost nothing for sponsors that would be worth the asking price. Not to throw MMA under the bus or anything, I am just using it as an example, but its extremely common for Korean "Stars" to expect money for nothing.
But its hard to judge, they are the remnants of BW culture, where some sort of athlete-mindset was created. As Nazgul said it was ok because marketing was not as crucial as it is nowadays. In ideal space, stars or anyone should be only occupied by the game, however Esport is not an ideal space, and this should be properly layed out to those players. Teams have to properly teach players the importance of their own brand because now its part of they play as well
thats what the team should be there for, promoting sponsors through players, the players shouldnt have to be creative themselves and do it themselves, if they have to do it,w hats the point of even having a team? they might as well get individual sponsorship's if they have to take care of everything anyway.
Thats the problem of Esport =/ sport. And to be honest even in real sports, players are occupied by this stuff aswell, just on a different scale.
Even professional sport athletes (MLB, NBA, NFL, etc.) have to do 'community' or fan events to promote the team, the sport, and themselves. If they were as sheltered as many Koreans in the E-sport world, they wouldn't be making the salaries that they do make. Sure, it is nice to go watch Mike Trout, or David Price, but getting there to get autographs, pictures, talk with them in Spring Training, or go to the team events is equally as important. I remember as a kid going to Orioles spring training and talking with Cal Ripken and Rafael Palmeiro (Bonus pic with Cal!). That was very important in keeping my interest in the MLB.
Failure to promote the sponsors (team, sport, community involvement, etc.) will always result in failures. Still waiting for the E-sport world to figure this out.
On January 03 2013 18:06 FXOBoSs wrote: Hate to be a stick in the mud.. But there are two reasons why this is happening, and will continue to happen quickly this year.
1) People dont know what it takes to obtain sponsors 2) Players are not willing to do what it takes to obtain sponsors.
It takes alot more than just playing and winning to lure decent sponsorships. None of the korean teams, including KESPA teams, do this properly and that includes FXO.
Getting a Korean "star" player to stream is like trying to pull your fingernails out with a feather.
Is it arrogance or ignorance? Can this be changed? I'm genuinely concerned that we're 2 years in now and they still haven't made much progress. Can this be educated in or is it a culturally (for lack of a better word) driven desire / lack of desire?
I don't want to be too cynical, but it reminds me of all the times you hear young player wanting to leave Korean Team to 'join foreign team' as though it's some mythical golden goose. The more i see this kinda stuff going down, the more i feel that there's some truth to that in the sense that the Korean scene is either unwilling or unable to source funds effectively themselves. The players thus know this (or are complicit in it) and seek to escape to the promised land where money actually exists.
I'm really concerned right now edit: quoted wrong
It can only be changed by stars not getting offers they should get. The joining foreign team is purely money based. For some reason there is an illusion that "As long as I play, I should get paid".
The truth is, a long as you do you job to promote your sponsors, you should get paid.
EG for instance, is good at promoting the players on the players behalf, but they have a big staff budget compared to almost every other organisation. Sometimes, the players need to promote themselves, even if it is to get a bigger team with more money.
The whole MMA transaction comes to mind, where everyone in the industry knew how much he was asking. And at that moment in time, he would do almost nothing for sponsors that would be worth the asking price. Not to throw MMA under the bus or anything, I am just using it as an example, but its extremely common for Korean "Stars" to expect money for nothing.
But its hard to judge, they are the remnants of BW culture, where some sort of athlete-mindset was created. As Nazgul said it was ok because marketing was not as crucial as it is nowadays. In ideal space, stars or anyone should be only occupied by the game, however Esport is not an ideal space, and this should be properly layed out to those players. Teams have to properly teach players the importance of their own brand because now its part of they play as well
thats what the team should be there for, promoting sponsors through players, the players shouldnt have to be creative themselves and do it themselves, if they have to do it,w hats the point of even having a team? they might as well get individual sponsorship's if they have to take care of everything anyway.
The value of a player goes up drastically if he is willing to do some simple stuff for the sponsors and the team. A team may say "You must stream 4 hours a week, and drink our beverage-sponsor's product every 20-30min", but in the end it is much better for both the team, the player and the sponsors if the player just streams regularly and maybe even goes the extra mile of doing some commentary now and then, and takes the time to talk a bit about his sponsor's product when people ask between games.
If you just have a player train and try for GSL, then there is not much value in that from sponsors' point of view, and if the team has to remind the player to mention sponsors, stream and interact with the community, then that fosters a bad relationship.
On January 03 2013 18:06 FXOBoSs wrote: Hate to be a stick in the mud.. But there are two reasons why this is happening, and will continue to happen quickly this year.
1) People dont know what it takes to obtain sponsors 2) Players are not willing to do what it takes to obtain sponsors.
It takes alot more than just playing and winning to lure decent sponsorships. None of the korean teams, including KESPA teams, do this properly and that includes FXO.
Getting a Korean "star" player to stream is like trying to pull your fingernails out with a feather.
Is it arrogance or ignorance? Can this be changed? I'm genuinely concerned that we're 2 years in now and they still haven't made much progress. Can this be educated in or is it a culturally (for lack of a better word) driven desire / lack of desire?
I don't want to be too cynical, but it reminds me of all the times you hear young player wanting to leave Korean Team to 'join foreign team' as though it's some mythical golden goose. The more i see this kinda stuff going down, the more i feel that there's some truth to that in the sense that the Korean scene is either unwilling or unable to source funds effectively themselves. The players thus know this (or are complicit in it) and seek to escape to the promised land where money actually exists.
I'm really concerned right now edit: quoted wrong
It can only be changed by stars not getting offers they should get. The joining foreign team is purely money based. For some reason there is an illusion that "As long as I play, I should get paid".
The truth is, a long as you do you job to promote your sponsors, you should get paid.
EG for instance, is good at promoting the players on the players behalf, but they have a big staff budget compared to almost every other organisation. Sometimes, the players need to promote themselves, even if it is to get a bigger team with more money.
The whole MMA transaction comes to mind, where everyone in the industry knew how much he was asking. And at that moment in time, he would do almost nothing for sponsors that would be worth the asking price. Not to throw MMA under the bus or anything, I am just using it as an example, but its extremely common for Korean "Stars" to expect money for nothing.
But its hard to judge, they are the remnants of BW culture, where some sort of athlete-mindset was created. As Nazgul said it was ok because marketing was not as crucial as it is nowadays. In ideal space, stars or anyone should be only occupied by the game, however Esport is not an ideal space, and this should be properly layed out to those players. Teams have to properly teach players the importance of their own brand because now its part of they play as well
thats what the team should be there for, promoting sponsors through players, the players shouldnt have to be creative themselves and do it themselves, if they have to do it,w hats the point of even having a team? they might as well get individual sponsorship's if they have to take care of everything anyway.
Thats the problem of Esport =/ sport. And to be honest even in real sports, players are occupied by this stuff aswell, just on a different scale.
Well in Pro Football entire teams go to Hospitals and Churches and clean up playground during events. And when they are in conferences they are all about the team and they are present exactly what needs to be put out to sell. Starcraft teams don't do enough to put themselves out there enough as it is as a whole. If you look at ESF teams it is almost nothing TSL, ST, you name it. They do next to nothing I can't buy a jersey for 75% of the teams, no signed keyboards, no internet youtube commercials, no hype videos why does IM not have videos like the UFC of MVP before a GSL match talking about how hungry he is for this or what his plans are? Why? They could be doing so much instead they have coaches that do nothing all day hope the players win then expect money when they don't know the first thing about marketing. They can't even monetize there own brand with something as simple as more merchandise or a 5 min video.
BTW----- Nazgul I see JD and eg doing videos where is my Taeja video talking about how KT is afraid to send Flash out against him. Start some hype tell him to say if this was all kill format the matches wouldn't be a contest. Where is this?
On January 03 2013 17:50 WhiteSatin wrote: Companies don't wanna sponsor a game with a limited viewership number like SC2, and if the trend continues, unfortunately I see this happening for other teams soon.
2011 was probably one of the best years for SC2, so unfortunate that stagnation of map pool, terrible balance decisions that brought the game to a shitty metagame that is super boring to watch, are slowly killing viewership number and by consequences, teams 2012 was super terrible. I hope 2013 will be a great year for SC2 and can go back to its 2011 numbers and even better, but I am pretty negative because I think Blizzard will manage to fuck it up, yet again T_T
This is absolutely not the case, people really need to stop saying this. Any sport from top to bottom can find sponsorships based on viewership numbers. Just because there is something bigger out there does not mean there is no worth. If that were the case no sport below the largest would be able to find sponsors. There is plenty of opportunity for sponsorship dollars in StarCraft2.
The issue is too many people want to be a part of it. It is only natural to lose some along the way when that happens. This goes for tournaments, teams, and players. There are simply too many teams in Korea and only the ones with the best business structure will survive in the long run. Korean teams never evolved with the scene. They took a laid back BroodWar approach of no streaming, no social media, no websites. In BroodWar the teams were carried by being on TV. In StarCraft2 they did not have such a pitch and never got their act together.
That's pretty generic and it can apply to anything. Victor you should know they do a pretty decent job of getting the players out there from the BW scene with the magazines, television programs, fan meetings and all that jazz. The KeSPA players are clear and know how to deal with the media. Heck they had seminars on it. Yes, the tykes throw around the stream numbers way too much, but livestreaming isn't the b all end all of fan fair. You know damn well they use their internet cafe's to communicate with their fans as well.
Not like Lee doesn't know this and he's always had a hard time pitching the team to sponsors. Just isn't his thing. You should be able to find sponsors for practically anything as long as you're a good salesman. Here comes the conversation about oversaturation again. I say, it has more to do with inexperience and inability more than anything else.
As for not getting with the times. They were late to the SC2 dance regardless and part of that had to do with the snafu with Blizzard. There are other methods than livestreaming to get your message across to your fans and interact as well. -_-
EPT
