On January 03 2013 18:50 mikkmagro wrote: I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the year, the only Korean teams outside of KeSPA would be StarTale, MVP, IM and Azubu. NS HoSeo have been lackluster for a long time now, and Prime will continue operating for a while since they're putting so much effort into remaining afloat, but at the end of the day, there's just no place for so many teams who want to compete at the highest level in Korea. It's not necessarily a bad thing either. Unfortunately, most of the SC2 teams in Korea did not have the professional infrastructure required to remain in business for the long term. They were driven by passion, which is great, but passion alone won't house, feed and pay the players and coaches and send them to events.
I wouldn't mind seeing a 'smaller' scene in 2013, than in 2011 and in 2012, if its more structured. By smaller, I mean a smaller number of teams, but of a higher caliber, Less tournaments, but with more of a league structure to create storylines, rather than three-day marathons 3 times a month, with a random assortment of players.
I agree with the last part. However, due to geography, I am not sure it is possible outside of Korea(and China and Taiwan have their own local leagues). Sure, we have online events which span several months with an offline playoff/finals (NASL, Iron Squid, IPL TAC, etc). But in NA/EU, the players are all spread out making lengthy offline tournaments pretty much impossible.
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?
Hype video for reference
Yeah I agree, with the development of media on internet it's unbelievable that teams struggles promoting their players, themselves and the sponsors. Especially in Korea where internet is so big. Make blog, videos, interviews, stream etc...
I guess Navi (Dota 2), EG and Millenium (I mean in France, not internationally) are definitely good models of this.
guess its the time of the year again where many contracts and sponsorships run out. hyun and symbol should have no problem finding a new team. the others, however...
what about a personal sponsorship from IGN for hyun? he singlehandedly wrote the story and brought the hype to their fight club for the better part of 2012...
On January 03 2013 18:50 mikkmagro wrote: I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the year, the only Korean teams outside of KeSPA would be StarTale, MVP, IM and Azubu. NS HoSeo have been lackluster for a long time now, and Prime will continue operating for a while since they're putting so much effort into remaining afloat, but at the end of the day, there's just no place for so many teams who want to compete at the highest level in Korea. It's not necessarily a bad thing either. Unfortunately, most of the SC2 teams in Korea did not have the professional infrastructure required to remain in business for the long term. They were driven by passion, which is great, but passion alone won't house, feed and pay the players and coaches and send them to events.
I wouldn't mind seeing a 'smaller' scene in 2013, than in 2011 and in 2012, if its more structured. By smaller, I mean a smaller number of teams, but of a higher caliber, Less tournaments, but with more of a league structure to create storylines, rather than three-day marathons 3 times a month, with a random assortment of players.
I agree with the last part. However, due to geography, I am not sure it is possible outside of Korea(and China and Taiwan have their own local leagues). Sure, we have online events which span several months with an offline playoff/finals (NASL, Iron Squid, IPL TAC, etc). But in NA/EU, the players are all spread out making lengthy offline tournaments pretty much impossible.
Sounds sort of familiar, no? Going back to the good old days yahoo where everyone follows the same tournaments and Pro League.
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?
Yeah I agree, with the development of media on internet it's unbelievable that teams struggles promoting their players, themselves and the sponsors. Especially in Korea where internet is so big. Make blog, videos, interviews, stream etc...
I guess Navi (Dota 2), EG and Millenium (I mean in France, not internationally) are definitely good models of this.
There is way more to it than making blogs, videos, interviews and streaming. You have to get people's attention first or else you're only going to get a trickle.
Not trying to be a dick here (if you were a fan then I'm truly sorry), but the over-saturation of the scene has been a well known problem for at least half a year now. This shouldn't be too much of a surprise, and frankly, we can expect to see more of this in the near future. It's hardly a surprise.
On January 03 2013 19:03 QTIP. wrote: Not trying to be a dick here (if you were a fan then I'm truly sorry), but the over-saturation of the scene has been a well known problem for at least half a year now. This shouldn't be too much of a surprise, and frankly, we can expect to see more of this in the near future. It's hardly a surprise.
Unfortunately this is true, I guess the next on the list is Prime, sigh..............
On January 03 2013 19:00 Black Gun wrote: what about a personal sponsorship from IGN for hyun? he singlehandedly wrote the story and brought the hype to their fight club for the better part of 2012...
A major tournament organizer directly sponsoring a player is quite weird. And you sponsor someone not because you're grateful for their past performances, but because you expect the player to be in the spotlight in the future. While Hyun is a great player, it remains to be seen if he can catch as much attention in the future now that his epic IPL-FC run has ended.
On January 03 2013 19:03 QTIP. wrote: Not trying to be a dick here (if you were a fan then I'm truly sorry), but the over-saturation of the scene has been a well known problem for at least half a year now. This shouldn't be too much of a surprise, and frankly, we can expect to see more of this in the near future. It's hardly a surprise.
Teams being bad at the business side of things isn't really a problem of over-saturation.
On January 03 2013 19:03 QTIP. wrote: Not trying to be a dick here (if you were a fan then I'm truly sorry), but the over-saturation of the scene has been a well known problem for at least half a year now. This shouldn't be too much of a surprise, and frankly, we can expect to see more of this in the near future. It's hardly a surprise.
Unfortunately this is true, I guess the next on the list is Prime, sigh..............
MKP or Creator please win a GSL to keep the team alive.... Sad day for all sc2 fans.
Must be really tough for the no-name players on TSL too, like Ragnarok. Hope they all find a new team soon!
On January 03 2013 19:03 QTIP. wrote: Not trying to be a dick here (if you were a fan then I'm truly sorry), but the over-saturation of the scene has been a well known problem for at least half a year now. This shouldn't be too much of a surprise, and frankly, we can expect to see more of this in the near future. It's hardly a surprise.
Unfortunately this is true, I guess the next on the list is Prime, sigh..............
MKP or Creator please win a GSL to keep the team alive.... Sad day for all sc2 fans.
Must be really tough for the no-name players on TSL too, like Ragnarok. Hope they all find a new team soon!
I'm having a hard time thinking about Marineking being on another team atm, sorry for derailing the thread abit here.
The Starcraft 2 Professional scene loses a lot in the disbanding of The SCV Life, this team has been around for as long as I've been following the GSL and its absence will be greatly felt.
I hope that the players all find new teams soon they deserve as much.
On January 03 2013 18:50 mikkmagro wrote: I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the year, the only Korean teams outside of KeSPA would be StarTale, MVP, IM and Azubu. NS HoSeo have been lackluster for a long time now, and Prime will continue operating for a while since they're putting so much effort into remaining afloat, but at the end of the day, there's just no place for so many teams who want to compete at the highest level in Korea. It's not necessarily a bad thing either. Unfortunately, most of the SC2 teams in Korea did not have the professional infrastructure required to remain in business for the long term. They were driven by passion, which is great, but passion alone won't house, feed and pay the players and coaches and send them to events.
I wouldn't mind seeing a 'smaller' scene in 2013, than in 2011 and in 2012, if its more structured. By smaller, I mean a smaller number of teams, but of a higher caliber, Less tournaments, but with more of a league structure to create storylines, rather than three-day marathons 3 times a month, with a random assortment of players.
I agree with the last part. However, due to geography, I am not sure it is possible outside of Korea(and China and Taiwan have their own local leagues). Sure, we have online events which span several months with an offline playoff/finals (NASL, Iron Squid, IPL TAC, etc). But in NA/EU, the players are all spread out making lengthy offline tournaments pretty much impossible.
Sounds sort of familiar, no? Going back to the good old days yahoo where everyone follows the same tournaments and Pro League.
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?
Yeah I agree, with the development of media on internet it's unbelievable that teams struggles promoting their players, themselves and the sponsors. Especially in Korea where internet is so big. Make blog, videos, interviews, stream etc...
I guess Navi (Dota 2), EG and Millenium (I mean in France, not internationally) are definitely good models of this.
There is way more to it than making blogs, videos, interviews and streaming. You have to get people's attention first or else you're only going to get a trickle.
Well for sure you can make IM players run around the world naked with LG's logo on tits. But to start I think they can expose their players a bit more with some kind of "behind the scene" stuffs.
EPT
