I just hope that people remember to see this as more "SC2 teams are bad at business" than "SC2 is dying". I feel like (korean) team managers really need to get their act together a bit.
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.
Yes, teams being bad at business is a business problem. That being said, the scene is still over saturated. Everyone wants a piece of the pie, but the pie is only so big. Please refer to Nazgul's earlier post in this thread for further clarification. It's a combination of both problems.
On January 03 2013 19:17 MCXD wrote: I just hope that people remember to see this as more "SC2 teams are bad at business" than "SC2 is dying". I feel like (korean) team managers really need to get their act together a bit.
The 'bad at business' excuse can only go so far. If this trend continues and half of ESF teams fold within a year we can't go on saying that we know better how to run things.
On January 03 2013 19:17 MCXD wrote: I just hope that people remember to see this as more "SC2 teams are bad at business" than "SC2 is dying". I feel like (korean) team managers really need to get their act together a bit.
I think it's really tough for a team like TSL to get sponsors. It's a gamble to give money to a team that only has a sc2-squad and hasn't been around for a very long time.
So....does the trade lock still apply to the players or can they join kespa-teams?
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.
It took casters a long time to stop calling MC, OGSmc when he switched to being purely on SK. I hate to think of the hell it would be to get them used to affixing another team tag to Marineking's name.
I feel like Prime should be safe enough, their players stream fairly regularly and interact with fans, plus they have their store which probably does decent business. It wouldn't hurt for them to send more players to a greater number of foreign tournaments though for more exposure.
NSHS is probably a goner though in a matter of months if that. Who knows maybe prime will absorb them.
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. -_-
I hope it was clear that I'm not talking about the KeSPA teams. I'm talking about the eSF teams who didn't understand that not being on TV changes the game. They have had a long time to adapt and didn't. KeSPA is different they only very recently made the switch and now still have Proleague on TV. They have plenty of their old things going for them still with media trained big name players and such.
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 19:00 Gevna wrote:
On January 03 2013 18:46 CajunMan wrote:
On January 03 2013 18:38 bgx wrote:
On January 03 2013 18:35 NEEDZMOAR wrote:
On January 03 2013 18:31 bgx wrote:
On January 03 2013 18:22 FXOBoSs wrote:
On January 03 2013 18:16 Goibon wrote:
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.
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.
LG-IM does a decent job at promoting itself to the international audience. They post updates on both Reddit and TL, have a facebook page which is regularly updated, and their star players do stream sometimes, although It's quite rare.
They could be doing more, but It's way more than TSL ever did.
All LG-IM players list their sponsors at the end of their interviews in tournaments, always.
Stuff like this goes a long way, although they still could be doing better. Getting your players to post in their TL fan clubs, having them learn enough English to communicate over text. Getting Mvp to stream more than once every 6 months, and having them Tweet in English more often.
Behind the scenes videos would be cool, I would also like to see their new trophy case.
Azubu's signings got the scene hopeful once again, but lets face the facts. Tournament purse hasn't been increasing, sponsors have been pulling out, and LoL is just getting bigger and bigger.
How far is NSHS going to go on? Is Fnatic pulling out of Sc2? How is GOM suppose to hold a GSTL w/ 3-4 of their teams leaving?
I've predicted when KeSPA joined Sc2, that it was a matter of time before either eSF or KeSPA dies. Few tournaments drop out and couple teams disband, or hold on and pray that HoTS is an unprecedented hit. Regardless of success of HoTS one of the team leagues will be disappearing, most likely GSL.
I think the problem is the ESF way of doing things. Well, in my opinion they focus too much on players in detriment of teams. For example, you hear more about prime because of MKP instead of hear about MKP because of prime. What´s my point? Try to make the teams stronger so they can support the players. Sorry for the parallel, but i think like NBA, you have the stars of course, but you have strong teams to support and promote the stars, so they can shine and get the $$. But never ever in detriment of the team.
You hear to much about koreans dreaming of foreign teams because of weak teams and small salaries. Make stronger teams and bigger salaries and itll be fine.
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.
Yes, teams being bad at business is a business problem. That being said, the scene is still over saturated. Everyone wants a piece of the pie, but the pie is only so big. Please refer to Nazgul's earlier post in this thread for further clarification. It's a combination of both problems.
While true, the question to me is if the pie would be bigger if teams were better at marketing their brands. It's a bit shocking to me that EG is still so far ahead of the curve tbh :/
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 19:00 Gevna wrote:
On January 03 2013 18:46 CajunMan wrote:
On January 03 2013 18:38 bgx wrote:
On January 03 2013 18:35 NEEDZMOAR wrote:
On January 03 2013 18:31 bgx wrote:
On January 03 2013 18:22 FXOBoSs wrote:
On January 03 2013 18:16 Goibon wrote: [quote] 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.
LG-IM does a decent job at promoting itself to the international audience. They post updates on both Reddit and TL, have a facebook page which is regularly updated, and their star players do stream sometimes, although It's quite rare.
They could be doing more, but It's way more than TSL ever did.
All LG-IM players list their sponsors at the end of their interviews in tournaments, always.
Stuff like this goes a long way, although they still could be doing better. Getting your players to post in their TL fan clubs, having them learn enough English to communicate over text. Getting Mvp to stream more than once every 6 months, and having them Tweet in English more often.
Behind the scenes videos would be cool, I would also like to see their new trophy case.
IM also has a LoL team in the ogn-leagues which is huge. This is why IM (and MVP) are not going anywhere, not sure about the other esf-teams though.
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.
Yes, teams being bad at business is a business problem. That being said, the scene is still over saturated. Everyone wants a piece of the pie, but the pie is only so big. Please refer to Nazgul's earlier post in this thread for further clarification. It's a combination of both problems.
While true, the question to me is if the pie would be bigger if teams were better at marketing their brands. It's a bit shocking to me that EG is still so far ahead of the curve tbh :/
You bring up a good point, that is certainly a possibility. EG has been around a lot longer than many of these 'SC2 only' teams that are disbanding now. They know what it takes to have a sustainable business model in E-sports (so far).
I want to feel sad about this because they truly are my favorite team and every player that was on TSL was my favorite regardless of race or results, but I have just been so disconnected from Starcraft basically all of 2012 except for summer time when Symbol was doing his thing.
I started cheering for TSL from day one because Tester was my favorite player from the beta. It was mostly a bumpy ride and always ended in heartbreak, but god damn were there some good memories along the way. Summer 2011 Rain, Tester, Fruitdealer, Puma all leave and everybody says the team should disband and then in GSTL that season they go on an absolute tear, undefeated in the regular season with a first round bye for the playoffs. They didn't do anything in the playoffs but it was so exciting to see them overcome the adversity in the regular season and rallying around a bunch of "nobodies" at the time like Alive, JYP and Revival. Or that one GSL season in the fall of 2011 during the Sad Zealot days when Sangho was the only Protoss to make it to the round of 16.... representing TSL.
After that team was ripped apart we got the Hyun Polt Symbol era. We still had Alive but that didn't last long... The first GSTL of 2012 was extremely disappointing and frustrating to watch but then when summer time came around everything changed. They get put in a group with oGs Fnatic and IM+MC... oGs disbands and Fnatic looked strong and then there was all those GSL championships on the IM team... but they came out first place in that group. It was so awesome to see TSL whoop on Alive after what everything that went down with him. Then of course there was Symbol's reverse all kill.... hands down the single most exciting moment in TSL history. That season ended in heartbreak as well, with another loss in the semi finals. Symbol was sent out second and lost to some weird Archon all-in on Ohana against Slayers to some Protoss I cannot even remember the name of. Hyun won a game or two but it was pretty much over once Symbol went down so early. After that there was Hyun's run to the finals last GSL... it would have been a really nice ending for TSL if he would have ended up winning but unfortunately TSL would have it no other way.
It's really too bad. There's a ton of other random and insignificant memories to me that rest inbetween all of that stuff. Like the GSKILL commercials, sleeping through class cause I stayed up until 6AM to watch them in the early seasons of GSTL... even Rain's run in GSL open season 3 was super exciting for me. Hopefully all of their players find good homes that can give them the contracts they deserve, as well as the practice environment they need so one of them can finally bring in a major championship.
I'm sure once GSTL starts up again it will finally sink in... Team SCV Life is gone. Rest in peace and thank you for all the memories.
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 19:00 Gevna wrote:
On January 03 2013 18:46 CajunMan wrote:
On January 03 2013 18:38 bgx wrote:
On January 03 2013 18:35 NEEDZMOAR wrote:
On January 03 2013 18:31 bgx wrote:
On January 03 2013 18:22 FXOBoSs wrote: [quote]
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.
LG-IM does a decent job at promoting itself to the international audience. They post updates on both Reddit and TL, have a facebook page which is regularly updated, and their star players do stream sometimes, although It's quite rare.
They could be doing more, but It's way more than TSL ever did.
All LG-IM players list their sponsors at the end of their interviews in tournaments, always.
Stuff like this goes a long way, although they still could be doing better. Getting your players to post in their TL fan clubs, having them learn enough English to communicate over text. Getting Mvp to stream more than once every 6 months, and having them Tweet in English more often.
Behind the scenes videos would be cool, I would also like to see their new trophy case.
IM also has a LoL team in the ogn-leagues which is huge. This is why IM (and MVP) are not going anywhere, not sure about the other esf-teams though.
Having your team in The Champion's is soooo huge, Korea is obsessed with LoL and the numbers for that tournament on TV are insane. IM and MVP get way more exposure for their teams through OGN than they do GOM, which is kind of funny since they are ESF teams.
EPT
