On January 3rd, 2012, TSL's head coach, Lee Woon Jae, called This Is Game and stated that "it is time to face reality. It has become far too difficult for this team to continue going on. We have decided to disband."
TSL was a team that was formed with the announcement of SC2 WoL. The team launched alongside beta test prodigies Fruitdealer, and TricKsteR.
TSL received a big blow on their roster when Fruitdealer and TricKsteR left. However, TSL then went on to birth even more talents like Polt (teamless), Clide (KT Rolster coach), Killer (MVP team captain), Revival (EG), and JYP (EG) to try to stay alive in the SC2 scene.
Later on, TSL still hung on through the difficult times. They took in MBC HERO's HyuN and Symbol who received an all kill for the GSTL and kept the team's appearance alive. TSL was looking pretty good with decent GSTL placements and HyuN grabbing a Code S finalist spot for the 2012 GSL Season 5. Polt won multiple foreign tournaments and the TSL roster was full of talented and promising players.
However, with the recent losses of Polt and Revival, fans began to wonder if TSL was in trouble or not. Coach Lee revealed that "with our most recent player losses and difficulty in finding sponsors, we had no choice but to disband TSL."
Therefore, HyuN, Symbol, Shine, Center, and RagnaroK are now teamless. Coach Lee stated that "the players did not want the team to disband but none the less, understood the current situation at hand and accepted my decision. They were sorry to see the team go like this."
Coach Lee's final statement was "These players all hold tremendous talent and are sincere than any other players out there. I really hope other teams out there will help so that they find new teams soon. Update 3:
A bit of unrelated information, but important none the less.
On January 3rd, 2012, TSL's head coach, Lee Woon Jae, called This Is Game and stated that "it is time to face reality. It has become far too difficult for this team to continue going on. We have decided to disband."
TSL was a team that was formed with the announcement of SC2 WoL. The team launched alongside beta test prodigies Fruitdealer, and TricKsteR.
TSL received a big blow on their roster when Fruitdealer and TricKsteR left. However, TSL then went on to birth even more talents like Polt (teamless), Clide (KT Rolster coach), Killer (MVP team captain), Revival (EG), and JYP (EG) to try to stay alive in the SC2 scene.
Later on, TSL still hung on through the difficult times. They took in MBC HERO's HyuN and Symbol who received an all kill for the GSTL and kept the team's appearance alive. TSL was looking pretty good with decent GSTL placements and HyuN grabbing a Code S finalist spot for the 2012 GSL Season 5. Polt won multiple foreign tournaments and the TSL roster was full of talented and promising players.
However, with the recent losses of Polt and Revival, fans began to wonder if TSL was in trouble or not. Eventually, coach Lee revealed that "with our most recent player losses and difficulty in finding sponsors, we had no choice but to disband TSL."
Therefore, HyuN, Symbol, Shine, Center, and RagnaroK are now teamless. Coach Lee stated that "the players did not want the team to disband but none the less, understood the current situation at hand and accepted my decision. They were sorry to see the team go like this."
Coach Lee's final statement was "These players all hold tremendous talent and are more sincere than any other players out there. I really hope other teams out there will help so that they find new teams soon."
Yep, they're gone. The coach mentions he couldnt find any sponsors and the core players kept leaving, so he decided to call it quits. Nothing new here.
Interesting starting to the year. As disappointing as it is for TSL to be disbanding, I am mildly intrigued to see where all these free agents suddenly land. Could make for some interesting teams.
with the end of 2012 I guess many sponsorships ended and thus teams are forced to disband. Given this is true, we would have Parting and Hyun (and Symbol) as free-agents.
Sad news but with all the Kespa teams joining sc2 and the start of a new year and the team still unable to find sponors a few teams were going to fold.
I am not positive on the details of the trade lock between Kespa and ESF but would it be safe to assume the newly ex-TSL players could get picked up by Kespa teams?
Lastshadow predicted this on Facebook. He didn't say specifically what team was to disband, but he said that one was. Interesting start to 2013, to say the least.
So they disband because two of their players leave, rather than trying to raise some new blood? ... Eventually I feel like it will only be kespa players...
Oh fucking hell. RIP TSL. I thought losing big cash players like Polt and Revival would of hurt them in picking up cash for the team, but they still had Symbol. Argh! Other teams get to pick up some nice playres though
TSL only had 7 players left, but 4 of them would be considered great pick-ups by any team. I wonder if Hyun can go back to Kespa (wonder what team though). Center is probably going to be the hot commodity considering his potential and recent nice games.
On January 03 2013 17:35 WhiteSatin wrote: 2013: the year SC2 is gonna die ?
All the teams disbanding are an effect of late 2012. It is totally unsure what direction SC2 will go this year. One thing that looks certain though is that Kespa will be the victor in their clash with the ESF.
It was so long ago with Clide,Killer,Alive,TRickster,Rain,JYP,Fruitdealer and Puma playing for them. Sad day for SC2, but still they current lineup up lacked a lot after Polt left. Symbol and Hyun are going to find good teams.
On January 03 2013 17:26 Insoleet wrote: wtf is happening nowadays... tsl.... parting.... strange beginning of the year....
If you think the end of 2012 was bad for SC2.. wait for the end of 2013. I don't see things doing better than what they were back in 2011.
Stuff is getting recycled, don't worry. We gained a lot of SC2 players with the KeSPA switching. You're only looking at 1 side of the things. Teams come and go and only the strongest can really stay long term.
On January 03 2013 17:39 aRyuujin wrote: Oh, damn, scared for people like Center. HyuN, Symbol, etc. will be fine, it's the little guys who get wrecked
Center got a chance to prove himself now, but I'm pretty scared for him too.
On January 03 2013 17:26 Insoleet wrote: wtf is happening nowadays... tsl.... parting.... strange beginning of the year....
Parting probably wants to try out foreign scene and as for TSL I just figure the scene cant possibly support 8 KeSPA teams 8 federation teams AND the foreigner teams that have Korean players now of which there are 4-5 of them. There just arent enough sponsorships to go around.
Dang, this is saddening Good luck to former TSL players, there are a LOT of free agents out there nowadays but we all know how good TSL zergs are. All these disbandings...don't know what to say...
On January 03 2013 17:39 aRyuujin wrote: Oh, damn, scared for people like Center. HyuN, Symbol, etc. will be fine, it's the little guys who get wrecked
Center will be fine. He has huge amounts of potential. He's just barely started showing up on the scene and he has made a huge splash.
Since the kespa teams switched Korea has been really over saturated with korean players and teams. I don't imagine TSL will be the only ones to go this year.
Teams keeping up with end of 2012, the player market is just so amazing right now, but there is no money aside from EG. Axiom is still gaining players, as is Azubu, but this really....
On January 03 2013 17:26 Insoleet wrote: wtf is happening nowadays... tsl.... parting.... strange beginning of the year....
If you think the end of 2012 was bad for SC2.. wait for the end of 2013. I don't see things doing better than what they were back in 2011.
Stuff is getting recycled, don't worry. We gained a lot of SC2 players with the KeSPA switching. You're only looking at 1 side of the things. Teams come and go and only the strongest can really stay long term.
I welcome our Kespa Overlords, Hell the only SC2 matches from korea I watch nowadays are the Kespa matches.
EG: Obviously a good choice, they STOLE all the TSL players Artosis&Tasteless: For not giving more money to TSL Polt: How can he leave his own team Slayers.Jessica: You'll never know until you know SCII: because it's dying
(not serious, i'm trying to push away the sadness)
Players like Center should even have a decent shot in a team like TL who are more interested in signing a relatively unknown player with lots of potential. I hope a team like SK steps up and acquires someone like Hyun.
On January 03 2013 17:41 Tachion wrote: Since the kespa teams switched Korea has been really over saturated with korean players and teams. I don't imagine TSL will be the only ones to go this year.
I can't imagine Prime will last much longer... but the other teams seem to be doing just fine. We also have plenty of other high caliber (and foreign) teams replacing these teams in Korea which will hopefully set a standard for better recruitment and marketing.
On January 03 2013 17:26 Insoleet wrote: wtf is happening nowadays... tsl.... parting.... strange beginning of the year....
If you think the end of 2012 was bad for SC2.. wait for the end of 2013. I don't see things doing better than what they were back in 2011.
Stuff is getting recycled, don't worry. We gained a lot of SC2 players with the KeSPA switching. You're only looking at 1 side of the things. Teams come and go and only the strongest can really stay long term.
I welcome our Kespa Overlords, Hell the only SC2 matches from korea I watch nowadays are the Kespa matches.
For the last few weeks thats really been the only choice.
Fooooooooooooooooock nooooo!!! TSL always looked promising, even though the team went through hard times. One always hoped, that the day cometh where justice will be done.
Noo TSL was one of my all time favorite teams. There has been so much good and bad news lately, I'm curious as to what else might happen soon :/ I will always remember enjoying everyone from TSL playing so much!
On January 3rd, 2012, TSL's head coach, Lee Woon Jae, called This Is Game and stated that "it is time to face reality. It has become far too difficult for this team to continue going on. We have decided to disband."
TSL was a team that was formed with the announcement of SC2 WoL. The team launched alongside beta test prodigies Fruitdealer, and TricKsteR.
TSL received a big blow on their roster when Fruitdealer and TricKsteR left. However, TSL then went on to birth even more talents like Polt (teamless), Clide (KT Rolster coach), Killer (MVP team captain), Revival (EG), and JYP (EG) to try to stay alive in the SC2 scene.
Later on, TSL still hung on through the difficult times. They took in MBC HERO's HyuN and Symbol who received an all kill for the GSTL and kept the team's appearance alive. TSL was looking pretty good with decent GSTL placements and HyuN grabbing a Code S finalist spot for the 2012 GSL Season 5. Polt won multiple foreign tournaments and the TSL roster was full of talented and promising players.
However, with the recent losses of Polt and Revival, fans began to wonder if TSL was in trouble or not. Eventually, coach Lee revealed that "with our most recent player losses and difficulty in finding sponsors, we had no choice but to disband TSL."
Therefore, HyuN, Symbol, Shine, Center, and RagnaroK are now teamless. Coach Lee stated that "the players did not want the team to disband but none the less, understood the current situation at hand and accepted my decision. They were sorry to see the team go like this."
Coach Lee's final statement was "These players all hold tremendous talent and are more sincere than any other players out there. I really hope other teams out there will help so that they find new teams soon.
On January 3rd, 2012, TSL's head coach, Lee Woon Jae, called This Is Game and stated that "it is time to face reality. It has become far too difficult for this team to continue going on. We have decided to disband."
TSL was a team that was formed with the announcement of SC2 WoL. The team launched alongside beta test prodigies Fruitdealer, and TricKsteR.
TSL received a big blow on their roster when Fruitdealer and TricKsteR left. However, TSL then went on to birth even more talents like Polt (teamless), Clide (KT Rolster coach), Killer (MVP team captain), Revival (EG), and JYP (EG) to try to stay alive in the SC2 scene.
Later on, TSL still hung on through the difficult times. They took in MBC HERO's HyuN and Symbol who received an all kill for the GSTL and kept the team's appearance alive. TSL was looking pretty good with decent GSTL placements and HyuN grabbing a Code S finalist spot for the 2012 GSL Season 5. Polt won multiple foreign tournaments and the TSL roster was full of talented and promising players.
However, with the recent losses of Polt and Revival, fans began to wonder if TSL was in trouble or not. Eventually, coach Lee revealed that "with our most recent player losses and difficulty in finding sponsors, we had no choice but to disband TSL."
Therefore, HyuN, Symbol, Shine, Center, and RagnaroK are now teamless. Coach Lee stated that "the players did not want the team to disband but none the less, understood the current situation at hand and accepted my decision. They were sorry to see the team go like this."
Coach Lee's final statement was "These players all hold tremendous talent and are more sincere than any other players out there. I really hope other teams out there will help so that they find new teams soon.
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
Was bound to happen ton of huge teams in Korea and only so many sponsers for Korea. Foreign still can grow tons because there are so many sponsors and a much larger audience than just Korea. This closes a chapter on just another Korean team and opens a door for foreign teams to pick up players like Hyun to be able to market on top of a stacked foreigner team much like EG has done in order to keep growing.
On January 03 2013 17:42 Traceback wrote: Too many teams in scene. There were bound to be some that fall due to starvation. TSL is just the first big one to go.
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
Um 2012 was actually pretty damn good until about june/july. First half was really good, second half I will agree was really shitty.
Fucking shattered This is why it's horrible to watch teams grow and lose players, for fear of this happeing....... I guess with the addition KeSPA we have more teams in the scene than ever before, but in general it seems like Korea doesn't have any teams coming in, only leaving. I guess Azubu came in recently, but this year alone we lost ZenEX, NS HoSeo is on its last legs, Slayers disbanded, even Prime seemed to not be going to well.
Damn . All of my favorite Korean teams are getting picked off. First oGs; then SlayerS; and now TSL. I'm going to lose it if LG-IM gets the firing squad.
Not surprising, Polt and Revival leaving was a bit of a sign and TSL has never seemed to be on stable ground. I hope Hyun goes back to a Kespa team to get back into real practice :3
On January 03 2013 17:43 Serpico wrote: Rod Breslau @Slasher
During IPL5 I met with another top Korean team that is having the same sponsor difficulties. It's still not easy to run a large-scale team.
I'd guess Prime.
Only stable ESF teams seem to be Fxo/Startale/LG-IM/MVP imo anyways.
StarTale is less stable than they appear, and Prime is more stable than they appear.
ST maybe less than they appear but when there team keeps winning and winning its only a matter of time for them either get a sponsor or the best players will continue on winning like they would anyway.
On January 03 2013 17:35 WhiteSatin wrote: 2013: the year SC2 is gonna die ?
All the teams disbanding are an effect of late 2012. It is totally unsure what direction SC2 will go this year. One thing that looks certain though is that Kespa will be the victor in their clash with the ESF.
nah ESF players still outnumber kespa players quite abit in GSL
What the fuck!!!??? Im not a fan of TSL, I actually find myself rooting against Hyun and Symbol quite often, however this is just sad. TSL was one of the greatest teams in SC2. I hope no other teams disband.
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.
On January 03 2013 17:58 SKYFISH_ wrote: wasnt TSL one of the more financially stable teams?
looks like everyone is struggling with sponsorships, there was this thread not too long ago about Prime having issues with finding a sponsor as well
rip i guess
Not at all, TSL was always one of the least financially stable teams. Not really a surprise that they are disbanding (only NSHS would be less of a surprise, imo)
Man, a lot of teams have disbanded. But its to be expected, there's an oversaturation of teams and players, especially with the KeSPA teams joining the fray.
kespa teams will outlast gom federation (how is it called?) teams because most of these players on the younger gom teams seem to have a lack of loyalty. they would rather quit and join a bad foreigner team.
TSL has been a whirlwind organization since the beginning. Most of the time in a bad way. They did okay in 2012 but their management and business approach was always questionable. TSL's popularity was always player based or sentimental value carried over from their inception, its time we move on.
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.
I never mentioned the "bigger out there" thing. I am talking strictly about SC2.
The biggest issue for the long run survival of SC2 are numbers, and at the moment we have lower numbers than 2011 and early 2012. That is not team's fault. There's so much that Blizzard could have done to help SC2 keep players playing the game and spectators watch the game, and they did neither, in fact, they even made it worst. All my friends I used to play with are all gone, and even some of my hardcore friends stopped watching because they find it boring. What you are talking about has more with the way a team has to be managed, about funds, social media and all that. But even those things, are viable only if the viewership is good. I mean you can put as much effort in the social media side as you want, but if you got nobody liking your stuff on facebook, watching your stream, simply.. because there is no one watching, that is not something that we can blame on Teams. You are right, they took a laid back approach and that's bad, but my comment is more about the game. I think B.net also played a huge role in why people stopped playing, by far one of the worst things Blizzard has ever created. TFT B.net was far superior, funnier and kept people in-game and watching the game. All these things: balance, b.net 0.2, stagnation, etc. contribute to having less and less followers to the sc2 scene, which is bad for everybody involved :/
My post did not mean to compare sc2 to LoL, Dota or any other game.
On January 03 2013 17:26 Insoleet wrote: wtf is happening nowadays... tsl.... parting.... strange beginning of the year....
If you think the end of 2012 was bad for SC2.. wait for the end of 2013. I don't see things doing better than what they were back in 2011.
Stuff is getting recycled, don't worry. We gained a lot of SC2 players with the KeSPA switching. You're only looking at 1 side of the things. Teams come and go and only the strongest can really stay long term.
I welcome our Kespa Overlords, Hell the only SC2 matches from korea I watch nowadays are the Kespa matches.
For the last few weeks thats really been the only choice.
Also, thanks for translating in advance suzie
Well that and When Kespa entered the SC2 scene I completely lost interest in the GSL teams.
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.
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.
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.
Hopefully some of these teams disbanding is a good wake up call to them.
SlayerS and TSL.. two of my favourite teams have fallen. Sad start to the year for Starcraft fans. Will be interesting to see who Polt went to.. whoever it may be you might have to fault them for causing this to happen.. or at least dealing the killing blow.
On January 03 2013 18:03 clementdudu wrote: kespa is going to outlast esf teams,they seem to be so much more professional...maybe harsh rules and slaves b-teamers are what it takes.
If you think Kespa succes relies on slaves b-teamers and harsh rules... no this was only the outcome of competition that was created not the reason.
It is about controlling the transparent center, OGN is that center, proleague always was. What ESF could do was to control the boundaries, streaming, media, promotion all this technology gagdets that happened in last few years and were ommited in BW times, because they could (TV exposure, primary Esport title). However now they cannot be omitted, this is what GOM was doing all the time afterall and they somehow stayed afloat for so many years.
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.
i agree, if only the world was all aussies. the boss would go up to the star player, clip them on the ear and say "common mate, you've been slacking you bloody bludger, get back to the streaming you drongo before i unleash a dingo on ya!"
Stuff is getting recycled, don't worry. We gained a lot of SC2 players with the KeSPA switching. You're only looking at 1 side of the things. Teams come and go and only the strongest can really stay long term.
Basically this. The entry of KeSPA into full-time SC2 pretty much doubled the number of SC2 teams in Korea competing for players, tournament wins and sponsorships. You'd be incredibly naive to think this wouldn't cause a major shake-up of existing teams.
The story was that the "no trade" rule was there to protect KeSPA players from being dominated by GSL veterans during the transition period. Less attention was paid to the way the deal protected ESF teams from being poached to death by rivals with deeper pockets and more prestigious pedigrees, backed by an organisation that makes no secret about how it would prefer to control the whole scene.
I can't imagine why, at this point, an unattached player would pick an ESF team over either KeSPA, or a deep-pocketed foreign team. Which means from now on, the ESF teams are doomed to have second pick of the available Korean talent. Expect things to get worse.
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.
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.
On January 03 2013 18:04 TKK wrote: kespa teams will outlast gom federation (how is it called?) teams because most of these players on the younger gom teams seem to have a lack of loyalty. they would rather quit and join a bad foreigner team.
TSL players had no salary. How long employees are loyal to a company who does not pay 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.
I agree. People need to stop acting like this is the end of SC2.
This is not about the game, it's about team management and administration. Teams have to have plans in the future to survive. If a team only focuses on one particular game, it's like putting all your eggs in one basket. It's common sense that you'll get yourself burned one day. Teams like TSL, Prime,.. only focuses on SC2, so their life pretty depends on SC2's up and down. On the other hand, teams like MVP, IM, FXO, Kespa's CJ, SKT, KTRoster, even TeamLiquid diverse their business to other titles (SC2, LoL) and they become less dependent on SC2. oGs, StarTale tried out LoL, but wasn't successful, they still have to rely on their sole SC2 business.
It's really exciting to see the dynamic change and decision making from teams to try to survive.
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.
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.
I agree. People need to stop acting like this is the end of SC2.
This is not about the game, it's about team management and administration. Teams have to have plans in the future to survive. If a team only focuses on one particular game, it's like putting all your eggs in one basket. It's common sense that you'll get yourself burned one day. Teams like TSL, Prime,.. only focuses on SC2, so their life pretty depends on SC2's up and down. On the other hand, teams like MVP, IM, FXO, Kespa's CJ, SKT, KTRoster, even TeamLiquid diverse their business to other titles (SC2, LoL) and they become less dependent on SC2. oGs, StarTale tried out LoL, but wasn't successful, they still have to rely on their sole SC2 business.
It's really exciting to see the dynamic change and decision making from teams to try to survive.
You bring up a really interesting point, LG-IM and MVP both have teams in OnGameNet's The Champions League of Legends tournament, this is the most popular gaming program on OGN and watched by a looooot people on live TV. This gives them a huge edge over teams like Prime and TSL in terms of ability to find and keep sponsors, as well as how many eyes are on your organization.
Starcraft 2 Progame team TSL has suddenly disbanded.
TSL's coach Lee stated: "Realistically it was too hard to operate a progaming team at the moment and after careful consideration the team was to be disbanded".
TSL formed with the release of Starcraft 2 Wings of Liberty. Former MBC Game Hero's coach, Coach Lee had the strongest SC2 beta players under his wings that included Tester/SKS, Fruitdealer and formed TSL with them. Early on TSL had sponsors from many hardware companies and from the PC Bang Coach Lee had been operating. And with Fruitdealer's win in the GSL Open Season 1, the team looked highly motivated.
After the departure of Tester and Fruitdealer TSL was the source of many controversies. But with the recruitment of players like Polt, Clide, Killer, Revival, JYP, etc TSL used the power of new and upcoming players to put themselves back in the top.
After MBC Game Hero disbanded Hyun joined TSL and Symbol later joined as well and proceeded to all-kill in the GSTL and showed great promise. They showed pretty good results in the GSTL and Hyun won 2nd place in the GSL Code 2 Season 5. Also Polt frequented foreign tournaments and always placed highly. TSL also had up and comming players such as Shine, Ragnarok, and Center.
Nonetheless recently TSL lost Polt, Revival who here pivotal players and many fans began to worry. Coach Lee had said the following after their leaves: "Losing key players and facing the hardships of not being able to find sponsors the team had to disband".
Former TSL players Hyun, Symbol,Shine, Center, and Ragnarok are now teamless. Coach Lee stated: "The players were sorry, but after explaining the situation to them they all understood".
Coach Lee said: "All my players are skilled and have great work ethic and wishes Coach Kim? will help them find a new team.
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.
Again, even from the Quantic standpoint, we always struggled with this as well... Even knowing what is needed, doesn't make actually getting it, from the sponsors and/or players, any easier...
I wonder how much Gom could have helped if they shared their viewership numbers with the teams. What are they going to do for their teamleague if the korean teams are in such trouble?
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.
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.
Zerg is not the reactionary race anymore. In fact, both P and T have to adapt to whatever the Zerg is doing. Queen buff pretty much made it so that Z can drone safely up to 80 workers and go from there. Also, it's true, more Zergs streams because 90% of them do the same thing: 4/6 queens, 80 drones, 11 min hive vs P, 14 min hive vs T, transition into a moving and win. Despite not being a Z fan, I miss the times where only good zergs were winning and not the very sad Z fest that we have to witness almost every tournament.
nooo one of my favorite teams. i saw some of the tsl guys palling around together at ipl5, and they seemed like a pretty tight group. hope they can find new teams soon.
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
I can't help thinking streaming is a bit of a red herring.
Watching someone ladder is, for the most part, really boring. It's a bunch of repetitive, mostly identical games against almost entirely anonymous opponents. There's no story, no drama, just mechanics and maybe one stand-out game every couple of hours. Even a player with amazing mechanics will only be interesting for so long.
Some streamers get numbers for being "personalities" or by offering ancillary material like coaching sessions or deep (English language) analysis, others get largely temporary attention for being really good players. Even JD is going to see his viewer count dwindle over time as the novelty value wears off.
I strongly suspect that as time passes, the emphasis on streaming will die down, and while there will always be some streamers bringing in advertising money, teams will start getting more revenue from putting out curated content like in-house tournaments, training materials, casts of their players more interesting ladder games and the like.
I guess this was long coming. With Kespa switch Korean scene is bloated far beyond what it can support. I wonder why they didn't wait for HotS tho. Either things were that bad or they had no faith in any renewed interest.
On January 03 2013 18:23 GoldforGolden wrote: ZeNex and NSHS better not be next
wow, some of my favorite players are within this team, with that said Ive always had a feeling that something was wrong with TSL, coach lee seems a bit sketchy and the fact that none of the players had salaries is weird.
This is sad, but can't really say that I'm surprised that one of the more financially unstable teams disbanded. We have all known that since KeSPA joined the game the Korean scene is way oversaturated with talent, and most ESF teams do not seem to be that great at the business aspect of running a progaming team (they are excellent at developing talent on the other hand though).
I don't see why people are running around screaming about the end of the world (or SC2). Yes a few teams disbanded, but 7 KeSPA teams joining the game. In total Korea still has an impressive amount of top teams operating, in fact far more than in 2011-first half of 2012. I wouldn't be surprised by a merger, or another disbanded team in the next couple of 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.
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.
Sad to see, I always rooted for TSL in GSTL. Still it was bound to happen at some point, its hard to see GSTL competing with Proleague for long. I expect whatever teams are left at the end of this season will merge or join Proleague and in the end it will be better for starcraft 2 as a esport. I hope these trade blocks wont stop symbol and hyun getting places with a decent kespa team. There is way too many top esf players without a team already as a result and it looks like the kespa players have already caught up so its not like any of the teams will replace their whole roster.
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.
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.
Zerg is not the reactionary race anymore. In fact, both P and T have to adapt to whatever the Zerg is doing. Queen buff pretty much made it so that Z can drone safely up to 80 workers and go from there. Also, it's true, more Zergs streams because 90% of them do the same thing: 4/6 queens, 80 drones, 11 min hive vs P, 14 min hive vs T, transition into a moving and win. Despite not being a Z fan, I miss the times where only good zergs were winning and not the very sad Z fest that we have to witness almost every tournament.
What do you mean despite? of course youre not a zerg fan when you express yourself that way, personally Im happy that Zerg can play something else than ling bling muta and still win, ling bling muta was riddiciously hard to pull off and transition out from on top levels, only a few zerg gods could pull it off, and Im happy the tournaments are no longer TvTs everywhere, TvZ being super easy and ZvT being a joke.
I know its swinging in zergs favor nowadays but lets not forget what It was like, we want a balanced game, not a game that swings in any directions.
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
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. -_-
On January 3rd, 2012, TSL's head coach, Lee Woon Jae, called This Is Game and stated that "it is time to face reality. It has become far too difficult for this team to continue going on. We have decided to disband."
TSL was a team that was formed with the announcement of SC2 WoL. The team launched alongside beta test prodigies Fruitdealer, and TricKsteR.
TSL received a big blow on their roster when Fruitdealer and TricKsteR left. However, TSL then went on to birth even more talents like Polt (teamless), Clide (KT Rolster coach), Killer (MVP team captain), Revival (EG), and JYP (EG) to try to stay alive in the SC2 scene.
Later on, TSL still hung on through the difficult times. They took in MBC HERO's HyuN and Symbol who received an all kill for the GSTL and kept the team's appearance alive. TSL was looking pretty good with decent GSTL placements and HyuN grabbing a Code S finalist spot for the 2012 GSL Season 5. Polt won multiple foreign tournaments and the TSL roster was full of talented and promising players.
However, with the recent losses of Polt and Revival, fans began to wonder if TSL was in trouble or not. Eventually, coach Lee revealed that "with our most recent player losses and difficulty in finding sponsors, we had no choice but to disband TSL."
Therefore, HyuN, Symbol, Shine, Center, and RagnaroK are now teamless. Coach Lee stated that "the players did not want the team to disband but none the less, understood the current situation at hand and accepted my decision. They were sorry to see the team go like this."
Coach Lee's final statement was "These players all hold tremendous talent and are more sincere than any other players out there. I really hope other teams out there will help so that they find new teams soon."
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.
Team of Rain, FruitDealer, Symbol, PuMa, Polt, aLive, HyuN, Clide, Killer, JYP, Revival. Such bull shit man, every body left the team because of salary even though they were the first ones to pay salary and home grow their players. Fuck this.
On January 03 2013 18:51 AzoriuS wrote: team of patchzergs disbanded. Im not sad. I always thought that they are overrated. Only Polt was a quality player imo.
No. TSL is not a team of patch zergs, take that bull shit back.
On January 03 2013 18:51 AzoriuS wrote: team of patchzergs disbanded. Im not sad. I always thought that they are overrated. Only Polt was a quality player imo.
On January 03 2013 18:51 AzoriuS wrote: team of patchzergs disbanded. Im not sad. I always thought that they are overrated. Only Polt was a quality player imo.
lmao if only you knew what you were talking about.
On January 03 2013 18:51 AzoriuS wrote: team of patchzergs disbanded. Im not sad. I always thought that they are overrated. Only Polt was a quality player imo.
Yeah its always fun when teams disband..
Did I say it's fun ? I dont care. Hyun, Symbol are so overrated in my opinion but still they will find a good team so its not a tragedy.
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.
It comes down to their business management. Hard to say what will happen to them. No team is truly safe. We've seen Ace, MBC, WeMade, OGN Sparkyz etc. disband recently under the KeSPA wagon. I don't see KT, SK T1, Khan or CJ going anywhere soon. If it isn't SC2 it will be something else.
On January 03 2013 18:51 AzoriuS wrote: team of patchzergs disbanded. Im not sad. I always thought that they are overrated. Only Polt was a quality player imo.
Yeah its always fun when teams disband..
Did I say it's fun ? I dont care. Hyun, Symbol are so overrated in my opinion but still they will find a good team so its not a tragedy.
TSL had a lot of good players in their system. Show some damn respect.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Who do I cheer for in Team Leagues now?! TSL you will be gravely missed. Hope all the players find teams. Who the hell would have thought the new year would have Hyun, Symbol, Polt and Parting as free agents?..
With that many tournaments going on currently, even very high placements in those are likely to be forgotten very fast. That`s why you have to show some personality, stream regulary and need to give interesting interviews. That`s why a player like Violet is way more valuable than players like Life and Leenock, despite the latter being a level above in terms of pure skill. But that doesn`t make esports any different from normal sports as the same thing also applies to football etc. If you are signed by Bayern Munich you will also have to do commercials in tv, visit fanclub meetings, give interviews.
On January 03 2013 18:51 AzoriuS wrote: team of patchzergs disbanded. Im not sad. I always thought that they are overrated. Only Polt was a quality player imo.
Yeah its always fun when teams disband..
Did I say it's fun ? I dont care. Hyun, Symbol are so overrated in my opinion but still they will find a good team so its not a tragedy.
Not in those words, but you make it sound like it's not a big deal. Also whatever you're opinion is off those players TSL has been alot more then that, go read some things about the players that TSL literally "created"
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?
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.
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?
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.
I am so surprised to see this happen , I wonder where Symbol , Hyun , Polt will go maybe Kespa team? So sad to see another team disbanding. All the best to the EX TSL players!
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: [quote] 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.
I hope they are turning that exposure into more sponsors/increased $$ from there existing ones.
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.
I don't think the number of viewers of Sc2 compared to another game(s) is a problem for sponsors. Ok a little f2p has more viewers, but sc2-interessed gamers are often young actives or student with high earnings compared to the younger audience of LoL. It's a basic law of marketing, you must target them who has the money.
TSL/NSH/Prime... (choose the good one) problems are a consequence of a little "war" between Kespa and ESF first : Proleague is BIG, and teams like KT Rolster or SKT are big. ESF is since the beginning in a logic of conflict (as the Kespa), but they forget the big often eats the little at the end. Moreover, if ESF "korean" market is small, teams like TSL didn't do anything to win the international market. No streams, only two teams active on twitter/faccebook, players ho don't talk English ... The difficulties of some of the ESF teams are consequences of their incredibly bad decisions, not of a global SC2 problem. But it's only my little opinion.
On January 03 2013 19:33 Taipoka wrote: 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.
A stronger focus on team leagues would create more fan interest in teams vs one or two star players. However most team leagues have incredibly small prize pools and also use the all kill format which means teams can rely on a couple of players to carry them to victory which does nothing to help the lesser known players. Of course all kill can be helpful in that the IM coach often threw out dreamertt or true or horror first to get booth experience knowing he could rely on Losira, Happy, Yonghwa etc to multi kill and makes things even or win the whole thing for the team.
Getting fans to follow teams vs a handful of players also requires the ESF managers to promote their teams and make them standout in some way. Give them an identity for people to empathize wise and rally around.
That said, I'm not sure the lack of focus on team vs player is the biggest issue. It's likely a contributing problem but not the worst offender.
Wow, I think losing Revival for them wasn't a big deal. But Polt is one of their mainstays. Though the loss of 2 veteran players in their team was just the tip of the iceberg.
I hope all the players who are now teamless find teams and prosper in them. It's so heartbreaking to see a team like that die off. At least nowhere near as dramatic as SlayerS disbanding.
Wow, this is really sad news, and definitely not how I wanted the year to start off. TSL, despite all their troubles where a great team, they produced some of the best players in the scene, players that went on to have some fantastic results, as a team they also had some remarkable runs in the team leagues.
I wish Coach Lee and his players all the best, Lee in particular, despite the talk of shady deals, has turned out to be a fantastic coach, he would be a great asset to any team, and the remaining players are all very strong and deserve a chance.
I hope this is the only piece of bad news to hit us, though I really fear for NSH and to a lesser extent Prime, hopefully they find a balance.
I agree with what Nazgul is saying. If you think about it, someone like Destiny enjoys lots of viewers just because his stream is entertaining. HerO for example gets a ton of viewers because a) he's ridiculously good and b) he interacts with his stream. And even when he streamed like every day he was still doing very well in tournaments. By now, with the amount of games these players go through in tournaments, it's really not difficult to do research on them. If they're preparing for something like GSL/PL it's only natural that they wouldn't want to stream but in the meantime? There's really no reason not to and it would greatly benefit these teams. I actually think that streaming a lot greatly benfitted HerO. He had to play tons of different builds so it wasn't as easy to just figure him out. And now? If you look at his games, he's one of the most diverse players in the world. He's capable of doing just about everything protoss can do.
as expected one ESF team after another disbands because of money problems, in the end we have the big kespa teams live and gom gets problems because for every ESF team disbaning, kespa gets more power
On January 03 2013 19:32 Cattlecruiser wrote: 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?
1. As long as their school funds the team. 2. No, they're announcing new members soon. Source 3. Easy, they use their remaining teams and let EG, TL, or both participate. Either alone or as EG-TL.
It is an illusion to think that players can "live on air" and without proper salaries the teams are bound to disband due to players seeking greener pastures. Failure to learn and adapt to this situation is what killed the teams ... failure of the korean management of the teams.
I think this is just one of those natural consequences of an oversaturated ( and i mean really oversaturated, especially with the kespa teams joining) rather than business. Are all those teams really bad with business as nazgul said, or maybe business just doesn't work the same in korea as it does in the west.
Remember sc2 failed in korea and pretty much other asian countries because blizzard charged the same price (roughly) throughout all the countries. Sales were nice in america and europe, where both places share a different but homogenous culture but elsewhere, where culture is different on a fundamental level, it flunked.
Having lived in korea, i can say that marketing schemes aren't as effective as they are in america. There is a good reason why samsung phones are more popular than iphone (by a significant margin) as opposed to america and it is not because of nationalism.
Team SCV Life... the life of an SCV is tough and often ends prematurely. Still remember the times of Cool and Tester who were leading this team and at that moment it was looking like the hottest team in the world. But then all kinds of trouble came.
Back then, I'd say TSL was like the LG-IM of now - with Cool, Tester and Clide being the Nestea, Seed and MVP. They had one really amazing (probably the best) player of each race. They also had the greatest sponsorship at the time.
Yes it's bad that a team disbanded but if they all join ESF teams the remaining teams get even stronger. So even tho KeSPA has more teams/players they are in about in the same position...they disbanded ACE, they couldn't pay JD on Team 8 and loaned him to EG for a year and so on...
TSL has always had it so hard. They were the best at developing talent, only to watch that talent leave time and time again. I hope Coach Lee finds somewhere stable to go, at least. It's really sad that they were never able to find a sponsor. I don't know how all the random foreign teams always have like three sponsors, but no one will step up for the ESF teams. At this rate, ESF will just be IM and Startale by the end of next year.
I imagine that not many teams are finding great sponsors since sc2 scene in Korea is somewhat dead. The top 10 played games in Korea for the last 2 years hasn't included sc2...... the future for sc2 from my eyes looks bleak. If Blizzard aren't willing to make big changes then the game will go down the dunny because if Korean sc2 players disappear what will happen to the foreign scene? It will probably lose popularity as well. Even Brood War is still in the top 10 most played games...
to lighten my words ill add that these statistics are from PC baangs/ interenet cafes. But still, internet cafes in Korea are insanely popular.
On January 03 2013 20:18 Darkthorn wrote: Yes it's bad that a team disbanded but if they all join ESF teams the remaining teams get even stronger. So even tho KeSPA has more teams/players they are in about in the same position...they disbanded ACE, they couldn't pay JD on Team 8 and loaned him to EG for a year and so on...
May i ask your source for:
"they couldn't pay JD on Team 8 and loaned him to EG for a year and so on" ???
NOOOOOOO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!! THIS CAN'T BE TRUE!!!!
Sorry for the overdramatic antics there, but this is really upsetting, especially as a massive TSL fan over the past year and a half. They are my second favorite team next to MVP. Best wishes to the players and the team as a whole. Very sad news indeed
On January 03 2013 20:18 Darkthorn wrote: Yes it's bad that a team disbanded but if they all join ESF teams the remaining teams get even stronger. So even tho KeSPA has more teams/players they are in about in the same position...they disbanded ACE, they couldn't pay JD on Team 8 and loaned him to EG for a year and so on...
May i ask your source for:
"they couldn't pay JD on Team 8 and loaned him to EG for a year and so on" ???
Wow, after meeting Polt, HyuN, Revival, inori, and RagnaroK all on Playhem I never imagined the day where TSL would slowly fall apart and eventually disband. Good luck to all the players! RagnaroK Fighting!!!
We'll definitely see HyuN and Symbol get picked up, but its a shame to their up-and-comers like RagnaroK, Shine, and Center who don't have as much star-power or name-value.
Maybe it`s not really unwillingnes but rather inability from the ESF teams to market themselves properly. Most of the established western teams have a staff of (semi-)professionals that work in the background and take care of marketing, the team`s webpage etc. In teams like FXO, TL or EG you also find people that have a strong background in finance or law. Compared to that most ESF teams seem to consist mainly of a coach/manager (e. g. a veteran Kespa player) and the players, most of whom were Kespa B-teamers or unknown PC-Bang heros. None of them really has the knowledge how to negotiate with sponsors, set up contracts or interact with foreign fans. Given that they are also unable to even pay their star players, it`s easy to see that they haven`t got a lot to offer in order to lure qualified people to fulfill those tasks.
On a side note, it is obviously the end of TSL-Millenium partnership. I don't know exactly if it was a fruitful partnership as, for instance, we never saw Stephano (before going EG) or ForGG playing in GSTL as it was expected at one point... Nevertheless, Millenium wishes good luck to all players and shows support to Coach Lee in this article (written in French).
Dayum. ESF Teams are getting weak. Slayers OGS and TSL gone. Zenex now part of Startale. Now what do we have left? Nshoseo. I don't see them beeing around much longer. Altough i certainly hope so. Fxo, LG-IM, MVP, Prime, Startale and MVP... that's not very much.
With the state of the game as it is, im not surprised that viewer numbers and sponsorships are going down. Hopefully hots will remove the stagnancy and recreate viewer/sponsor interest. :/
The single best team at talent devopment in SC2 IMO... Fruitdealer, Puma, Symbol, Hyun, and who knows who else might have come out of there... allways looked forward to seeing new players from TSL... too bad they were so bad at everything else a team is supposed to be good at...
What scares me the most is that I thought NSH would disband first... (I still thought about TSL as a "Zerg Powerhouse", and thus as a team would stay in the scene with big names, etc.).
on the bright side, TSL's top players like Polt, Symbol and HyuN can finally start getting paid, and travel to events once they get a team, or else go to KeSPA.
If SC2 was big enough in Korea idt this would be that big of a problem. Maybe the scene IS over saturated, and too many people want a piece of the pie. Well instead of knocking people out, you can grow the pie bigger? Look at WemadeFox from BW. For a long time they didn't really have any decent results, and yet they survived for years with minimal results (maybe a shine here from Mind, or a shine there from Midas but never for more than 1 tournament), just solely on the fact that they were the team with Nada on it. I remember on 뒷담화, the program where the casters for OGN get together and talk about everything SC:BW related, when WemadeFox lost part of their sponsorship one of the times, and after discussing it for a while one of 'em saying "well they're gonna be fine, they still have at least Nada" If enough people are a fan of Nada then SOME company will sponsor them. But look at the Korean SC2 scene. MKP, life, any Korean SC2 player, do they have anywhere NEAR the Korean fanbase of any BW legends? I wouldn't be surprised if Nada alone back then(even "back then" was well past his prime I'll see if I can remember when it was exactly) had more Korean fans than TSL(even including Polt, Parting, and Revival's numbers), or Prime. Similar stuff happened with the Woongjin Stars. If enough people watch it, then someone WILL sponsor them for brand exposure/image. When Korean Air Starleague happened, against on 뒷담화 Kim Carrier talked about how basically sponsors were almost lining up to sponsor OSL. While it's probably true that the Managers could've done more to find sponsors, also A TON of other people could've done more to make a better product. I mean honestly, do you think google has a hard time getting Android on phone manufacturing company's phones? If we have a good enough product it'll make everything easier for everyone involved. Idk who exactly this is to blame. I'm sure everyone who's a fan of SC2, whether they liked TSL or not, is not a fan of this happening. I agree with a lot of people who already posted on here that something like this had to happen sooner or later, but that's only assuming that the game didn't succeed in Korea. If Blizzard/ESF did something to grow the scene I feel like this couldn't been prevented. Also I kinda don't like that defeatist attitude of "ehh it had to happen, nothing we could do". On the other side of that, I don't know if this can be stopped anymore. I mean even if blizzard did something radical for HOTS, I don't think it's going to bring the numbers of SC2 up to BW level. GL to all ex-TSL players, and GL to all the ESF teams.
On January 03 2013 21:58 Mirror0423 wrote: If SC2 was big enough in Korea idt this would be that big of a problem. Maybe the scene IS over saturated, and too many people want a piece of the pie. Well instead of knocking people out, you can grow the pie bigger? Look at WemadeFox from BW. For a long time they didn't really have any decent results, and yet they survived for years with minimal results (maybe a shine here from Mind, or a shine there from Midas but never for more than 1 tournament), just solely on the fact that they were the team with Nada on it. I remember on 뒷담화, the program where the casters for OGN get together and talk about everything SC:BW related, when WemadeFox lost part of their sponsorship one of the times, and after discussing it for a while one of 'em saying "well they're gonna be fine, they still have at least Nada" If enough people are a fan of Nada then SOME company will sponsor them. But look at the Korean SC2 scene. MKP, life, any Korean SC2 player, do they have anywhere NEAR the Korean fanbase of any BW legends? I wouldn't be surprised if Nada alone back then(even "back then" was well past his prime I'll see if I can remember when it was exactly) had more Korean fans than TSL(even including Polt, Parting, and Revival's numbers), or Prime. Similar stuff happened with the Woongjin Stars. If enough people watch it, then someone WILL sponsor them for brand exposure/image. When Korean Air Starleague happened, against on 뒷담화 Kim Carrier talked about how basically sponsors were almost lining up to sponsor OSL. While it's probably true that the Managers could've done more to find sponsors, also A TON of other people could've done more to make a better product. I mean honestly, do you think google has a hard time getting Android on phone manufacturing company's phones? If we have a good enough product it'll make everything easier for everyone involved. Idk who exactly this is to blame. I'm sure everyone who's a fan of SC2, whether they liked TSL or not, is not a fan of this happening. I agree with a lot of people who already posted on here that something like this had to happen sooner or later, but that's only assuming that the game didn't succeed in Korea. If Blizzard/ESF did something to grow the scene I feel like this couldn't been prevented. Also I kinda don't like that defeatist attitude of "ehh it had to happen, nothing we could do". On the other side of that, I don't know if this can be stopped anymore. I mean even if blizzard did something radical for HOTS, I don't think it's going to bring the numbers of SC2 up to BW level. GL to all ex-TSL players, and GL to all the ESF teams.
Everybody knows Blizzard fucked up somewhere with Sc2
Why do Korean players keep staying on teams that don't pay a salary? Why restrict yourself by contract to an unpaid job when by staying as a free agent you could potentially get a paid job?
On January 03 2013 21:58 Mirror0423 wrote: If SC2 was big enough in Korea idt this would be that big of a problem. Maybe the scene IS over saturated, and too many people want a piece of the pie. Well instead of knocking people out, you can grow the pie bigger? Look at WemadeFox from BW. For a long time they didn't really have any decent results, and yet they survived for years with minimal results (maybe a shine here from Mind, or a shine there from Midas but never for more than 1 tournament), just solely on the fact that they were the team with Nada on it. I remember on 뒷담화, the program where the casters for OGN get together and talk about everything SC:BW related, when WemadeFox lost part of their sponsorship one of the times, and after discussing it for a while one of 'em saying "well they're gonna be fine, they still have at least Nada" If enough people are a fan of Nada then SOME company will sponsor them. But look at the Korean SC2 scene. MKP, life, any Korean SC2 player, do they have anywhere NEAR the Korean fanbase of any BW legends? I wouldn't be surprised if Nada alone back then(even "back then" was well past his prime I'll see if I can remember when it was exactly) had more Korean fans than TSL(even including Polt, Parting, and Revival's numbers), or Prime. Similar stuff happened with the Woongjin Stars. If enough people watch it, then someone WILL sponsor them for brand exposure/image. When Korean Air Starleague happened, against on 뒷담화 Kim Carrier talked about how basically sponsors were almost lining up to sponsor OSL. While it's probably true that the Managers could've done more to find sponsors, also A TON of other people could've done more to make a better product. I mean honestly, do you think google has a hard time getting Android on phone manufacturing company's phones? If we have a good enough product it'll make everything easier for everyone involved. Idk who exactly this is to blame. I'm sure everyone who's a fan of SC2, whether they liked TSL or not, is not a fan of this happening. I agree with a lot of people who already posted on here that something like this had to happen sooner or later, but that's only assuming that the game didn't succeed in Korea. If Blizzard/ESF did something to grow the scene I feel like this couldn't been prevented. Also I kinda don't like that defeatist attitude of "ehh it had to happen, nothing we could do". On the other side of that, I don't know if this can be stopped anymore. I mean even if blizzard did something radical for HOTS, I don't think it's going to bring the numbers of SC2 up to BW level. GL to all ex-TSL players, and GL to all the ESF teams.
Everybody knows Blizzard fucked up somewhere with Sc2
It's so easy to just blame Blizzard, I'm not sure if that's how it works though. BW was a national sport that got replaced, that's not something that happens often and it's hard to predict the outcome no matter how you rate the quality of the new game/sport. I mean, go up to a bunch of hardcore rugby fans and tell them "tough shit, you have to watch american football now." What do you think is going to happen?
Its shocking to see another big korean team disband, but they really seemed disorganized. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw more teams go in 2013, at least some Foreign, like Mouz.
This unfortunate event is another sign the Korean domestic scene is struggling and contracting. Korea can only support a certain number of Pro-gamers and with Kespa now involved some players will find themselves surplus to the amount of jobs available. TSL was one of the less stable teams financially and were struggling in the face of increased competition from Kespa teams and Foreign teams. It should be noted that the increased competition was not just in SC2 prize money but for sponsorship deals, media attention/profile and popularity with the fans.
ESF teams can function well in a vacuum but when they are up against teams backed by major corporations (KESPA) or Foreign teams that can pay players large salaries, it becomes increasingly hard to justify their model of not paying salaries to players. Many Koreans now play on Foreign teams, this makes it harder for ESF teams to retain their players as they have friends/acquaintances getting paid for doing the same thing in Foreign teams. In many industries it is true that talent follows the money, and SC2 is not immune to that reality.
These events make it harder for Ganzi to find a new team after leaving Complexity.
Lacking sponsors is a real killer, and with Polt and Revival leaving sponsor intrest would be on a all time low. Best of luck to all those getting the short end of the stick, perhaps some might get lucky and find a team that can actualy offer them some salary.
On January 03 2013 21:58 Mirror0423 wrote: If SC2 was big enough in Korea idt this would be that big of a problem. Maybe the scene IS over saturated, and too many people want a piece of the pie. Well instead of knocking people out, you can grow the pie bigger? Look at WemadeFox from BW. For a long time they didn't really have any decent results, and yet they survived for years with minimal results (maybe a shine here from Mind, or a shine there from Midas but never for more than 1 tournament), just solely on the fact that they were the team with Nada on it. I remember on 뒷담화, the program where the casters for OGN get together and talk about everything SC:BW related, when WemadeFox lost part of their sponsorship one of the times, and after discussing it for a while one of 'em saying "well they're gonna be fine, they still have at least Nada" If enough people are a fan of Nada then SOME company will sponsor them. But look at the Korean SC2 scene. MKP, life, any Korean SC2 player, do they have anywhere NEAR the Korean fanbase of any BW legends? I wouldn't be surprised if Nada alone back then(even "back then" was well past his prime I'll see if I can remember when it was exactly) had more Korean fans than TSL(even including Polt, Parting, and Revival's numbers), or Prime. Similar stuff happened with the Woongjin Stars. If enough people watch it, then someone WILL sponsor them for brand exposure/image. When Korean Air Starleague happened, against on 뒷담화 Kim Carrier talked about how basically sponsors were almost lining up to sponsor OSL. While it's probably true that the Managers could've done more to find sponsors, also A TON of other people could've done more to make a better product. I mean honestly, do you think google has a hard time getting Android on phone manufacturing company's phones? If we have a good enough product it'll make everything easier for everyone involved. Idk who exactly this is to blame. I'm sure everyone who's a fan of SC2, whether they liked TSL or not, is not a fan of this happening. I agree with a lot of people who already posted on here that something like this had to happen sooner or later, but that's only assuming that the game didn't succeed in Korea. If Blizzard/ESF did something to grow the scene I feel like this couldn't been prevented. Also I kinda don't like that defeatist attitude of "ehh it had to happen, nothing we could do". On the other side of that, I don't know if this can be stopped anymore. I mean even if blizzard did something radical for HOTS, I don't think it's going to bring the numbers of SC2 up to BW level. GL to all ex-TSL players, and GL to all the ESF teams.
Everybody knows Blizzard fucked up somewhere with Sc2
It's so easy to just blame Blizzard, I'm not sure if that's how it works though. BW was a national sport that got replaced, that's not something that happens often and it's hard to predict the outcome no matter how you rate the quality of the new game/sport. I mean, go up to a bunch of hardcore rugby fans and tell them "tough shit, you have to watch american football now." What do you think is going to happen?
But then again just look at dota/Chinese proleagues, and at how well they they managed to switch from dota to dota2.And while you are making some good points you are talking about a different thing then what OP brought up: there wouldn't be a problem like this if the game would be more popular.
I feel like SC2 in Korea is dying slowly.....in 2014 I dont really expect that alot of Koreans teams will be alive if this continues on...you gotta keep in mind that TSL had great players some where the best....and they STILL didnt manage to get sponsors...so what will happend to teams with lesser players (korean that is).....the future looks grim....I dont really see any change in the future....SC2 doesnt really seem to appeal in Korea.....
Too much sc2 leads to too much competition which leads to alot of financial problems for smaller scale teams. Investors are growing tired of sc2.. its the hard truth.
On January 03 2013 22:24 tiMelEfT wrote: This is why you need owners, not sponsors. Those fucking sponsors will jump ship as soon as they see something tough coming.
get your fact straight dude. Coach Lee founded and own TSL. He pretty much runs the team with revenue from his PC Bang + some sponsors' money. Apparently sponsorship isnt enough and Coach Lee could not afford anymore.
That was the case like a decade ago when teams being ran by prize money and coach's funding. But back then the scene wasnt explored at all and those poor teams ended up getting picked up by corporate firms. That wont happen anymore these days.
On January 03 2013 22:24 tiMelEfT wrote: This is why you need owners, not sponsors. Those fucking sponsors will jump ship as soon as they see something tough coming.
get your fact straight dude. Coach Lee founded and own TSL. He pretty much runs the team with revenue from his PC Bang + some sponsors' money. Apparently sponsorship isnt enough and Coach Lee could not afford anymore.
That was the case like a decade ago when teams being ran by prize money and coach's funding. But back then the scene wasnt explored at all and those poor teams ended up getting picked up by corporate firms. That wont happen anymore these days.
So what you are saying is we need rich owners, not poor owners. That just solidified my points.
On January 03 2013 21:37 immanentblue wrote: The single best team at talent devopment in SC2 IMO... Fruitdealer, Puma, Symbol, Hyun, and who knows who else might have come out of there... allways looked forward to seeing new players from TSL... too bad they were so bad at everything else a team is supposed to be good at...
I feel bad for TSL, They have developed so many great players and gone through so many difficult times only to re-emerge stronger. That must have taken a lot of effort and yet still they are forced to disband.
Can't say that this is unexpected given the recent departures. Hopefully the remaining roster gets picked up shortly. HyuN should have no trouble, but I am the world's biggest HyuN fanboy so I may be rather biased.
I feel like this was long in the making, Revival then Polt was a bad omen and the glory days of FruitDealer were Looong over, shame to see em go but it leaves a spot in the sc2 scene for other teams to fill, good news?
Lots of talent on the market with the disbandment of this team, even more than when slayers disbanded imo. Good luck to the players. Sad to see the team go.
I didn't know that most of the players weren't payed. If that's true, then hopefully HyuN can get an actual contract where he has a paid salary. Probably for the better, even though this was one of my favorite KR teams.
On January 03 2013 23:44 Butterednuts wrote: I didn't know that most of the players weren't payed. If that's true, then hopefully HyuN can get an actual contract where he has a paid salary. Probably for the better, even though this was one of my favorite KR teams.
While I am saddened by this as I have always really liked TSL as one of those "smaller" teams, I can't say it is overly surprising. But it also is a bit upsetting on how poorly the Korean teams are being run. Let me tell you this:
A couple months ago or so, I contacted TSL about a possible sponsorship for their team. I initially spoke with Sephora as she was kind of the website/English person and she was very good at communicating with me and relaying a few messages with Coach Lee. Finally Coach Lee wanted to set up a meeting on Skype and asked me to add him, I did but he never accepted. Sephora then asked that I email him, and I did with some basic overviews of what I was willing to offer and what I was hoping to get out of a sponsorship. Once again, he never responded. When I followed up with Sephora the only answer I got was that he was really bad with Skype and emails, and that she would try again.
Its really a shame, but at the same time I can't feel bad for the Korean teams who say they have sponsorship problems that force them to lose players, or even an entire team but do not respond to serious sponsorship proposals. I can say that my proposal ranged from a couple thousand dollars for a small recognition (logo/patch) for my organization, to something in the 5-digit range for a little more formal sponsorship and possible partnership with the team I am building that could be used for expenses, stipends, or to help send players to foreign events if thats what they desired. So needless to say, while it may not have saved the team on its own, it would most certainly have been a pretty substantial private sponsorship amount, that could have helped a team continue to operate and help players out.
TSL is not the only team I have previously contacted either, however sadly enough they were actually the most responsive of the teams that were apparently having financial trouble. I have thought this for quite some time, but the Korean ESF teams (not including FXO, and maybe even ST) are extremely poorly run as a business. And for a team having trouble to not even respond to sponsorship inquires and then use lack of sponsors as a reason to disband, is not a true portrayal of the problem with teams in Korea.
I may consider looking into a "save TSL" effort though.....
I feel bad for Symbol, I hope Polt continues to play on as he has shown real improvement in the last 2 months once he decided to take his training seriously.
On January 03 2013 23:44 Butterednuts wrote: I didn't know that most of the players weren't payed. If that's true, then hopefully HyuN can get an actual contract where he has a paid salary. Probably for the better, even though this was one of my favorite KR teams.
IPL_HyuN for real perhaps =d
God I hope not. IPL is a great league but please no. I would see him fitting in well on a team like AZUBU or something in a similar vein.
Wow. Parting gets elected player of the year by TL, he leaves TSL. TSL gets elected team of the year, disbands. I see a pattern here...*gets a tinfoil hat*
Still, a total shame, I loved TSL, so much talent right there. Symbol has always been one of my favourite Zs. Let's hope they can find a suitable team for them
Edit: Oh my, nevermind, somehow confused TSL with ST >.< That's what I get for posting right out of bed
On January 04 2013 00:22 Ydriel wrote: Wow. Parting gets elected player of the year by TL, he leaves TSL. TSL gets elected team of the year, disbands. I see a pattern here...*gets a tinfoil hat*
On January 04 2013 00:22 Ydriel wrote: Wow. Parting gets elected player of the year by TL, he leaves TSL. TSL gets elected team of the year, disbands. I see a pattern here...*gets a tinfoil hat*
Parting was on Startale, team of the year was Startale
Even though I (still) am a big MBC fan, I honestly did not like coach Lee. That said, I really do feel sad for the players on the team. I wish the team could continue, but without coach Lee.
Good luck for the (really good btw) players that are now free of contract.
On January 03 2013 23:49 Arbee wrote: While I am saddened by this as I have always really liked TSL as one of those "smaller" teams, I can't say it is overly surprising. But it also is a bit upsetting on how poorly the Korean teams are being run. Let me tell you this:
A couple months ago or so, I contacted TSL about a possible sponsorship for their team. I initially spoke with Sephora as she was kind of the website/English person and she was very good at communicating with me and relaying a few messages with Coach Lee. Finally Coach Lee wanted to set up a meeting on Skype and asked me to add him, I did but he never accepted. Sephora then asked that I email him, and I did with some basic overviews of what I was willing to offer and what I was hoping to get out of a sponsorship. Once again, he never responded. When I followed up with Sephora the only answer I got was that he was really bad with Skype and emails, and that she would try again.
Its really a shame, but at the same time I can't feel bad for the Korean teams who say they have sponsorship problems that force them to lose players, or even an entire team but do not respond to serious sponsorship proposals. I can say that my proposal ranged from a couple thousand dollars for a small recognition (logo/patch) for my organization, to something in the 5-digit range for a little more formal sponsorship and possible partnership with the team I am building that could be used for expenses, stipends, or to help send players to foreign events if thats what they desired. So needless to say, while it may not have saved the team on its own, it would most certainly have been a pretty substantial private sponsorship amount, that could have helped a team continue to operate and help players out.
TSL is not the only team I have previously contacted either, however sadly enough they were actually the most responsive of the teams that were apparently having financial trouble. I have thought this for quite some time, but the Korean ESF teams (not including FXO, and maybe even ST) are extremely poorly run as a business. And for a team having trouble to not even respond to sponsorship inquires and then use lack of sponsors as a reason to disband, is not a true portrayal of the problem with teams in Korea.
I may consider looking into a "save TSL" effort though.....
very insightful post, thanks.
it seems to me that with the major changes in the last months there has to be some change in the ESF-teams. With Kespa teams switching over and more and more foreign teams picking up good korean players and even entering PL before any ESF team there's a lot of pressure on the existing ESF-teams. From the beginning of sc2 i heard that the korean teams doesnt pay salery or only a small one to their players and wondered how long the players will accept that. I hoped that the situation changed, but unfortunatly not for TSL. Maybe now there is the point of change for the teams. Partings depart from Startale fits to that, too.
Honestly, even though South Korea is the homeland of e-sports and such, there's only so many teams/players that can be supported Too much is too much
Next on the line are
Prime Team 8 (let's see how long Kespa will put up with this team without a sponsor)
NSH won't die because it's not a real pro-team, it's more like a clan or something. As long as their players feel like playing, they can go on
I know it'll never happen (and it's mean), but I think the ideal situation (not so ideal, though) would be for Prime/Team8 to just die, and Proleague absorbs LG-IM/Startale/MVP/FXO and be a 10 teams league (assuming EG-TL doesn't come back next season). GSL just handles the individual league
But because of the OSL boycott, Kespa wouldn't do that, I'm sure
On January 03 2013 23:44 Butterednuts wrote: I didn't know that most of the players weren't payed. If that's true, then hopefully HyuN can get an actual contract where he has a paid salary. Probably for the better, even though this was one of my favorite KR teams.
IPL_HyuN for real perhaps =d
God I hope not. IPL is a great league but please no. I would see him fitting in well on a team like AZUBU or something in a similar vein.
Was mostly joking, I don't think IPL will take that kind of role after what happend to team REIGN
I am actually glad that this happened. Now Hyun, Symbol & Co. will find foreign teams with decent salaries. I am 100% against the idea of staying in a team with no money just because of loyalty or moral obligations.
Seriously, with TSL and Slayers gone, and considering Fnatic only has 3 korean players on their roster (and 3 foreigners who don't live in korea, or at least I doubt it), we are only left with Prime, FXO, Startale, MVP, NSHS and IM. NSHS also has very few players. Maybe this means EG-TL will play in the GSTL?
Damn, no wonder HyuN was so determined to stay in Fight Club... Seriously though, yeah you lost Polt and Revival, but arguing that Symbol and HyuN wouldn't have been able to keep things together while you found new talent is a bit of a stretch.
Also, how the hell is New Stars Hoseo still operating?!
On January 04 2013 00:37 Ace Frehley wrote: Honestly, even though South Korea is the homeland of e-sports and such, there's only so many teams/players that can be supported Too much is too much
Next on the line are
Prime Team 8 (let's see how long Kespa will put up with this team without a sponsor)
NSH won't die because it's not a real pro-team, it's more like a clan or something. As long as their players feel like playing, they can go on
I know it'll never happen (and it's mean), but I think the ideal situation (not so ideal, though) would be for Prime/Team8 to just die, and Proleague absorbs LG-IM/Startale/MVP/FXO and be a 10 teams league (assuming EG-TL doesn't come back next season). GSL just handles the individual league
But because of the OSL boycott, Kespa wouldn't do that, I'm sure
NSH isn't like a clan but NsP iirc :/ And we don't see any NSH activities and it's lacking of players so I doubt it
A lot of players leaving, teams disbanding..I only hope that this would only help other existing teams become stronger and more stable as it lets them acquire more talent.
Well this sucks. But here in Australia we have a brand new big soccer league called the 'A-league'. It's been around for about 6 years now and every year new teams fold and lose sponsors. Does that mean that football is dying and has a limited viewer cap? Please... Sc2 is new, this should be expected, everyone needs to grow up a bit.
uh...........what.........? Such a sad day for the scene, TSL was truly a great team... At least the players will finally be paid for their hard work? :/
To be honest, it's surprising that TSL lasted this long. During the PuMa controversy if you had told me that TSL would outlast ZeNEX, oGs, and SlayerS I would have laughed at you.
Sad to see them go, and it was a tough hit to lose both captain Polt and Revival, but still somewhat surprised that they disbanded. They've gone through (imo) rougher times, and they still had Hyun and Symbol as strong players, and Center as an up-and-commer until they recruited more players. I guess it's a lot harder now with Kespa teams playing SC2 as well.
Good luck to they players finding new teams. Shouldn't be hard for Hyun and Symbol at least.
Oh man, I knew TSL was having financial troubles, but not as severe as this... Seems that losing Polt and Revival was a huge blow to TSL, and they couldn't sustain the losses. Hope the remaining players find teams, especially HyuN and Symbol. Man, I thought TSL was okay, considering their GSTL wins and singles success, but I guess it wasn't enough...
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?
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.
That's more like a Stephano thing, don't you think? There are many other ways of generating traffic and hype from what you guys have seen done is my point. At least you're thinking outside of the box compared to many.
I'm actually surprised it took this long. TSL has always had a high turnover rate amongst their high profile players. I expected they'd fold a lot sooner than 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. -_-
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.
Point taken. There are a lot of things the ESF teams did that rubbed me the wrong way when it came to generating traffic. I guess you could say they did join in pretty late but they did use social media and streaming; whereas, the KeSPA teams just don't stream. So I don't really get the social media stuff. If anything, they failed their sales pitch and marketing and yes it does suck that they didn't have TV like KeSPA but the reality is even when you're a specialty cable channel you still have to find a way to get them in. Goes back to what I said about Blizzard and their handling of the Korean market and the failure for many of the ESF teams to get deals done. Just look at the managerial failures with the association and other business dealings. Doesn't leave much to the imagination and they needed merge or have guys from outside step in to take over because they couldn't manage properly.
On January 03 2013 23:49 Arbee wrote: While I am saddened by this as I have always really liked TSL as one of those "smaller" teams, I can't say it is overly surprising. But it also is a bit upsetting on how poorly the Korean teams are being run. Let me tell you this:
A couple months ago or so, I contacted TSL about a possible sponsorship for their team. I initially spoke with Sephora as she was kind of the website/English person and she was very good at communicating with me and relaying a few messages with Coach Lee. Finally Coach Lee wanted to set up a meeting on Skype and asked me to add him, I did but he never accepted. Sephora then asked that I email him, and I did with some basic overviews of what I was willing to offer and what I was hoping to get out of a sponsorship. Once again, he never responded. When I followed up with Sephora the only answer I got was that he was really bad with Skype and emails, and that she would try again.
Its really a shame, but at the same time I can't feel bad for the Korean teams who say they have sponsorship problems that force them to lose players, or even an entire team but do not respond to serious sponsorship proposals. I can say that my proposal ranged from a couple thousand dollars for a small recognition (logo/patch) for my organization, to something in the 5-digit range for a little more formal sponsorship and possible partnership with the team I am building that could be used for expenses, stipends, or to help send players to foreign events if thats what they desired. So needless to say, while it may not have saved the team on its own, it would most certainly have been a pretty substantial private sponsorship amount, that could have helped a team continue to operate and help players out.
TSL is not the only team I have previously contacted either, however sadly enough they were actually the most responsive of the teams that were apparently having financial trouble. I have thought this for quite some time, but the Korean ESF teams (not including FXO, and maybe even ST) are extremely poorly run as a business. And for a team having trouble to not even respond to sponsorship inquires and then use lack of sponsors as a reason to disband, is not a true portrayal of the problem with teams in Korea.
I may consider looking into a "save TSL" effort though.....
Communication woes man. :/ I'm still waiting on a Sir Elton guy myself.
Wow I loved this team so much. Sad to see them go but not surprised. Hopefully a good korean team picks up these players so they keep up their skill level.
I guess this is just the kind of thing that has been happening outside of korea: the teams that can't make it work collapse to make room for more successful businesses.
Sad to see it happen first hand, but hopefully it leads to better opportunities for the players involved and gives the management a learning experience. I hope no sponsors were burned during this process.
On January 04 2013 02:58 NOOBALOPSE wrote: Not surprised... IM is the only Korean team that is really doing well right now, and funnily enough they don't even have a website (afaik).
What about StarTale? I figure Redbull being their lead sponsor probably keeps them in decent shape financially, but who knows the details behind things and who gets a salary or whatnot. Ignoring Parting departing for the time being of course (could be a number of factors though, but most would assume it's possibly a salary as well as travel costs).
Just your friendly neighborhood reminder to CHILL THE FUCK OUT. All of these players are still playing as far as we know, and they will continue to fuel eSPORTS. No need to flip out about the death of SC2, just like people do at every other news article.
On January 04 2013 02:58 NOOBALOPSE wrote: Not surprised... IM is the only Korean team that is really doing well right now, and funnily enough they don't even have a website (afaik).
TLPD lists http://www.imteam.co.kr as their website, but it seems to be under construction. They've been linking their facebook page in the threads they post on TL, I guess they use that for foreign fans.
IM certainly has been making more of an effort than most of the korean teams and hopefully more will follow in their footsteps (landing a huge company like LG certainly helped, but getting to that point definitely wasn't easy).
I can't imagine how painful disbanding TSL must have been for Coach Lee. TSL was his brainchild, and he put all his money and time into the project. He even refused to change the name when Millenium wanted to create a partnership because of how important the name was to the team. I guarantee this was not a decision done easily, or without some tears. I doubt HyuN and Symbol will find it difficult to find a premier team, but the lesser known players like Center, Shine and RagnaroK is what worries me. They have potential and skill, but losing a top team like TSL is a huge blow to their practice, and their lack of results might lead some to think they won't have much point in a team. Hopefully they find a team at least.
Things are REALLY tough for ESF teams right now. Interest in WoL is at an all-time low due to HOTS, and interest in ESF teams is dwindling due to Proleague.
I wonder if these guys will look to find another team in Korea or seek out a foreign team... is there any appeal for Korean SC2-ers to play for a foreign team?
It’s not really shocking at all for me. I remember when Coach Lee freaked out when Puma was snapped up by EG and floated the idea of rules to prevent future Korean players from leaving. I am sure he is a great guy who loves the game, but it is clear they cannot adapt to the modern Esports or not being on TV. Having one winning player will not get sponsors when other teams offer more exposure just through streaming.
People need to stop with the who “SC2 is dying.” Poorly run teams are failing, because unlike SunDance, they don’t get it.
nah not really. the esf teams in general have some pretty terrible business practices. i mean they went up through 2012 without paying their players even with Kespa teams now in the scene, TSL will not be the last ESF team to fold. TSL was holding out hoping for a sponsor to come in, but now TSL didn't look good at all with the Kespa teams as competition.
I've always wondered how the ESF teams consistently seem to do such a poor job of finding sponsors. They have some of the best talent in the industry, and yet the never seem to be able to transform that into sponsorships. How could a team like that not be able to give any of their players a salary .
I hope that the other ESF teams will be able to adjust quickly, since it would suck to see them all fall apart.
As much as it pains me to say this, I sort of see MVP and Prime going the same way, and I imagine Startale and IM might end up in Proleague or something to that effect after the year long trade ban ends. ESF teams just don't have that much money (aside from ST and IM). Prime has already basically been fundraising on Reddit and TL with their streaming.
That being said I don't know a ton about these teams sponsors or financial situations. Things just look kind of grim for the ESF. Hopefully Azubu joins and FXO/MVP/Prime can stick around. That probably will keep things going.
It's really sad to see teams go like this but people can't be expected to continue supporting SC2 purely for the sake of Esports. Interest in SC2 surely peaked and stagnated long ago and HOTS is not doing much to revitalize it. People are expecting HOTS to be a huge game changer for SC2 but it's simply not going to be. Blizzard will be lucky as hell to sell more HOTS copies than WoL with the way things are shaping up and the scene simply hasn't been growing in a looooooooong time.
On January 03 2013 17:26 Insoleet wrote: wtf is happening nowadays... tsl.... parting.... strange beginning of the year....
Not really strange. Hyun and Polt if they weren't getting any salary from TSL should jump ship ASAP. That means getting anyyyyyyyyyyyyy money a money even 100 dollars a month is better then staying on TSL with their notoriety at this point. A team will def pick up those 2
I'm surprised they've disbanded, but NS Hoseo has stayed together. Oh well. I'm sure they'll all find Korean or foreign teams if they want to. EG has money, but they don't have enough money to buy EVERYONE :p
On January 03 2013 17:26 Insoleet wrote: wtf is happening nowadays... tsl.... parting.... strange beginning of the year....
Not really strange. Hyun and Polt if they weren't getting any salary from TSL should jump ship ASAP. That means getting anyyyyyyyyyyyyy money a money even 100 dollars a month is better then staying on TSL with their notoriety at this point. A team will def pick up those 2
It's not like they weren't getting paid as of this week. You're basically saying almost every korean team should not exist.
The debacle TSL had in the past with Puma was ridiculous. That one happening dug up a few extra secrets from them too. Im sure that house was a mess without Polt and Revival's skills. Im not so surprised... was only a matter of time.
On January 04 2013 03:53 SupLilSon wrote: Blizzard will be lucky as hell to sell more HOTS copies than WoL with the way things are shaping up and the scene simply hasn't been growing in a looooooooong time.
It is practically impossible to sell more HotS than WoL copies sice WoL is a requirement for HotS
On January 04 2013 03:50 Swords wrote: As much as it pains me to say this, I sort of see MVP and Prime going the same way, and I imagine Startale and IM might end up in Proleague or something to that effect after the year long trade ban ends. ESF teams just don't have that much money (aside from ST and IM). Prime has already basically been fundraising on Reddit and TL with their streaming.
That being said I don't know a ton about these teams sponsors or financial situations. Things just look kind of grim for the ESF. Hopefully Azubu joins and FXO/MVP/Prime can stick around. That probably will keep things going.
Where do people come up with this stuff. FXO is [rich]. MVP is more than fine. (I live here) Prime.. the team that just moved houses and whom most of their house costs are covered by TTeSports.
On January 04 2013 04:16 IcedBacon wrote: Slasher bringing up the salaries is pretty douchy. It's not like the players were struggling to survive, it's not always completely about the money.
Meh, I think it is great that Slasher is able to provide difficult to come by information, especially when it comes to Korean team inner-workings. The fact that none of these players received salaries speaks volumes in terms of their commitment to the game and to Coach Lee. Conversely, it makes Coach Lee's derision of players that have previously left the team seem all the less acceptable.
On January 04 2013 04:19 quaffle wrote: The debacle TSL had in the past with Puma was ridiculous. That one happening dug up a few extra secrets from them too. Im sure that house was a mess without Polt and Revival's skills. Im not so surprised... was only a matter of time.
polt is my favourite terran by far but, while taking him and revival out of the question hurts (as it would any team), symbol and hyun aren't exactly chopped liver.
On January 04 2013 04:56 zhurai wrote: so just because of 2 players the whole team dies? I mean they have symbol and hyun
I think that was a lead-in to the disbanding. TSL was known for having financial problems, and losing Polt/Revival made it more apparent that TSL wasn't the most stable or sustainable team around. Yes, HyuN and Symbol are Code S level players who have big names, but it doesn't really matter when their team is suffering, and no matter how good their results were, they didn't get a sponsor. If TSL say, won GSTL or GSL, they probably would have got a decent sponsor and floated a bit longer, but TSL was dying slowly for a while now. Polt, HyuN and Symbol kept it alive, but most people realized TSL wouldn't last forever.
Zenex, slayers and now TSL gone in less than 6 months it might be best for Starcraft and teams if they join Kespa for financial support although that could really hurt GomTV.if Kespa were to chooses to not allow players in GSL if there were to join (just an idea)
On January 04 2013 05:01 Odoakar wrote: I guess IM and ST will merge/joing Kespa teams and that will be it.
I think the only way. Korean SC2 is not popular enough to support 2 team leagues and 15+ teams. Even maintaining the old 2 individual leagues + team league would be hard right now.
TSL had such an amazingly weird history. There were three distinct generations, tons of controversy, and lots of ups and downs. I don't know when I will write it or when it'll be out, but this team deserves something written about them in full. TSL was never a GSTL champion, but they will not be forgotten.
On January 04 2013 05:14 Fionn wrote: I'm going to write a Final Edit about this.
TSL had such an amazingly weird history. There were three distinct generations, tons of controversy, and lots of ups and downs. I don't know when I will write it or when it'll be out, but this team deserves something written about them in full. TSL was never a GSTL champion, but they will not be forgotten.
The people who forgot them are not worthy of them, their loss!
When we look this on the pro team side, when Kespa came to SC2 pro scene, it would mean more players and more saturation. GSL seeds is harder to maintain as more talent comes in and thus the value of the average pro gamer feels like its decreased, it is not a viable income. To the spectator eyes, this move seeing Kespa players transitioning to sc2 looks great. Better skill bar is raised and better players are produced. Those code A players are now code B being replaced by newer Kespa players and never heard again.
All in all, I think teams will struggle more this year than last year. Viewers may increase a bit but just liking spamming money into a country, it really devalues everything else.. Saturation is bad, but how to solve saturation?
On January 04 2013 05:14 Fionn wrote: I'm going to write a Final Edit about this.
TSL had such an amazingly weird history. There were three distinct generations, tons of controversy, and lots of ups and downs. I don't know when I will write it or when it'll be out, but this team deserves something written about them in full. TSL was never a GSTL champion, but they will not be forgotten.
On January 04 2013 05:26 Fionn wrote: Also HoSeo outlasts another team.
I think by the end of 2013, ESF will be IM, Startale, FXO and HoSeo.
This doesn't surprise me all that much, as it seems like the NSH team is at least partly funded through the school in which they operate, effectively insulating them from a lot of sponsorship ups and downs.
On January 04 2013 05:34 Fionn wrote: Also I feel like Azubu fucked up.
They sign a bunch of middle of the road players.
A week later and they could have talked to Polt, Parting, Supernova, Symbol, Hyun, and BboongBboong.
Oops.
But you can sign a barrel of middle of the road players and pay next to nothing in terms of salary whereas if you want the top talent they actually expect to make money.
On January 03 2013 17:26 Insoleet wrote: wtf is happening nowadays... tsl.... parting.... strange beginning of the year....
Not really strange. Hyun and Polt if they weren't getting any salary from TSL should jump ship ASAP. That means getting anyyyyyyyyyyyyy money a money even 100 dollars a month is better then staying on TSL with their notoriety at this point. A team will def pick up those 2
It's not like they weren't getting paid as of this week. You're basically saying almost every korean team should not exist.
Players of Polts and Hyun's caliber 100% deserve a contract for a year long salary. Not all korean teams have players of their caliber that aren't being paid is all.
mvp has 2 LoL teams that are fairly successful; they may be playing without a salary the way Startale's league of legends team did (and they disbanded) but it seems as an organisation they are stable for now.
On January 04 2013 03:53 SupLilSon wrote: It's really sad to see teams go like this but people can't be expected to continue supporting SC2 purely for the sake of Esports. Interest in SC2 surely peaked and stagnated long ago and HOTS is not doing much to revitalize it. People are expecting HOTS to be a huge game changer for SC2 but it's simply not going to be. Blizzard will be lucky as hell to sell more HOTS copies than WoL with the way things are shaping up and the scene simply hasn't been growing in a looooooooong time.
Minor nitpick: it is nearly impossible for blizzard to sell more copies of hots than wol, since wol is needed to play hots. The only situation when this would occur is if people just bought hots for no reason.
I think this is the impact of kespa. The fringe esf teams functioned fine in their enviroment, but with sponsors having much more to look at teamwise the smaller esf teams will have to go unless something drastic occurs. I think im/startale/fxo are stable and possibly could get into kespa leagues, while mvp and prime need to work it up in early hots to keep alive.
Basically, i predict the korean scene will slowly consolidate itself naturally.
And I'm not feeling too bad about coach lee now having no power in the sc2 scene
Also if Fnatic actually wants to remain apart of korean esports (and sc2 in particular) they should jump on this right away, not often damn good players and a damn good coach (all from the same team) become available on the same day.
Maybe this man isn't far off. Should have made a better game blizzard.
Really, brining that **** up again?
Tsl has been in trouble forever, this isn't as much of a surprise as i wish it was. Talk to me when IM or eg or a kespa team with a steady sponsor shuts down, not when a troubled team finally goes over the edge.
On January 04 2013 05:34 Fionn wrote: Also I feel like Azubu fucked up.
They sign a bunch of middle of the road players.
A week later and they could have talked to Polt, Parting, Supernova, Symbol, Hyun, and BboongBboong.
Oops.
Well yah... But it's not like you could predict something like that ^^
Everyone knew that they were in trouble, when they have bleed players for as long as they have you know they aren't in good shape. And Azubu may very well have more money to spend, so don't count them out on these guys yet. Symbol, and Hyun from tsl will get multiple offers, and the other guys aren't relevant to this thread, but should draw interest.
TSL has always had issues in management. I feel like a lot of people have forgotten all the drama surrounding players leaving and their coach. A team doesnt fall apart because two players leave. Those players leave because the team isn't supporting them.
On January 04 2013 06:34 LittleAtari wrote: TSL has always had issues in management. I feel like a lot of people have forgotten all the drama surrounding players leaving and their coach. A team doesnt fall apart because two players leave. Those players leave because the team isn't supporting them.
That's not true at all. The team was financially hurt in the first point. Then seeing 2 key players leave, one of them being your major Star Man is a huge blow to a small team like TSL. It's pretty understandable to disband it at that point, because it would require some investment to make up for the departures of Polt and Revival while running the team. That investment would have to come directly out of the pocket of Coach Lee. And to see a major part of his key players leave the team again might have finally pushed him towards this decision.
On January 04 2013 05:01 Odoakar wrote: I guess IM and ST will merge/joing Kespa teams and that will be it.
Can't tell if serious. Why would anyone come up with such a conclusion?
What's so hard to believe about this? Let's face it, long term only IM and ST seem financially stable out of all eSF teams, and right now it's a question whether GOM will have enough teams to run GSTL. Kespa teams at least seem financially ok, with a good marketing skills and scene positioning.
What do you think IM/ST will do when there's no GSTL to gain exposure? They will apply for membership in Kespa and most likely get it and Team 8 and EGTL might not be participating for the long run.
I only feel sad about GOM, they did so much for SC2 but now eSF scene seems falling apart and I feel Kespa teams will in the end be the only sc2 teams in Korea remaining.
On January 04 2013 06:34 LittleAtari wrote: TSL has always had issues in management. I feel like a lot of people have forgotten all the drama surrounding players leaving and their coach. A team doesnt fall apart because two players leave. Those players leave because the team isn't supporting them.
The alive stuff ok but the rest they basically go blamed for no reason. Remember the whole money crap where fruitdealer and tester said they outright lied? and how many people here were attacking Coach Lee.
On January 04 2013 05:01 Odoakar wrote: I guess IM and ST will merge/joing Kespa teams and that will be it.
Can't tell if serious. Why would anyone come up with such a conclusion?
What's so hard to believe about this? Let's face it, long term only IM and ST seem financially stable out of all eSF teams, and right now it's a question whether GOM will have enough teams to run GSTL. Kespa teams at least seem financially ok, with a good marketing skills and scene positioning.
What do you think IM/ST will do when there's no GSTL to gain exposure? They will apply for membership in Kespa and most likely get it and Team 8 and EGTL might not be participating for the long run.
I only feel sad about GOM, they did so much for SC2 but now eSF scene seems falling apart and I feel Kespa teams will in the end be the only sc2 teams in Korea remaining.
Well that depends on the LoL scene as well, MVP for example has some success in LoL (like IM or KT) and it makes them much more stable due to the big viewership numbers in Korea. No doubt Sc2-only teams are a thing of the past, only the best should survive now that the LoL train to sponsorships departed a while ago.
On January 04 2013 05:01 Odoakar wrote: I guess IM and ST will merge/joing Kespa teams and that will be it.
Can't tell if serious. Why would anyone come up with such a conclusion?
What's so hard to believe about this? Let's face it, long term only IM and ST seem financially stable out of all eSF teams, and right now it's a question whether GOM will have enough teams to run GSTL. Kespa teams at least seem financially ok, with a good marketing skills and scene positioning.
What do you think IM/ST will do when there's no GSTL to gain exposure? They will apply for membership in Kespa and most likely get it and Team 8 and EGTL might not be participating for the long run.
I only feel sad about GOM, they did so much for SC2 but now eSF scene seems falling apart and I feel Kespa teams will in the end be the only sc2 teams in Korea remaining.
I also highly doubt FXO is going anywhere anytime soon, they have Euro/NA branches too so I sincerely doubt they're doing poorly.
On January 04 2013 06:34 LittleAtari wrote: TSL has always had issues in management. I feel like a lot of people have forgotten all the drama surrounding players leaving and their coach. A team doesnt fall apart because two players leave. Those players leave because the team isn't supporting them.
That's not true at all. The team was financially hurt in the first point. Then seeing 2 key players leave, one of them being your major Star Man is a huge blow to a small team like TSL. It's pretty understandable to disband it at that point, because it would require some investment to make up for the departures of Polt and Revival while running the team. That investment would have to come directly out of the pocket of Coach Lee. And to see a major part of his key players leave the team again might have finally pushed him towards this decision.
Its a matter of fact that the team has been surrounded with controversy for a while now and most of it centered around the coach. I'm sure he means well but is probably not fit for management. I hope he lands on his feet as a coach but never again should he be responsible for managing a team.
I'll say this again, I'm glad TSL is finally gone. The remaining players can now go to a better team. Fascination over this poorly ran team has always been carryover fanboyism from their early days or the fact that they had immensely popular players like Polt.
On January 04 2013 06:34 LittleAtari wrote: TSL has always had issues in management. I feel like a lot of people have forgotten all the drama surrounding players leaving and their coach. A team doesnt fall apart because two players leave. Those players leave because the team isn't supporting them.
That's not true at all. The team was financially hurt in the first point. Then seeing 2 key players leave, one of them being your major Star Man is a huge blow to a small team like TSL. It's pretty understandable to disband it at that point, because it would require some investment to make up for the departures of Polt and Revival while running the team. That investment would have to come directly out of the pocket of Coach Lee. And to see a major part of his key players leave the team again might have finally pushed him towards this decision.
Its a matter of fact that the team has been surrounded with controversy for a while now and most of it centered around the coach. I'm sure he means well but is probably not fit for management. I hope he lands on his feet as a coach but never again should he be responsible for managing a team.
I'll say this again, I'm glad TSL is finally gone. The remaining players can now go to a better team. Fascination over this poorly ran team has always been carryover fanboyism from their early days or the fact that they had immensely popular players like Polt.
You are only talking about famous players here, they will be fine with any teams. But you should be concerned with those names who never got a breakout performance, they will retire or switch to other games. Not enough market to carry all those players around.
On January 04 2013 05:01 Odoakar wrote: I guess IM and ST will merge/joing Kespa teams and that will be it.
Can't tell if serious. Why would anyone come up with such a conclusion?
What's so hard to believe about this? Let's face it, long term only IM and ST seem financially stable out of all eSF teams, and right now it's a question whether GOM will have enough teams to run GSTL. Kespa teams at least seem financially ok, with a good marketing skills and scene positioning.
What do you think IM/ST will do when there's no GSTL to gain exposure? They will apply for membership in Kespa and most likely get it and Team 8 and EGTL might not be participating for the long run.
I only feel sad about GOM, they did so much for SC2 but now eSF scene seems falling apart and I feel Kespa teams will in the end be the only sc2 teams in Korea remaining.
I also highly doubt FXO is going anywhere anytime soon, they have Euro/NA branches too so I sincerely doubt they're doing poorly.
As far as I know, the various FXO branches are separate SC2 teams, yet sponsored by the same big company. Similar to how 1000 teams are sponsored individually by Razer. FXO Korea seems to be here to stay with Leenock winning tournaments for them left and right.
On January 04 2013 06:34 LittleAtari wrote: TSL has always had issues in management. I feel like a lot of people have forgotten all the drama surrounding players leaving and their coach. A team doesnt fall apart because two players leave. Those players leave because the team isn't supporting them.
That's not true at all. The team was financially hurt in the first point. Then seeing 2 key players leave, one of them being your major Star Man is a huge blow to a small team like TSL. It's pretty understandable to disband it at that point, because it would require some investment to make up for the departures of Polt and Revival while running the team. That investment would have to come directly out of the pocket of Coach Lee. And to see a major part of his key players leave the team again might have finally pushed him towards this decision.
Its a matter of fact that the team has been surrounded with controversy for a while now and most of it centered around the coach. I'm sure he means well but is probably not fit for management. I hope he lands on his feet as a coach but never again should he be responsible for managing a team.
I'll say this again, I'm glad TSL is finally gone. The remaining players can now go to a better team. Fascination over this poorly ran team has always been carryover fanboyism from their early days or the fact that they had immensely popular players like Polt.
You are only talking about famous players here, they will be fine with any teams. But you should be concerned with those names who never got a breakout performance, they will retire or switch to other games. Not enough market to carry all those players around.
True, but its also possible that TSL limited their potential for exposure to begin with. I don't mean in a malicious way, they just didn't have the resources to do so. So in that way, I think the lesser known players now have a chance to start over and earn success (assuming they deserve it.)
If Center doesn't manage to make it into Code S in the U&D, I don't think he'll be able to find a team.
Shine and Ragnarok will have a hard time as well. And Value? The only place I've even seen him play is the IPTL. If there are other players, well... that tells you how much of a chance they will have.
On January 04 2013 05:01 Odoakar wrote: I guess IM and ST will merge/joing Kespa teams and that will be it.
Can't tell if serious. Why would anyone come up with such a conclusion?
What's so hard to believe about this? Let's face it, long term only IM and ST seem financially stable out of all eSF teams, and right now it's a question whether GOM will have enough teams to run GSTL. Kespa teams at least seem financially ok, with a good marketing skills and scene positioning.
What do you think IM/ST will do when there's no GSTL to gain exposure? They will apply for membership in Kespa and most likely get it and Team 8 and EGTL might not be participating for the long run.
I only feel sad about GOM, they did so much for SC2 but now eSF scene seems falling apart and I feel Kespa teams will in the end be the only sc2 teams in Korea remaining.
I also highly doubt FXO is going anywhere anytime soon, they have Euro/NA branches too so I sincerely doubt they're doing poorly.
As far as I know, the various FXO branches are separate SC2 teams, yet sponsored by the same big company. Similar to how 1000 teams are sponsored individually by Razer. FXO Korea seems to be here to stay with Leenock winning tournaments for them left and right.
while separate branches, they aren't as separate as they used to be (when it was imba.FXO). They are much more together now.
On January 04 2013 06:34 LittleAtari wrote: TSL has always had issues in management. I feel like a lot of people have forgotten all the drama surrounding players leaving and their coach. A team doesnt fall apart because two players leave. Those players leave because the team isn't supporting them.
That's not true at all. The team was financially hurt in the first point. Then seeing 2 key players leave, one of them being your major Star Man is a huge blow to a small team like TSL. It's pretty understandable to disband it at that point, because it would require some investment to make up for the departures of Polt and Revival while running the team. That investment would have to come directly out of the pocket of Coach Lee. And to see a major part of his key players leave the team again might have finally pushed him towards this decision.
Its a matter of fact that the team has been surrounded with controversy for a while now and most of it centered around the coach. I'm sure he means well but is probably not fit for management. I hope he lands on his feet as a coach but never again should he be responsible for managing a team.
I'll say this again, I'm glad TSL is finally gone. The remaining players can now go to a better team. Fascination over this poorly ran team has always been carryover fanboyism from their early days or the fact that they had immensely popular players like Polt.
You are only talking about famous players here, they will be fine with any teams. But you should be concerned with those names who never got a breakout performance, they will retire or switch to other games. Not enough market to carry all those players around.
True, but its also possible that TSL limited their potential for exposure to begin with. I don't mean in a malicious way, they just didn't have the resources to do so. So in that way, I think the lesser known players now have a chance to start over and earn success (assuming they deserve it.)
Well, If one of the weaker players would have improved enough in skill (and for this no money is needed) he would have had a chance to make a showing in GSL. If a player is of sufficiently high skill he will get exposure eventually. And TSL was not limiting the skill growth of it's players.
This is unfortunate because TSL seemed to rebuild quite strong after they lost aLive, PuMa, JYP, etc. Should be interesting to see where Hyun and Symbol go.
For a team that had so much outstanding talent and the difficulty to keep it, I knew it was a matter of time for TSL.
Makes you wonder how good they would've been as a team if none of the people that moved on actually left. They're one of the teams that produced the most talented players in the game.
On January 04 2013 05:14 Fionn wrote: I'm going to write a Final Edit about this.
TSL had such an amazingly weird history. There were three distinct generations, tons of controversy, and lots of ups and downs. I don't know when I will write it or when it'll be out, but this team deserves something written about them in full. TSL was never a GSTL champion, but they will not be forgotten.
Please do so, I will forever cherish the article as a part of TSL's history. Though it was never the most successful, it holds in the hearts of so many people.
On January 04 2013 06:34 LittleAtari wrote: TSL has always had issues in management. I feel like a lot of people have forgotten all the drama surrounding players leaving and their coach. A team doesnt fall apart because two players leave. Those players leave because the team isn't supporting them.
That's not true at all. The team was financially hurt in the first point. Then seeing 2 key players leave, one of them being your major Star Man is a huge blow to a small team like TSL. It's pretty understandable to disband it at that point, because it would require some investment to make up for the departures of Polt and Revival while running the team. That investment would have to come directly out of the pocket of Coach Lee. And to see a major part of his key players leave the team again might have finally pushed him towards this decision.
Its a matter of fact that the team has been surrounded with controversy for a while now and most of it centered around the coach. I'm sure he means well but is probably not fit for management. I hope he lands on his feet as a coach but never again should he be responsible for managing a team.
I'll say this again, I'm glad TSL is finally gone. The remaining players can now go to a better team. Fascination over this poorly ran team has always been carryover fanboyism from their early days or the fact that they had immensely popular players like Polt.
You are only talking about famous players here, they will be fine with any teams. But you should be concerned with those names who never got a breakout performance, they will retire or switch to other games. Not enough market to carry all those players around.
True, but its also possible that TSL limited their potential for exposure to begin with. I don't mean in a malicious way, they just didn't have the resources to do so. So in that way, I think the lesser known players now have a chance to start over and earn success (assuming they deserve it.)
Well, If one of the weaker players would have improved enough in skill (and for this no money is needed) he would have had a chance to make a showing in GSL. If a player is of sufficiently high skill he will get exposure eventually. And TSL was not limiting the skill growth of it's players.
Yeah, in the end they are ultimately in charge of where they take their careers.
Wasn't implying that TSL limits a players growth in terms of skill level, but rather TSL, like any other ESF team, fail to promote their players. So the exposure of lesser known players are virtually nonexistent. And again, its not necessarily TSL's intention, but never the less, they failed to do it.
On January 04 2013 05:01 Odoakar wrote: I guess IM and ST will merge/joing Kespa teams and that will be it.
Can't tell if serious. Why would anyone come up with such a conclusion?
What's so hard to believe about this? Let's face it, long term only IM and ST seem financially stable out of all eSF teams, and right now it's a question whether GOM will have enough teams to run GSTL. Kespa teams at least seem financially ok, with a good marketing skills and scene positioning.
What do you think IM/ST will do when there's no GSTL to gain exposure? They will apply for membership in Kespa and most likely get it and Team 8 and EGTL might not be participating for the long run.
I only feel sad about GOM, they did so much for SC2 but now eSF scene seems falling apart and I feel Kespa teams will in the end be the only sc2 teams in Korea remaining.
I also highly doubt FXO is going anywhere anytime soon, they have Euro/NA branches too so I sincerely doubt they're doing poorly.
As far as I know, the various FXO branches are separate SC2 teams, yet sponsored by the same big company. Similar to how 1000 teams are sponsored individually by Razer. FXO Korea seems to be here to stay with Leenock winning tournaments for them left and right.
while separate branches, they aren't as separate as they used to be (when it was imba.FXO). They are much more together now.
Ah I didnt realize that, thanks! And to those worried, TSL will go down in SC2 history at least for Fruitdealer lol
On January 04 2013 05:01 Odoakar wrote: I guess IM and ST will merge/joing Kespa teams and that will be it.
Can't tell if serious. Why would anyone come up with such a conclusion?
What's so hard to believe about this? Let's face it, long term only IM and ST seem financially stable out of all eSF teams, and right now it's a question whether GOM will have enough teams to run GSTL. Kespa teams at least seem financially ok, with a good marketing skills and scene positioning.
What do you think IM/ST will do when there's no GSTL to gain exposure? They will apply for membership in Kespa and most likely get it and Team 8 and EGTL might not be participating for the long run.
I only feel sad about GOM, they did so much for SC2 but now eSF scene seems falling apart and I feel Kespa teams will in the end be the only sc2 teams in Korea remaining.
I also highly doubt FXO is going anywhere anytime soon, they have Euro/NA branches too so I sincerely doubt they're doing poorly.
As far as I know, the various FXO branches are separate SC2 teams, yet sponsored by the same big company. Similar to how 1000 teams are sponsored individually by Razer. FXO Korea seems to be here to stay with Leenock winning tournaments for them left and right.
while separate branches, they aren't as separate as they used to be (when it was imba.FXO). They are much more together now.
My point is that FXO as a company wouldn't (at least in my eyes) invest in two additional teams if FXO.Korea wasn't in good shape financially
I guess it could have been somewhat predicted due to the players leaving but I really wasn't expecting such a dominant team to disband like this. I'm hoping all the players can find new homes!
On January 04 2013 08:38 testthewest wrote: If HotS isn't a big hit, I expect more SC2 teams to vanish...
Even when HotS launches very successfully, some more teams will close down. That's simply because 8 Kespa teams plus 8 ESF teams are way too many professional teams even if SC2 becomes a very popular sport on national Korean television. Even BW at its heyday did not support that many teams, so I fully expect some more teams to die down in the next two years, until we have a healthy number (probably ~10) remaining. Badly managed teams vanishing and unsuccessful pros retiring/switching games is nothing to be afraid of. Of course it sucks for the poor fans of the teams
On January 04 2013 08:38 testthewest wrote: If HotS isn't a big hit, I expect more SC2 teams to vanish...
Even when HotS launches very successfully, some more teams will close down. That's simply because 8 Kespa teams plus 8 ESF teams are way too many professional teams even if SC2 becomes a very popular sport on national Korean television. Even BW at its heyday did not support that many teams, so I fully expect some more teams to die down in the next two years, until we have a healthy number (probably ~10) remaining. Badly managed teams vanishing and unsuccessful pros retiring/switching games is nothing to be afraid of. Of course it sucks for the poor fans of the teams
This is only true to a point. You can support that many teams if you are very cosmopolitan and global about the way you market your organization. Especially with SC2s lack of support in Korea, Korean teams must realize that in order to survive they have to go where the audience is and that is the rest of the world. They must appeal to those people, build a fanbase there and generate sponsorship deals and ROI within those markets, not necessarily in South Korea. Hopefully Korea picks up SC2 more with the advent of Proleague and forthcoming release of HotS but we cannot rely on that and neither can the teams whose financial future is on the line. SC2 has worldwide appeal and access to streaming technology that BW never had. We are in the best position possible to ensure the success of SC2 without relying on traditional business and viewing models but we have to approach it in the right way.
On January 04 2013 08:38 testthewest wrote: If HotS isn't a big hit, I expect more SC2 teams to vanish...
Even when HotS launches very successfully, some more teams will close down. That's simply because 8 Kespa teams plus 8 ESF teams are way too many professional teams even if SC2 becomes a very popular sport on national Korean television. Even BW at its heyday did not support that many teams, so I fully expect some more teams to die down in the next two years, until we have a healthy number (probably ~10) remaining. Badly managed teams vanishing and unsuccessful pros retiring/switching games is nothing to be afraid of. Of course it sucks for the poor fans of the teams
This is only true to a point. You can support that many teams if you are very cosmopolitan and global about the way you market your organization. Especially with SC2s lack of support in Korea, Korean teams must realize that in order to survive they have to go where the audience is and that is the rest of the world. They must appeal to those people, build a fanbase there and generate sponsorship deals and ROI within those markets, not necessarily in South Korea. Hopefully Korea picks up SC2 more with the advent of Proleague and forthcoming release of HotS but we cannot rely on that and neither can the teams whose financial future is on the line. SC2 has worldwide appeal and access to streaming technology that BW never had. We are in the best position possible to ensure the success of SC2 without relying on traditional business and viewing models but we have to approach it in the right way.
Your point is true of course, if the Korean teams change the way they operate, a lot more will be sustainable. I was just talking about the traditional Korean-centric teams, the way ESF and Kespa teams tend to behave.
Your point is true of course, if the Korean teams change the way they operate, a lot more will be sustainable. I was just talking about the traditional Korean-centric teams, the way ESF and Kespa teams tend to behave.
Yup, the reality is that you can't be a Korean-centric team anymore in the same way you could be in BW. You have to be internationally-orientated.
Im thinking, should the number of eSF team reduce to like 4, hows about GOM making their own team, drafting all the best players from disband team, and joining KeSPA with, say, FXO, ST, LGIM. Gretech definitely has money to run a team sustainably and it's not weird for a broadcasting station to own one.
On January 04 2013 09:42 Arceus wrote: Im thinking, should the number of eSF team reduce to like 4, hows about GOM making their own team, drafting all the best players from disband team, and joining KeSPA with, say, FXO, ST, LGIM. Gretech definitely has money to run a team sustainably and it's not weird for a broadcasting station to own one.
Let's call it Team 9. They'd need extra security measures to avoid violence when Kespa's Team 8 plays against ESF's Team 9, lol.
I've always seen TSL as a breeding ground. It's like the crickets you feed to a bearded dragon. You breed good players (JYP, Polt, Revival) then feed them to big teams (EG) and have the breeding center (TSL) die away.
On January 04 2013 09:50 nomyx wrote: I've always seen TSL as a breeding ground. It's like the crickets you feed to a bearded dragon. You breed good players (JYP, Polt, Revival) then feed them to big teams (EG) and have the breeding center (TSL) die away.
While it is true that TSL has fostered a lot of talented players and was great at building skill, we should remember that Polt was not one of the homegrown talents - that honor belongs to Prime. In fact, I'd say his talent has stagnated on TSL, he's just gotten more exposure than on Prime, due to being sent out to more foreign tournaments.
On January 04 2013 09:50 nomyx wrote: I've always seen TSL as a breeding ground. It's like the crickets you feed to a bearded dragon. You breed good players (JYP, Polt, Revival) then feed them to big teams (EG) and have the breeding center (TSL) die away.
While it is true that TSL has fostered a lot of talented players and was great at building skill, we should remember that Polt was not one of the homegrown talents - that honor belongs to Prime. In fact, I'd say his talent has stagnated on TSL, he's just gotten more exposure than on Prime, due to being sent out to more foreign tournaments.
Nah, Polt's a much, much better player after TSL than he was on Prime. Polt on Prime didn't know what a third base was.
On January 04 2013 09:50 nomyx wrote: I've always seen TSL as a breeding ground. It's like the crickets you feed to a bearded dragon. You breed good players (JYP, Polt, Revival) then feed them to big teams (EG) and have the breeding center (TSL) die away.
While it is true that TSL has fostered a lot of talented players and was great at building skill, we should remember that Polt was not one of the homegrown talents - that honor belongs to Prime. In fact, I'd say his talent has stagnated on TSL, he's just gotten more exposure than on Prime, due to being sent out to more foreign tournaments.
Nah, Polt's a much, much better player after TSL than he was on Prime. Polt on Prime didn't know what a third base was.
This is rather surprising considering they still had HyuN and Symbol in their lineup. Definitely hope they can both land a good team- sad to see the SC2 scene take such a big hit today. I'm mostly surprised that NSH is still around while a team that seemed far more 'secure' has disbanded. This leaves room for AZUBU to possibly establish themselves as one of the top 5 GSTL teams (I'd put StarTale, FXO, MVP, IM and possibly Prime ahead of them) in the upcoming year's seasons.
On January 04 2013 08:38 testthewest wrote: If HotS isn't a big hit, I expect more SC2 teams to vanish...
Even when HotS launches very successfully, some more teams will close down. That's simply because 8 Kespa teams plus 8 ESF teams are way too many professional teams even if SC2 becomes a very popular sport on national Korean television. Even BW at its heyday did not support that many teams, so I fully expect some more teams to die down in the next two years, until we have a healthy number (probably ~10) remaining. Badly managed teams vanishing and unsuccessful pros retiring/switching games is nothing to be afraid of. Of course it sucks for the poor fans of the teams
This is only true to a point. You can support that many teams if you are very cosmopolitan and global about the way you market your organization. Especially with SC2s lack of support in Korea, Korean teams must realize that in order to survive they have to go where the audience is and that is the rest of the world. They must appeal to those people, build a fanbase there and generate sponsorship deals and ROI within those markets, not necessarily in South Korea. Hopefully Korea picks up SC2 more with the advent of Proleague and forthcoming release of HotS but we cannot rely on that and neither can the teams whose financial future is on the line. SC2 has worldwide appeal and access to streaming technology that BW never had. We are in the best position possible to ensure the success of SC2 without relying on traditional business and viewing models but we have to approach it in the right way.
Your point is true of course, if the Korean teams change the way they operate, a lot more will be sustainable. I was just talking about the traditional Korean-centric teams, the way ESF and Kespa teams tend to behave.
Agreed. Advertisers are looking for reach and a specific audience type when they are looking at eSports' profiles. It's hard to change clients' current perception of Gaming, despite the fact that early adopters are approaching the tipping point rapidly. Certainly media owners can help by selling it, but it's still hard if the game has become too high brow or less cosmopolitan. A premium product like SC2 has its fair share of challenges, and one of them is, fortunately or unfortunately, not being a mass market title like SC:BW was, unlike say, the present LoL, which has a low barrier of entry, but scales over time (making growth much steadier than say the traditional format that Blizzard is pursuing). If reach is a challenge for advertising sponsors, then it is also in Blizzard's interest to lower the entry barrier for their games.
Wow...I'm sorry to see them go. They were one of the first startup teams of SC2...I still remember fruitdealer winning the first GSL...great moments for TSL and the SC2 community...=/...sad day
Your point is true of course, if the Korean teams change the way they operate, a lot more will be sustainable. I was just talking about the traditional Korean-centric teams, the way ESF and Kespa teams tend to behave.
Yup, the reality is that you can't be a Korean-centric team anymore in the same way you could be in BW. You have to be internationally-orientated.
On January 04 2013 09:50 nomyx wrote: I've always seen TSL as a breeding ground. It's like the crickets you feed to a bearded dragon. You breed good players (JYP, Polt, Revival) then feed them to big teams (EG) and have the breeding center (TSL) die away.
While it is true that TSL has fostered a lot of talented players and was great at building skill, we should remember that Polt was not one of the homegrown talents - that honor belongs to Prime. In fact, I'd say his talent has stagnated on TSL, he's just gotten more exposure than on Prime, due to being sent out to more foreign tournaments.
Nah, Polt's a much, much better player after TSL than he was on Prime. Polt on Prime didn't know what a third base was.
i agree. while, lately, results haven't been as dramatic, it feels like he's a more well rounded player. (i do miss some of those extreme pressure builds he used to use more, though.)
KeSPA will hold a rookie league on 12th and 13th. It says anyone can participate, probably not players on KeSPA teams. Total prize money is 9 million won.
Maybe some of these guys without a team can participate, will be sure money for players like Hyun, even just couple thousand dollars for champion is not too shabby. If Hyun can't participate, maybe some of unknown players on TSL can win some money in this league. If they want the potential opportunity in KeSPA teams, they can get the license too.
While Symbol is probably their best player, Hyun's probably the biggest name they got. Out of all of them, I can see Hyun being the most likely to get back on a KESPA team, even if MBCGame is no longer there.
I'd personally love it if Polt went back to Prime.
Well without having salaries its a no brainer that the top talents will constantly leave. Bad management. Finding sponsors can be hard but nevertheless you need to get your funds if you want to run a team/business.
The news when they promote their streams, BBoong, AriA and Salmosa leaving the team, Prime players were at IPL5, they have the smallest roster among korean teams even NSH has more players and I doubt that it can be MVP, ST or IM. Ofc I am not 100% sure though
Professionalism was not given a chance, so Coach Lee left. Makes sense. Sad thing is that we're still hoping for the scene to grow professionally, so Coach Lee have given up a few years before the game actually matured. He was too stressed out by the current state. T_T
Rest in Pieces. I hope to keep my favourite team icon for as long as I can.
I will follow Polt, Symbol and HyuN wherever they go.. I also had great hopes for Center, and I'll watch him through the Up&Downs of the next season of GSL.
The news when they promote their streams, BBoong, AriA and Salmosa leaving the team, Prime players were at IPL5, they have the smallest roster among korean teams even NSH has more players and I doubt that it can be MVP, ST or IM. Ofc I am not 100% sure though
They wouldn't have gotten a new team house if they had money trouble though
The news when they promote their streams, BBoong, AriA and Salmosa leaving the team, Prime players were at IPL5, they have the smallest roster among korean teams even NSH has more players and I doubt that it can be MVP, ST or IM. Ofc I am not 100% sure though
They wouldn't have gotten a new team house if they had money trouble though
Pretty sure it will be NSH.
TSL also got a new team house and? NSH has more players then Prime and if you watched GSL Blizz Cup there were a lot of players in NSH shirts.
Anyway I really really hope both Prime and NSH will not disband.
Sad day. TSL were awesome back in beta/early release days and to this day fostered some great talents. Also really liked hyun. Hope their talents get picked up by good teams.
On January 04 2013 05:34 Fionn wrote: Also I feel like Azubu fucked up.
They sign a bunch of middle of the road players.
A week later and they could have talked to Polt, Parting, Supernova, Symbol, Hyun, and BboongBboong.
Oops.
Haha, this is true.
In a way it's good though, because those players are going to find good homes no matter what, and the more middle of the roaders now have a salaried(?) chance at full time
Such a sad day when any team disbands but TSL has been fighting to stay alive for a long time I had hoped that they were able to stabilize but with sponsorship money lacking it makes sense that they chose now to disband. I hope all the players find homes soon!
The news when they promote their streams, BBoong, AriA and Salmosa leaving the team, Prime players were at IPL5, they have the smallest roster among korean teams even NSH has more players and I doubt that it can be MVP, ST or IM. Ofc I am not 100% sure though
They wouldn't have gotten a new team house if they had money trouble though
Pretty sure it will be NSH.
TSL also got a new team house and? NSH has more players then Prime and if you watched GSL Blizz Cup there were a lot of players in NSH shirts.
Anyway I really really hope both Prime and NSH will not disband.
and Polt and RevivaL left. Prime has yet to lose any significant player since B4 left.
So what if NSH has more players than Prime? So do many other teams. But Prime has more Code S players and has overall a much stronger roster than NSH. NSH would've been forgotten by now if it wasn't for jjakji.
The news when they promote their streams, BBoong, AriA and Salmosa leaving the team, Prime players were at IPL5, they have the smallest roster among korean teams even NSH has more players and I doubt that it can be MVP, ST or IM. Ofc I am not 100% sure though
They wouldn't have gotten a new team house if they had money trouble though
Pretty sure it will be NSH.
TSL also got a new team house and? NSH has more players then Prime and if you watched GSL Blizz Cup there were a lot of players in NSH shirts.
Anyway I really really hope both Prime and NSH will not disband.
and Polt and RevivaL left. Prime has yet to lose any significant player since B4 left.
So what if NSH has more players than Prime? So do many other teams. But Prime has more Code S players and has overall a much stronger roster than NSH. NSH would've been forgotten by now if it wasn't for jjakji.
dont you get it? it has nothing to do with roster strength. They could have MVP, Nestea, DRG, MC, MKP, but if they don't have major sponsors, it doesn't matter. Prime was begging for Twitch subscriptions just like a month ago. You don't do that if you team is in good position financially.
The news when they promote their streams, BBoong, AriA and Salmosa leaving the team, Prime players were at IPL5, they have the smallest roster among korean teams even NSH has more players and I doubt that it can be MVP, ST or IM. Ofc I am not 100% sure though
They wouldn't have gotten a new team house if they had money trouble though
Pretty sure it will be NSH.
TSL also got a new team house and? NSH has more players then Prime and if you watched GSL Blizz Cup there were a lot of players in NSH shirts.
Anyway I really really hope both Prime and NSH will not disband.
and Polt and RevivaL left. Prime has yet to lose any significant player since B4 left.
So what if NSH has more players than Prime? So do many other teams. But Prime has more Code S players and has overall a much stronger roster than NSH. NSH would've been forgotten by now if it wasn't for jjakji.
dont you get it? it has nothing to do with roster strength. They could have MVP, Nestea, DRG, MC, MKP, but if they don't have major sponsors, it doesn't matter. Prime was begging for Twitch subscriptions just like a month ago. You don't do that if you team is in good position financially.
It's because the viewer numbers just aren't there. No viewers, no sponsors. Everyone is switching to LoL :\. That is especially true in Korea, the game has swept through esports like the plague and left nothing else. Its popularity is staggering.
The news when they promote their streams, BBoong, AriA and Salmosa leaving the team, Prime players were at IPL5, they have the smallest roster among korean teams even NSH has more players and I doubt that it can be MVP, ST or IM. Ofc I am not 100% sure though
They wouldn't have gotten a new team house if they had money trouble though
Pretty sure it will be NSH.
TSL also got a new team house and? NSH has more players then Prime and if you watched GSL Blizz Cup there were a lot of players in NSH shirts.
Anyway I really really hope both Prime and NSH will not disband.
and Polt and RevivaL left. Prime has yet to lose any significant player since B4 left.
So what if NSH has more players than Prime? So do many other teams. But Prime has more Code S players and has overall a much stronger roster than NSH. NSH would've been forgotten by now if it wasn't for jjakji.
dont you get it? it has nothing to do with roster strength. They could have MVP, Nestea, DRG, MC, MKP, but if they don't have major sponsors, it doesn't matter. Prime was begging for Twitch subscriptions just like a month ago. You don't do that if you team is in good position financially.
It's because the viewer numbers just aren't there. No viewers, no sponsors. Everyone is switching to LoL :\. That is especially true in Korea, the game has swept through esports like the plague and left nothing else. Its popularity is staggering.
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.
The news when they promote their streams, BBoong, AriA and Salmosa leaving the team, Prime players were at IPL5, they have the smallest roster among korean teams even NSH has more players and I doubt that it can be MVP, ST or IM. Ofc I am not 100% sure though
They wouldn't have gotten a new team house if they had money trouble though
Pretty sure it will be NSH.
TSL also got a new team house and? NSH has more players then Prime and if you watched GSL Blizz Cup there were a lot of players in NSH shirts.
Anyway I really really hope both Prime and NSH will not disband.
and Polt and RevivaL left. Prime has yet to lose any significant player since B4 left.
So what if NSH has more players than Prime? So do many other teams. But Prime has more Code S players and has overall a much stronger roster than NSH. NSH would've been forgotten by now if it wasn't for jjakji.
dont you get it? it has nothing to do with roster strength. They could have MVP, Nestea, DRG, MC, MKP, but if they don't have major sponsors, it doesn't matter. Prime was begging for Twitch subscriptions just like a month ago. You don't do that if you team is in good position financially.
It's because the viewer numbers just aren't there. No viewers, no sponsors. Everyone is switching to LoL :\. That is especially true in Korea, the game has swept through esports like the plague and left nothing else. Its popularity is staggering.
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.
And yet, the viewer numbers are still consistantly dropping for sc2 (and growing for LoL). You can keep making convenient excuses like the one above but that would just be ignoring the core problem. The game has grown boring to play and to watch thanks to the constant patching. Not to mention, we rarely ever got games on the same excitement level as BW in the first place, but that's an argument for another day...
I have to disagree with nazgul saying it's a "laidback BroodWar approach" because all the most popular competitive games in korea--LoL, special forces, starcraft 1, warcraft 3-- have all been picked up by the big chaebols (south korean business conglomerate) eventually. If the game is popular enough, it gets picked up; it's proven to work and it is not unique to brood war.
When its big chaebols doing the sponsoring (LG, Samsung, CJ, KT, SKT) and some other large companies (woongjin which actually has some financial troubles that made international news, Najin industries, STX corporation) tv viewership does matter a lot. They are treating LoL as a professional sport essentially and treated BW as a professional sport; kespa will hope sc2 grows and sudden attack is very popular but has less viewership.
don't know how much razer is sponsoring MVP teams, and azubu is throwing its weight around in esports now. But those chaebols + MVP, azubu, najin,stx, woongjin covers the main korean owned teams except startale and prime for both LoL and sc2 in korea. Wemade and Hwaseung pulled out their investments.
It is not the best to your players to just "hope" a big sponsor picks you up--that's the problem sc2 korean teams have-- but all the popular multiplayer competitive games did get investment from big companies or from game publishers themselves in korea (Hanbit, Wemade, I don't know what to classify estro as but estro was IEG investment afaik) so it's proven to work. The mentality is to get picked up by a big corporation, I assume, because all the big non MMO games--which are huge in Maple story, Aion, Blade & Soul, and the sidescroller Dungeon fighter-- eventually got picked up.
Warcraft 3 players got picked up by estro, samsung, wemade (lyn and moon), and hanbit; starcraft 1 got huge investment from the chaebols; sudden attack has investments from the same chaebols and most kespa teams had sudden attack teams; LoL is dominant in korea and the chaebols have picked up teams, and sponsors are even buying 2 teams at once (najin, mvp, kt, azubu) and getting the huge esports personalities in Reach and YellOw to be coaches. I am not personally familiar with any history besides starcraft but you can look these things up.
LoL and special forces are #1 and #2 in online game rankings with those other 4 MMO games rounding out top 6, and top 4 streamed games are LoL, Star1 BW, minecraft, and Sudden attack. If a game is popular enough, it brings in the chaebols. Western teams bring in money by pooling in various sponsors, but eastern teams in warcraft 3, star1, sudden attack, LoL, and dota do get picked up by major companies. Yes, it's not good to the players to just hope a chaebol picks up the team, but the chaebols and equivalent companies for chinese dota are going to win out in korea/china, NOT teams that can "evolve" to a new business model in streaming/social media. At least not in the east, imho.
edit: on topic I guess TSL failed to get the big sponsor and that's going to be the case with the rest of star2 teams in korea. LG came in for LG-IM, MVP apparently has faith in getting 2 LoL teams and their sc2 team, FXO is foreign owned, but I'd expect prime and startale to get in trouble soon.
On January 05 2013 05:46 N.geNuity wrote: I have to disagree with nazgul saying it's a "laidback BroodWar approach" because all the most popular competitive games in korea--LoL, special forces, starcraft 1, warcraft 3-- have all been picked up by the big chaebols (south korean business conglomerate) eventually. If the game is popular enough, it gets picked up; it's proven to work and it is not unique to brood war.
When its big chaebols doing the sponsoring (LG, Samsung, CJ, KT, SKT) and some other large companies (woongjin which actually has some financial troubles that made international news, Najin industries, STX corporation) tv viewership does matter a lot. They are treating LoL as a professional sport essentially and treated BW as a professional sport; kespa will hope sc2 grows and sudden attack is very popular but has less viewership.
don't know how much razer is sponsoring MVP teams, and azubu is throwing its weight around in esports now. But those chaebols + MVP, azubu, najin,stx, woongjin covers the main korean owned teams except startale and prime for both LoL and sc2 in korea. Wemade and Hwaseung pulled out their investments.
It is not the best to your players to just "hope" a big sponsor picks you up--that's the problem sc2 korean teams have-- but all the popular multiplayer competitive games did get investment from big companies or from game publishers themselves in korea (Hanbit, Wemade, I don't know what to classify estro as but estro was IEG investment afaik) so it's proven to work. The mentality is to get picked up by a big corporation, I assume, because all the big non MMO games--which are huge in Maple story, Aion, Blade & Soul, and the sidescroller Dungeon fighter-- eventually got picked up.
Warcraft 3 players got picked up by estro, samsung, wemade (lyn and moon), and hanbit; starcraft 1 got huge investment from the chaebols; sudden attack has investments from the same chaebols and most kespa teams had sudden attack teams; LoL is dominant in korea and the chaebols have picked up teams, and sponsors are even buying 2 teams at once (najin, mvp, kt, azubu) and getting the huge esports personalities in Reach and YellOw to be coaches. I am not personally familiar with any history besides starcraft but you can look these things up.
LoL and special forces are #1 and #2 in online game rankings with those other 4 MMO games rounding out top 6, and top 4 streamed games are LoL, Star1 BW, minecraft, and Sudden attack. If a game is popular enough, it brings in the chaebols. Western teams bring in money by pooling in various sponsors, but eastern teams in warcraft 3, star1, sudden attack, LoL, and dota do get picked up by major companies. Yes, it's not good to the players to just hope a chaebol picks up the team, but the chaebols and equivalent companies for chinese dota are going to win out in korea/china, NOT teams that can "evolve" to a new business model in streaming/social media. At least not in the east, imho.
edit: on topic I guess TSL failed to get the big sponsor and that's going to be the case with the rest of star2 teams in korea. LG came in for LG-IM, MVP apparently has faith in getting 2 LoL teams and their sc2 team, FXO is foreign owned, but I'd expect prime and startale to get in trouble soon.
To be fair it was the entire IP rights debacle that stopped SC2 scene from being picked up by KeSPA. A lot of teams in Korea also really made teams with the mentality to sell their teams to KeSPA corporations when there was a switch but that never ended up happening thanks to the debacle. So they struggled quite a bit after figuring out no one was going to come and sponsor them and eventually died out :O
SC2 had a lot of hype in Korea for a while you know, things just didn't go smoothly.
As SC2 continues through-out the years I can pretty much expect this happening to many more teams. SC2 player base consistently gets worse and its useless for sponsors to support something that so little people are into. Sponsors should just go to LoL; at least that community won't be fledgling for next couple of years.
Man, this is sad. I don't know why, but I get this feeling that SC2 is starting to go downhill. People are switching games, teams are disbanding, leagues are becoming empty, streams having less viewers, tournaments and lans having less people attending and watching live and so on. Or is it just that i somehow seem to notice the bad news and not the new beginnings?
On January 06 2013 04:10 bbbloodmaker wrote: Man, this is sad. I don't know why, but I get this feeling that SC2 is starting to go downhill. People are switching games, teams are disbanding, leagues are becoming empty, streams having less viewers, tournaments and lans having less people attending and watching live and so on. Or is it just that i somehow seem to notice the bad news and not the new beginnings?
This isn't the harbinger of SC2's decline, TSL was always in trouble.
On January 06 2013 03:33 President Dead wrote: As SC2 continues through-out the years I can pretty much expect this happening to many more teams. SC2 player base consistently gets worse and its useless for sponsors to support something that so little people are into. Sponsors should just go to LoL; at least that community won't be fledgling for next couple of years.
On January 06 2013 04:10 bbbloodmaker wrote: Man, this is sad. I don't know why, but I get this feeling that SC2 is starting to go downhill. People are switching games, teams are disbanding, leagues are becoming empty, streams having less viewers, tournaments and lans having less people attending and watching live and so on. Or is it just that i somehow seem to notice the bad news and not the new beginnings?
how can you say something like that...you just got an influx of EIGHT very well funded new teams.
Samsung KHAN CJ Entus SK Telecom T1 Woongjin Stars STX SouL KT Rolster 8th Team Azubu
and you're sad because a team with the business savvy of a bloody gecko closed down? Sure, I'm sad for TSL, and for the players who have to look for a new team, but yes, I'd say people are only noticing the bad news. TSL didn't close down because there is no money. TSL closed down because running a pro team is like running a business, but their management, if they had any, did not figure that out.
I don't know if it will all come crashing down. Azubu did just build a pretty solid team recently. But no one can deny that other games out right now are garnering thousands more interest from sponsors, and that will ultimately hurt the ability of SC2 to grow as a financial product.
The reasons why other games are more popular is another discussion, but the fact remains that sc2 probably needs to change how it handles money if it wants to not even succeed, but survive.
On January 06 2013 03:33 President Dead wrote: As SC2 continues through-out the years I can pretty much expect this happening to many more teams. SC2 player base consistently gets worse and its useless for sponsors to support something that so little people are into. Sponsors should just go to LoL; at least that community won't be fledgling for next couple of years.
player base getting worse when all of Kespa just switched over? are you kidding me? The skill now is only going to raise as those guys continue to play along side the great players who have been playing for 2+ years.
When Kespa came to sc2, it was obvious some ESF teams would fold. For the most part, ESF teams have little financial backing, and thats due to poor management. When you get all of Kespa involved, its going to mean poorly run teams will end up closing down.
On January 06 2013 04:44 Ikris wrote: I don't know if it will all come crashing down. Azubu did just build a pretty solid team recently. But no one can deny that other games out right now are garnering thousands more interest from sponsors, and that will ultimately hurt the ability of SC2 to grow as a financial product.
The reasons why other games are more popular is another discussion, but the fact remains that sc2 probably needs to change how it handles money if it wants to not even succeed, but survive.
proof of other games garnering thousands more interest from sponsors? Just because LoL is more popular doesn't mean more sponsors. Their entire scene is pretty much funded by the developer.
Azubu just launched their team. Axiom just launched theirs not long ago. EG opened a second sc2 house. TL seems to be doing pretty well. NASL is going to be on its 5th season. IPL just had their best event and has more scheduled for next year. MLG is still going strong, DH too. Its about having competent people run the business end. As the scene gets more competitive, its natural that poorly run businesses will die. Has nothing to do with the scene dying.
On January 06 2013 04:44 Ikris wrote: I don't know if it will all come crashing down. Azubu did just build a pretty solid team recently. But no one can deny that other games out right now are garnering thousands more interest from sponsors, and that will ultimately hurt the ability of SC2 to grow as a financial product.
The reasons why other games are more popular is another discussion, but the fact remains that sc2 probably needs to change how it handles money if it wants to not even succeed, but survive.
proof of other games garnering thousands more interest from sponsors? Just because LoL is more popular doesn't mean more sponsors. Their entire scene is pretty much funded by the developer.
Azubu just launched their team. Axiom just launched theirs not long ago. EG opened a second sc2 house. TL seems to be doing pretty well. NASL is going to be on its 5th season. IPL just had their best event and has more scheduled for next year. MLG is still going strong, DH too. Its about having competent people run the business end. As the scene gets more competitive, its natural that poorly run businesses will die. Has nothing to do with the scene dying.
How would being more popular not mean sponsors. Companies are going to be more attracted to the product that has a bigger audience. It's why commercial space for the Super Bowl is so expensive, because demand for that time is so high. It'd be amazing though if Blizzard followed suit and invested the same amount of time and effort in their games though.
On January 06 2013 03:33 President Dead wrote: As SC2 continues through-out the years I can pretty much expect this happening to many more teams. SC2 player base consistently gets worse and its useless for sponsors to support something that so little people are into. Sponsors should just go to LoL; at least that community won't be fledgling for next couple of years.
player base getting worse when all of Kespa just switched over? are you kidding me? The skill now is only going to raise as those guys continue to play along side the great players who have been playing for 2+ years.
When Kespa came to sc2, it was obvious some ESF teams would fold. For the most part, ESF teams have little financial backing, and thats due to poor management. When you get all of Kespa involved, its going to mean poorly run teams will end up closing down.
Yeah, but why are Kespa teams financially well? Because they had a lot of SC-BW in Korea interested in the game they play at highest standard.
But if Koreans care alot less about the SC2 game, then now is a very tense situation for Kespa and SC2 esports. Either, they manage to win the fans over to SC2, or they fans switch games themselves, then Starcraft francise esports is over.
On January 06 2013 03:33 President Dead wrote: As SC2 continues through-out the years I can pretty much expect this happening to many more teams. SC2 player base consistently gets worse and its useless for sponsors to support something that so little people are into. Sponsors should just go to LoL; at least that community won't be fledgling for next couple of years.
Source?
Watching Pro league right now with SKT1 and there's like 4 people filling out the 20ish chairs in front of the stage.... stream is barely floating 10k stream views (I've seen WoW players make/break that number daily)
Some things just dont need sources man, you just know it to be true.
On January 06 2013 04:10 bbbloodmaker wrote: Man, this is sad. I don't know why, but I get this feeling that SC2 is starting to go downhill. People are switching games, teams are disbanding, leagues are becoming empty, streams having less viewers, tournaments and lans having less people attending and watching live and so on. Or is it just that i somehow seem to notice the bad news and not the new beginnings?
how can you say something like that...you just got an influx of EIGHT very well funded new teams.
Samsung KHAN CJ Entus SK Telecom T1 Woongjin Stars STX SouL KT Rolster 8th Team Azubu
and you're sad because a team with the business savvy of a bloody gecko closed down? Sure, I'm sad for TSL, and for the players who have to look for a new team, but yes, I'd say people are only noticing the bad news. TSL didn't close down because there is no money. TSL closed down because running a pro team is like running a business, but their management, if they had any, did not figure that out.
Don't forget Axiom on that list either! They seem to be pretty well off, buying a house in Korea and all.
On January 06 2013 03:33 President Dead wrote: As SC2 continues through-out the years I can pretty much expect this happening to many more teams. SC2 player base consistently gets worse and its useless for sponsors to support something that so little people are into. Sponsors should just go to LoL; at least that community won't be fledgling for next couple of years.
Source?
Watching Pro league right now with SKT1 and there's like 4 people filling out the 20ish chairs in front of the stage.... stream is barely floating 10k stream views (I've seen WoW players make/break that number daily)
Some things just dont need sources man, you just know it to be true.
The newest stream viewer statistics are enough. But if Hots will be able to bring the Koreans back to SC|| there would be the chance of televised matches.
On January 06 2013 03:33 President Dead wrote: As SC2 continues through-out the years I can pretty much expect this happening to many more teams. SC2 player base consistently gets worse and its useless for sponsors to support something that so little people are into. Sponsors should just go to LoL; at least that community won't be fledgling for next couple of years.
Source?
Watching Pro league right now with SKT1 and there's like 4 people filling out the 20ish chairs in front of the stage.... stream is barely floating 10k stream views (I've seen WoW players make/break that number daily)
Some things just dont need sources man, you just know it to be true.
The newest stream viewer statistics are enough. But if Hots will be able to bring the Koreans back to SC|| there would be the chance of televised matches.
It is not going to happen, LoL already has such a grasp on the eSport market. Blizzard had a chance, they had the monopoly pretty much, but nawp, lets make a bad game + piss off kespa supporters.
On January 07 2013 04:38 hiyo_bye wrote: aww, I liked TSL a lot (mostly due to Polt, FD, trickster). Hope all goes well with the players and the coach!
Yeah hearing the coach is dealing with sickness along with his mother is super sad. They were in a tough enough spot as it was.
On January 05 2013 08:58 Catatonic wrote: Coach Lee blaming players for him not being able to keep the team going hahaha expected
It was the players' faults -_-
It was not player's fault for not being paid...
Yeah it was lol =P TSL was the first team with salaries, but all sponsors backed out of TSL due to the instability and immaturity of the players. Then they were never able to get good sponsors after that because all their star players kept leaving due to greed.
On January 05 2013 08:58 Catatonic wrote: Coach Lee blaming players for him not being able to keep the team going hahaha expected
It was the players' faults -_-
It was not player's fault for not being paid...
Yeah it was lol =P TSL was the first team with salaries, but all sponsors backed out of TSL due to the instability and immaturity of the players. Then they were never able to get good sponsors after that because all their star players kept leaving due to greed.
Nah you can't blame a poorly run team business wise on the players. Those immature guys you talked about left the team like 2 years ago. And Lee still couldn't get it right.
Polt stuck with TSL through hell, for no pay at all, for over a year. It's most certainly not his fault that he finally decided to leave so he could make the money he deserves to earn. Maybe it is the original players' faults but all of them left a long long time ago. Revival was the only original TSL member left near the end.
On January 07 2013 06:58 jmbthirteen wrote: Nah you can't blame a poorly run team business wise on the players. Those immature guys you talked about left the team like 2 years ago. And Lee still couldn't get it right.
You clearly don't know what you are talking about. and to be honest I wouldn't speak about it unless you know the entire story.
Do you know who paid for Polt's trips overseas all the time? Coach Lee Do you know who paid for all the team's expenses out of pocket for over a year? Coach Lee Do you know who has poured his heart into a team and ried his best to make things work? Coach Lee
Coach Lee allowed the players to keep all the money they won, which few Korean teams allow these days. Coach Lee tried very hard to get sponsors, but with Korea and sc2 sponsors just don't come around very often, This is the same reason why teams like NSHS and prime aren't in the best shape money wise, and the exact some reason teams like Zenex have shut down in the past.
Because people in TSL won't mention it outside of a select few people I'll be the first one to speak more frankly. Coach Lee's Mother has Cancer, Which is the illness Hyun and others have spoken about. Coach Kim had been taking a lot of the day to day stuff over from coach Lee. which is why you have seen him more often than Coach Lee. Coach Lee also has health problems of his own. And has many times been unable to manage TSL properly because he has been ill.
Coach Lee still though managed to support a family of his own, and a entire sc2 team for over a year. Thats impressive for anyone to say the least. He tried to get sponsors, I know for a fact he had a meeting in regards to a sponship during IPL 5.
And in all honesty, When polt and revival left he knew that it just wasn't worth the effort anymore, since many players had left before and he knew that eventually the other big players like Hyun and Symbol would move on to greener pastures.
Coach Lee has always wanted what is best for his players, and this is why he shut TSL down, to give the players a guilt free exit from the team to get the money that they deserve on others. Any implication that Coach Lee is blaming the players is downright stupid and shouldn't be taken as true. Coach Lee has never blamed the players.
On January 07 2013 06:58 jmbthirteen wrote: Nah you can't blame a poorly run team business wise on the players. Those immature guys you talked about left the team like 2 years ago. And Lee still couldn't get it right.
You clearly don't know what you are talking about. and to be honest I wouldn't speak about it unless you know the entire story.
Do you know who paid for Polt's trips overseas all the time? Coach Lee Do you know who paid for all the team's expenses out of pocket for over a year? Coach Lee Do you know who has poured his heart into a team and ried his best to make things work? Coach Lee
Coach Lee allowed the players to keep all the money they won, which few Korean teams allow these days. Coach Lee tried very hard to get sponsors, but with Korea and sc2 sponsors just don't come around very often, This is the same reason why teams like NSHS and prime aren't in the best shape money wise, and the exact some reason teams like Zenex have shut down in the past.
Because people in TSL won't mention it outside of a select few people I'll be the first one to speak more frankly. Coach Lee's Mother has Cancer, Which is the illness Hyun and others have spoken about. Coach Kim had been taking a lot of the day to day stuff over from coach Lee. which is why you have seen him more often than Coach Lee. Coach Lee also has health problems of his own. And has many times been unable to manage TSL properly because he has been ill.
Coach Lee still though managed to support a family of his own, and a entire sc2 team for over a year. Thats impressive for anyone to say the least. He tried to get sponsors, I know for a fact he had a meeting in regards to a sponship during IPL 5.
And in all honesty, When polt and revival left he knew that it just wasn't worth the effort anymore, since many players had left before and he knew that eventually the other big players like Hyun and Symbol would move on to greener pastures.
Coach Lee has always wanted what is best for his players, and this is why he shut TSL down, to give the players a guilt free exit from the team to get the money that they deserve on others. Any implication that Coach Lee is blaming the players is downright stupid and shouldn't be taken as true. Coach Lee has never blamed the players.
^ this. People don't realize that Coach Lee was the best coach in ESF. They bash him and bash him, but have no clue that he did everything to give to his players... If any other Coach was in charge of TSL, the team would have disbanded a long time ago..
@jmbthirteen I wasn't talking about 2 players. I was talking about all of the stars that TSL produced. FD and Trickster were the first two. They got so much out of being in TSL, and were the first SC2 players to be salaried in SC2 history. Then they started drinking and pissing away their time and became nothing but a nuisance. After Lee got tired and had them sit and practice or reconsider their salary, they tried to illegally move to Startale. They got caught, then they quit SC2. PuMa and JYP were both made in TSL. They went from nobodies to TSL starters and important GSTL members. They were both offered huge $$$ by EG, and they both left the team that made them. Same can be said of aLive (who was always thought to be awful until he made huge results under TSL right before switching to Fnatic) as well as Team Captains Killer and Clide (Trickster was also a team captain, so that's 3 team captains who betrayed TSL) Also notable is Heart, who also started showing results and gaining a lot of hype during his stay at TSL.
You take every player who became starters for TSL, and they all left the team for selfish reasons. Salaried and not salaried, they all betrayed the team that created them. All of them were nobodies before they joined TSL. With all of their star power leaving the team as soon as they were developed into star power material, their sponsors abandoned the project and Lee was never able to maintain a top tier team long enough to attract sponsors.
You add the personal problems the Lee had to deal with, and you have so much reason to feel sorry for Lee. Why would you defend any of the players for their harmful actions?
On January 07 2013 06:58 jmbthirteen wrote: Nah you can't blame a poorly run team business wise on the players. Those immature guys you talked about left the team like 2 years ago. And Lee still couldn't get it right.
You clearly don't know what you are talking about. and to be honest I wouldn't speak about it unless you know the entire story.
Do you know who paid for Polt's trips overseas all the time? Coach Lee Do you know who paid for all the team's expenses out of pocket for over a year? Coach Lee Do you know who has poured his heart into a team and ried his best to make things work? Coach Lee
Coach Lee allowed the players to keep all the money they won, which few Korean teams allow these days. Coach Lee tried very hard to get sponsors, but with Korea and sc2 sponsors just don't come around very often, This is the same reason why teams like NSHS and prime aren't in the best shape money wise, and the exact some reason teams like Zenex have shut down in the past.
Because people in TSL won't mention it outside of a select few people I'll be the first one to speak more frankly. Coach Lee's Mother has Cancer, Which is the illness Hyun and others have spoken about. Coach Kim had been taking a lot of the day to day stuff over from coach Lee. which is why you have seen him more often than Coach Lee. Coach Lee also has health problems of his own. And has many times been unable to manage TSL properly because he has been ill.
Coach Lee still though managed to support a family of his own, and a entire sc2 team for over a year. Thats impressive for anyone to say the least. He tried to get sponsors, I know for a fact he had a meeting in regards to a sponship during IPL 5.
And in all honesty, When polt and revival left he knew that it just wasn't worth the effort anymore, since many players had left before and he knew that eventually the other big players like Hyun and Symbol would move on to greener pastures.
Coach Lee has always wanted what is best for his players, and this is why he shut TSL down, to give the players a guilt free exit from the team to get the money that they deserve on others. Any implication that Coach Lee is blaming the players is downright stupid and shouldn't be taken as true. Coach Lee has never blamed the players.
^ this. People don't realize that Coach Lee was the best coach in ESF. They bash him and bash him, but have no clue that he did everything to give to his players... If any other Coach was in charge of TSL, the team would have disbanded a long time ago..
@jmbthirteen I wasn't talking about 2 players. I was talking about all of the stars that TSL produced. FD and Trickster were the first two. They got so much out of being in TSL, and were the first SC2 players to be salaried in SC2 history. Then they started drinking and pissing away their time and became nothing but a nuisance. After Lee got tired and had them sit and practice or reconsider their salary, they tried to illegally move to Startale. They got caught, then they quit SC2. PuMa and JYP were both made in TSL. They went from nobodies to TSL starters and important GSTL members. They were both offered huge $$$ by EG, and they both left the team that made them. Same can be said of aLive (who was always thought to be awful until he made huge results under TSL right before switching to Fnatic) as well as Team Captains Killer and Clide (Trickster was also a team captain, so that's 3 team captains who betrayed TSL) Also notable is Heart, who also started showing results and gaining a lot of hype during his stay at TSL.
You take every player who became starters for TSL, and they all left the team for selfish reasons. Salaried and not salaried, they all betrayed the team that created them. All of them were nobodies before they joined TSL. With all of their star power leaving the team as soon as they were developed into star power material, their sponsors abandoned the project and Lee was never able to maintain a top tier team long enough to attract sponsors.
You add the personal problems the Lee had to deal with, and you have so much reason to feel sorry for Lee. Why would you defend any of the players for their harmful actions?
Greed kills the game. Always has and always will.
Ok, I'm sure that what I'm about to say has been brought up before in this thread, but I feel the need to rehash it.
If someone offered me significantly more money to do the same job I'm currently doing, I would jump at the opportunity. I would let my employer know that I had the offer, and give him the chance to match it. If he were unable or unwilling, I would give my two week's notice and not look back. I fail to see how this is any different than switching teams. It's certainly not a "betrayal" or a "harmful action." If you worked at McDonald's, and quit when you found a better job, would you lie awake at nights worrying about your treason against the Golden Arches?
On the other hand, I'm not in any way blaming Coach Lee for this. I'm saddened to hear about his health problems and those of his family, and I wish nothing but the best for him. It's sad to see TSL leaving too, they were a great team. I just don't think anyone is at fault. Sometimes things just happen, and it looks like TSL leaving the SC2 scene is one of those things.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/PTIiV.png)
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. First, Parting leaves startale, MJ disbands (T.T B4), then TSL???
