New Axiom Teamhouse Tour via TB

ESF business model is for the most part broken. It's not necessarily all their fault, sponsors don't grow on trees and many of these teams do not have a main source of income outside of that. Never gamble with money you can't afford to lose. Right now it seems like there are some teams (and some of those have now disbanded) who did just that, hoping to get sponsors later down the line. You can't build a team on hope alone.

More to the point, you can't build one on sponsors alone. In the words of the wise and powerful Wu Tang Clan



Where can you draw revenue streams from? Well the clue is in the name, streams. Not enough teams actively stream. When they do, not enough actively understand how to put on a show. Learn a little English so you can communicate with your fans in a really basic manner, do something entertaining, organize something out of the ordinary, do customs, do team-games. While you're doing that, consider what kind of media your house can produce without requiring any real monetary investment. Interviews are a given, all you need is a translator and a webcam. Turn the players into personalities, show them outside of merely playing SC2, if you do that then you can produce a wider variety of media which can be monetized by Twitch and/or Youtube because people will want to watch your players and learn more about them. Run in-house events and get someone to cast them. SHOUTcraft House of the Swarm made it's prizemoney back in ad revenue on Twitch ALONE. That's a $1000 tournament that just funded itself and promoted 3 teams and all their sponsors while doing it. You don't even have to provide a prizepool, they are your players, just have em play a few matches out of their schedule to promote the team and make you some ad revenue.

Merchandise the shit out of your team. Make desirable items of clothing available via international retailers, there are plenty out there that can handle all that for you and you just take home your cut at the end of the day. Know what paid for this team-house? A t-shirt. 1 t-shirt. A 2 week run of that t-shirt made enough money to fund the house FOR A YEAR. I'm not just talking rent either, I'm talking utilities too. Obviously, no team actually has the media reach that I do so I have an advantage but fuck, where are the shirts? EG and TL know the score on that. Where is the merch? What about posters with players on them? Let fans have posters on their walls of their favourite players just like real sports. Hats, hoodies, trading cards. If you sign sponsor deals with peripheral manufacturers, work with them to create branded gear for your team which you can then sell to supporters.

This is what teams need to understand and get into the business of doing. In-game success has never been the sole factor in keeping your team afloat.