edit: I put this at the end of the article but people seemed to skim: I understand this article does not take into account how much companies actually spend on teams. However, it has always seemed like the really huge sponsors are less likely to go under and are able to provide financial stability that smaller sponsors are not.
Numbers were pulled from Yahoo! Finance (which pulls from Capital IQ) and the company's statements, except Red Bull revenue which was pulled from the Wikipedia Article.
I also apologize for claiming EG-TL would definitely drop out. It just seems like the most likely scenario to me, but I realize decisions have not yet been reached.
There are a couple other issues that haven't been touched upon: financial barriers aren't the only ones to entry; LG-IM may not want to join.
/Edit
Who’s next?
With EG-TL all but certainly leaving Proleague, the venerated KeSPA-run league is once again down to seven teams. This has left the entire community wondering what will happen next. The most obvious candidates to replace EG-TL come from the other major Korean eSports organization: ESF. Proleague, however, is notoriously expensive—it’s questionable whether the teams of ESF can afford entering and competing.
The following analysis is meant to help clarify, for those of us without inside information, whether it seems even feasible for ESF teams to join the SPL based on the companies that sponsor them.
Revenue in millions of USD. Samsung Electronics left out because they make the graph look absurd.
LG-IM
LG-IM is the most successful non-KeSPA team in the world. They are an instant contender in any league they enter. They are the most recent champions of the extremely prestigious GSTL. On top of that, they are home to some of the most successful individual players in the world. Their lineup speaks for itself: MVP, First, KangHo represent some of the finest SC2 talent in Korea. They unquestionably have the potential to be competitive, even in a league as rigorous and demanding as SPL. But can they compete financially?
Yes.
LG Electronics represents one of the largest companies in all of Korea. Their revenue is a mind-numbing $48 billion, which makes them one of the largest sponsors in Proleague, behind only Samsung Electronics. If LG is willing to commit to being a competitive force in all leagues, it should be a financial breeze for them.
What is more important than simple raw revenue, however, is what they spend on marketing. Unfortunately, they combine their selling and marketing expenses which inflates the number, but the amount, which totals over $6 billion, is still staggering. To put that into perspective, SK Telecom only spends $358 million on advertising. For a company the size of LG electronics, the amount they spend on their SC2 team is a blip—they will still want ROI and they will still demand to see results, but they can afford to take the risk of spending more on their team.
More impressively, LG-IM’s big name sponsors do not stop there: Nvidia, Coca-Cola, and SteelSeries are also sources of cash for the ESF giant. If there is a team that is both ready to compete and has the financial resources to make it happen, it is LG-IM.
StarTale
LG-IM may be the big kid on the block, but they are by no means the only well-financed team. StarTale, founded by Brood War legends July and Rainbow, is another historically successful team who may journey to PL in search of new hunting ground. Sponsored by Red Bull, they are also perceived by the community to have a big-company backing that could allow them to muscle their way in.
The problem for LG-IM is twofold. First, Red Bull is not as large as most of the companies involved with Proleague. Second, it is unclear whether Red Bull is up for the commitment that comes with sponsoring the entire Proleague experience.
At first glance, Red Bull’s size is not necessarily a problem. Although Red Bull’s revenue of $5.6 billion would make it one of the smallest primary Proleague sponsors, the two smallest teams in the current league are currently duking it out in the final. However, as time wears on (assuming SC2 remains a spectator sport), the budgets will undoubtedly catch up to the teams.
The last five Proleagues in Brood War were dominated by teams backed by huge companies
However, this problem may be avoided in SC2 since KeSPA has less control over player movements and players in general. Having an active, decent paying foreign scene greatly mitigates their level of control. I am not sure how this will affect the league, but it may certainly change some dynamics.
The second concern is that Red Bull may not be able to commit to their SC2 team. The answer here is that Red Bull has shown willingness to explore: they have sponsored StarTale, they have hosted Battle Grounds, and they constantly show up around the scene. All that is left is for them to take the plunge.
StarTale, thus stands a decent chance of getting involved with ProLeague. Their level of sponsorship is high; Red Bull’s commitment is not iron-clad, but it certainly would not be surprising to see them get more involved.
Acer Acer is huge. They bring in over $16 billion a year, which puts them in the same size range as KT Rolster and SK Telecom T1—two teams that have been extremely competitive historically. While exactly how much of that revenue is put to work in marketing, it is safe to assume their marketing department has a large budget.
There’s just one problem: Acer is doing terribly financially.
For all of their revenue, they just can’t seem to turn a profit. Last year, they lost almost $3 billion, which is actually more than twice as good as their $6.6 billion lost from two years ago. When a company is bleeding money, they usually do not look to invest more money into a venture—not matter how small it is compared to their overall size. While they might not look to actively cut their team, it would be odd to ramp up investment in their (relatively) trying time. On the other hand, they were losing money when they began the SC2 team at all, so it is possible they can still ramp up their investment.
On the other hand, that ramp-up would be more extreme than other teams. While Acer has a solid core line-up in MMA, Bly, Scarlett, they are too focused on a single race (they need a Protoss to compete and MMA would have to play every match currently) and they do not have enough players to be competitive. They would have to make substantial investments, picking up new players. The other option is to be the EG in a partnership like the Unholy Alliance, which they have experience executing in the GSTL.
Given the questions about how deep Acer is willing to dip into their pockets and the problems with their lineup, I think it’s relatively unlikely that they take the plunge. However, the potential is there simply based on the strength of their backing.
MVP
Why is MVP last here? They are another amazing team with extremely strong results. They have a more developed, robust roster than Acer and just as much success as StarTale and Incredible Miracle—why are they being relegated to the bottom position in this lengthy post?
The answer is that they have, in my opinion, the worst backing financially. According to Liquipedia their main sponsors include Center Point (who I cannot find information about), Hot6ix who has a mere $116 million in revenue and Razer, who brings in even less. To make matters worse, these companies are all over eSports, which spread their already-small purses even thinner.
In the end, MVP, as awesome a team as they are, does not have the fiscal backing to push them into another, more expensive, teamleauge.
Conclusion
I think that LG-IM moving would be natural—they have all the right elements in place to make the switch. Each of the other teams have questions, especially Acer and MVP, but any of them could go over. I did not cover it here, but FXO also has an outside shot of making the transition, but their struggles are largely the same as MVP’s—the sponsor has only so much juice.
There are certainly flaws here—I am confident the community can point them out and argue against me well. I know there will be other points of view and I am eager to hear other ideas about where Proleague will go next.
I think one obvious problem is that I did not take into account the commitment each team has for eSports. LG might have deep pockets but that doesn't mean they're necessarily going to spend what they have. Samsung comes to mind--they easily have the highest revenue but have clearly limited how much they will spend. Still, the size of the company has been a good indicator for financial stability in the past--Samsung, KT, SKT and CJ are all among the most secure teams in the league.
TBH comparing these companies' revenue is pointless. The expenditure here is chump change for all of them, I'm sure they spend many many more times the money in general advertising. The only question here is level of commitment, which this graph doesn't address. Nevertheless the rest of the article is pretty well argued, overall a good read.
The hard part of SPL is the commitment - in order to win, you really needed to buckle down and practice properly in a proper training environment (which EG-TL initially lacked). However, this also means a lot of sacrifice in terms of other competitions (most notably foreign ones). For the star players, this will increase their local fanbase but reduce their possible prize money from foreign tournaments as well as reduce their ability to travel. This doesn't seem to be wise for aging stars like MVP and Nestea.
Just recently Innovation had to forfeit his IEM spot in favor of practicing for SPL finals. That just about sums up a star player's life in SPL: all individual accolades become secondary to the team's success (not necessarily a bad thing).
On July 23 2013 03:58 Emzeeshady wrote: I would love to see a combined SPL/GSTL league
If IM left GSTL then GSTL just wouldn't be the same...
Imagine the hype there would be though if LGIM was taking on KT in the grand finals of SPL :O
If nothing else, I hope that we could have a fun showmatch between the winner of GSTL (LG-IM) and winner of SPL (STX or Woongjin). Play SPL format first, GSTL format second, then ace match if necessary!
On July 23 2013 04:01 calh wrote: TBH comparing these companies' revenue is pointless. The expenditure here is chump change for all of them, I'm sure they spend many many more times the money in general advertising. The only question here is level of commitment, which this graph doesn't address. Nevertheless the rest of the article is pretty well argued, overall a good read.
Yeah, that occurred to me and I agree. Revenue is more a proxy for size than anything else--a really huge company hardly feels the hit at all while a smaller company might at least notice (Samsung is overwhelmingly large vs Red Bull which, you know, has some limit on their budgets).
I work for a much larger company now than I used to (although both are pretty large) and the small company did take more notice of expenses--although that could have been company culture, it's just a better company etc.
Keep in mind that while budgets seem limitless a company pinching pennies might not pursue expenditure even if it's small. It's more a mindset than anything.
edit: I tried to find marketing budgets for every company, but there were so many companies combining expenses in different ways that normalizing became impossible.
I foresee more of a Western sports situation happening. Proleague (with egtl continuing, I don't recall seeing anything about them not participating anymore) would be one championship, GSTL the other, and both champions competing to see who was the best of the best. Most US sports at least have that same 2 league championship method going for them. I don't see any reason not to give that a shot. They can even use the US's Baseball method, where each league can have vastly differing rules (pinch hitters for pitchers vs pitchers batting) and only need to agree to a set of rules for one game a season. I'm surprised it hasn't happened already to be honest.
The problem with that analysis is that kespa teams are owned by the sponsors, so the commitment is high. The distance between LG and IM is bigger, we are not even sure how much money they dump on IMs pockets
I must say the OP seem to be a lot of "theory crafting" regarding the economic situation.
I dont want to go into details of any of the mentioned teams. But I dont see any sources that actually shows the economical situation for the teams mentioned.
Sure they are sponsored by rich companies. However there is no sources of how much they are actually provided and therefore claiming that "those teams can afford this and that" is not reliable what so ever.
With Proleague going LoL, LGIM having 2 high performing lol teams and the gstl champs ( imagine if IM leave gstl ) it's obviously the easiest pick for kespa to go that route ( if IM are interested ).
Considering Nestea has been one of ESF's strongest player figures it would be highly unlikely for LG-IM to switch from GSTL to PL. I do agree that I would love to see LG-IM vs whoever wins PL... But it's not going to happen in PL.
I wouldn't bother with SPL as long as there is GSTL, but that is my international point of view. Since LG is from south korea they might be more interested in SPL as it probably means more over there. Anyway with Nsh disbanding there is space in GSTL *waves over to EG/TL*.
I personally would be interested if the two winners of SPL and GSTL face each other, but I doubt this will happen as it would probably affect the popularity of the losing teamleague. And I think Wongjin Stars or LG IM could both win this showdown.
edit: Wongjin Stars could of course fill 2 spots in SPL. A team and B team.
On July 23 2013 04:01 calh wrote: TBH comparing these companies' revenue is pointless. The expenditure here is chump change for all of them, I'm sure they spend many many more times the money in general advertising. The only question here is level of commitment, which this graph doesn't address. Nevertheless the rest of the article is pretty well argued, overall a good read.
Yeah, that occurred to me and I agree. Revenue is more a proxy for size than anything else--a really huge company hardly feels the hit at all while a smaller company might at least notice (Samsung is overwhelmingly large vs Red Bull which, you know, has some limit on their budgets).
I work for a much larger company now than I used to (although both are pretty large) and the small company did take more notice of expenses--although that could have been company culture, it's just a better company etc.
Keep in mind that while budgets seem limitless a company pinching pennies might not pursue expenditure even if it's small. It's more a mindset than anything.
Very much agreed in principle, but I maintain that in this case the amount expended is of secondary importance, compared to the size of all these firms. Take Red Bull for example: as one of the smallest, they have enough to sponsor an F1 team, and who know what else in sports. I work for a company several times smaller than Red Bull and they sponsor a major European football team, admittedly not totally because they are looking for ROI.
Now the SPL expenditure is indeed on top of other marketing expenses and so as prone to cuts as anything else, but I think the numbers check out in such a way that the impact of company size is far below other factors like tradition, targeted audience vs marketing audience, public image and personal connections (never ever underestimate this one ).
On July 23 2013 04:02 Caladbolg wrote: This doesn't seem to be wise for aging stars like MVP and Nestea.
Is Mvp really considered an aging star? Sure, he's been around the StarCraft II scene for years, but c'mon... he's only 22. That's one year older then Flash and younger than a huge number of other professional gamers.
The problem is it doesn't matter how big LG is, since all that matters is how much money they give to IM. To be honest, I don't think it's that much, but I'm just guessing. I remember the IM coach was doing a facebook campaign to get people to message LG to tell them how much they like them sponsoring IM because he said they were considering not renewing the sponsorship.
On July 23 2013 04:08 Glorfindel! wrote: I must say the OP seem to be a lot of "theory crafting" regarding the economic situation.
I dont want to go into details of any of the mentioned teams. But I dont see any sources that actually shows the economical situation for the teams mentioned.
Sure they are sponsored by rich companies. However there is no sources of how much they are actually provided and therefore claiming that "those teams can afford this and that" is not reliable what so ever.
Inside sources on allocation would obviously be helpful but I'm not an eSports insider so I don't have them.
I don't know whether I've addressed that in the OP (I'm wrote this at work while waiting for turnaround on the report), but the point you bring up is good and definitely a viable counter-argument.
My general claim is that a richer company probably can afford to budget more for their SC2 team. I think this is generally true--when a company as large as CJ, Samsung etc. has picked a team up they usually don't go under and usually don't have the same obvious money struggles as teams sponsored by smaller companies. While there is probably not much of a difference between 15 and 25 billion in company budgeting, a company like Razer, that has so many sponsorships going and brings in a relatively small amount of money is unlikely to be able to give any one of its teams such heavy support.
A:They are sponsored by LG, a large Korean company B:They have a LoL team, I don't see any team joining Kespa without a LoL team seeing as it is the premiere Kespa esports.
Also if im not mistaken in the past the BW team of STX had better conditions and more money then the Khan team. SKT1 and KT were always the teams with money in BW, not Samsung Khan despite being the biggest company by a large margin.
On July 23 2013 04:16 Canucklehead wrote: The problem is it doesn't matter how big LG is, since all that matters is how much money they give to IM. To be honest, I don't think it's that much, but I'm just guessing. I remember the IM coach was doing a facebook campaign to get people to message LG to tell them how much they like them sponsoring IM because he said they were considering not renewing the sponsorship.
Agree with this point.
I totally forgot there was evidence that points to LG not feeling fulfilled--I was mostly going off what other companies the size of LG were doing.
Another poster brought up how much RedBull sponsors and that's a great point.
The TYPE of marketing a company is used to is just as important as how much they spend on advertising overall.
The EG-TL going out of Proleague is not a certainty though. They said they are considering options and imo it will come down to "can we hire a good enough coach to make sure we get most out of the league for a money we are able/we want to pay him?"
One more thing I don't really understand - to a Korean team with already established enviroment, like LG-IM, like ST, like MVP... what exactly is the "notoriously expensive" part of joining SPL? 100k deposit, sure - but they are not really spending those money, they will have it returned if they play all the matches. So what is the difference between SPL and GSTL in that regard?
What would be really cool to see is a finals between the winner of GSTL and Proleague. Kind of like the Superbowl used to be with American Football(HandEgg) back in the AFL/NFL days
On July 23 2013 04:19 Ammanas wrote: The EG-TL going out of Proleague is not a certainty though. They said they are considering options and imo it will come down to "can we hire a good enough coach to make sure we get most out of the league for a money we are able/we want to pay him?"
One more thing I don't really understand - to a Korean team with already established enviroment, like LG-IM, like ST, like MVP... what exactly is the "notoriously expensive" part of joining SPL? 100k deposit, sure - but they are not really spending those money, they will have it returned if they play all the matches. So what is the difference between SPL and GSTL in that regard?
1, Yeah, I was being a bit dramatic about EG-TL 2. Wasn't aware it was just a deposit 3. Even still, it's still difficult to have 100k locked up from a sponsor to not do anything with for a year. It ties up your sponsor's cash--which is still an onerous commitment for them.
I think for EG-TL it will come down to "can we really compete and win in this league without it being our first priority"
MVP as an organization actually has a lot more sponsors than it seems.
From Leaguepedia:
Expedia Ozone HOT6iX BenQ
I suppose Expedia would be the biggest one company-wise, but that's just a guess.
Also one of their LoL squads, MVP Ozone, is one of the best teams in Korea right now. They won the last season of OGN Champions, stomping CJ Entus 3-0 (I guess that result should show their importance). I'm pretty sure that if we theorycraft this topic, we have to factor in things like this aswell. KeSPA can NOT miss out on MVP for their LoL league, so it wouldn't be too unrealistic for them to join Proleague at the same time, I guess (I hope)?
On July 23 2013 04:18 Kleinmuuhg wrote: Maybe you should wait until they have made their decision. Maybe Papa john sponsors the training house in Korea.
They might not be out of it yet but lets face the facts. EG-TL appeals to the non-Korean audience and are trying to compete in a Korean league that comes on at a bad time for basically everyone else in the world. Proleague is also very cut-throat, all of the 7 other teams focus primarily on Proleague, EG-TL focuses on Proleague but also put a strong emphasis on individual tournaments(MLG, WCS, DH, etc..). It is hard to compete when you have your best player(s) traveling half way around the world every month where they get more exposure and potentially miss a Proleague match. If they want to be competitive in Proleague they are going to have to really buckle down and focus solely on it just like every other team. Keep in mind, the skill level of the players in general is only going to go up overtime, HotS is still relatively new.
On July 23 2013 04:18 Kleinmuuhg wrote: Maybe you should wait until they have made their decision. Maybe Papa john sponsors the training house in Korea.
They might not be out of it yet but lets face the facts. EG-TL appeals to the non-Korean audience and are trying to compete in a Korean league that comes on at a bad time for basically everyone else in the world. Proleague is also very cut-throat, all of the 7 other teams focus primarily on Proleague, EG-TL focuses on Proleague but also put a strong emphasis on individual tournaments(MLG, WCS, DH, etc..). It is hard to compete when you have your best player(s) traveling half way around the world every month where they get more exposure and potentially miss a Proleague match. If they want to be competitive in Proleague they are going to have to really buckle down and focus solely on it just like every other team. Keep in mind, the skill level of the players in general is only going to go up overtime, HotS is still relatively new.
I agree with what you are saying. Still, making the decision is not that easy and has not been made yet so I would wait and see first.
btw, I really like to watch Korean LoL, but man I just cannot watch those broadcast cause it makes me sad seeing the packed studio and fangirl screams.. When I realize all this was supposed to be reserved for Flash and JangBi and Jaedong etc etc, I am just feeling depressed all the time :/
On July 23 2013 04:30 qGSkipper wrote: Can anyone elaborate on how/why Proleague is so expensive? What exactly are the financial costs of participating in Proleague?
Afaik (I can be mistaken though, I've never followed BW and all I know about SPL is from this season and lots of BW liquipedia I read after I started to like the league):
-you have to have a big roster to be able to compete (which shouldn't really be that much of an issue for already established ESF teams like IM, ST, MVP imo) -you have to pay 100k deposit (they will return you the money after sucessfully finishing the season) -I am not aware of anything else, that would separate SPL from GSTL on the financial side
On July 23 2013 04:30 qGSkipper wrote: Can anyone elaborate on how/why Proleague is so expensive? What exactly are the financial costs of participating in Proleague?
I believe the teams have to put a 100k deposit upfront that they get back at the end of the season if they finish the whole thing.
My main question is where is your source? You can't just do a write up of certain companies and teams with out any kind of off site information that proves your statements. I only take this as blasphemy and you just trying to bring down teams and their key role in certain tournaments, leagues. If you want to be taken serious, you need to provide evidence and not just post pictures that anybody could have made.
Only reason why I call you out on it, is because Acer is actually still making profit gains. Even though they're not making as much as they used to at one point. They still make profit in every quarter.
I don't know... Proleague has really become bad in terms of production and viewer numbers, live stage and live crowd. Is investing into a tournament like that so heavily really a sound choice for a sponsor who seeks to spend money in competitive gaming or aren't there better ways?
btw, I really like to watch Korean LoL, but man I just cannot watch those broadcast cause it makes me sad seeing the packed studio and fangirl screams.. When I realize all this was supposed to be reserved for Flash and JangBi and Jaedong etc etc, I am just feeling depressed all the time :/
I know exaclty what you mean by the little "rant". For me it's always really bittersweet - a very confusing feeling.
To be blunt about LG-IM though, both their teams are on the bottom of the OGN league skill-wise right now, making them only a top 16 or maybe top 12 team in Korea.
Man, If the SC2 and the LoL squads were swapped for both teams, we wouldn't have to theorycraft who'd be the next PL team! That would be perfect.
On July 23 2013 04:35 edgeOut wrote: Man, this thread is terrible. EG-TL is not out. And comparing company revenue, really? you must be kidding.
On July 23 2013 04:35 ShoCkeyy wrote: My main question is where is your source? You can't just do a write up of certain companies and teams with out any kind of off site information that proves your statements. I only take this as blasphemy and you just trying to bring down teams and their key role in certain tournaments, leagues. If you want to be taken serious, you need to provide evidence and not just post pictures that anybody could have made.
You can find the revenues of these companies that sponsor the teams on wikipedia. He's making an analysis of which possible esf teams can and will enter proleague. I don't see why you people are so angry.
On July 23 2013 04:35 ShoCkeyy wrote: My main question is where is your source? You can't just do a write up of certain companies and teams with out any kind of off site information that proves your statements. I only take this as blasphemy and you just trying to bring down teams and their key role in certain tournaments, leagues. If you want to be taken serious, you need to provide evidence and not just post pictures that anybody could have made.
You can find the revenues of these companies that sponsor the teams on wikipedia. He's making an analysis of which possible esf teams can and will enter proleague.
Yes, but why doesn't he include this? This is just bad reporting. A user isn't suppose to search for it, he needs to be able to include all kinds of sources that backs up his story. Like I said, I can just take this as blasphemy since there is no kind of sources.
On July 23 2013 04:35 edgeOut wrote: Man, this thread is terrible. EG-TL is not out. And comparing company revenue, really? you must be kidding.
On July 23 2013 04:35 ShoCkeyy wrote: My main question is where is your source? You can't just do a write up of certain companies and teams with out any kind of off site information that proves your statements. I only take this as blasphemy and you just trying to bring down teams and their key role in certain tournaments, leagues. If you want to be taken serious, you need to provide evidence and not just post pictures that anybody could have made.
You can find the revenues of these companies that sponsor the teams on wikipedia. He's making an analysis of which possible esf teams can and will enter proleague.
Yes, but why doesn't he include this? This is just bad reporting. A user isn't suppose to search for it, he needs to be able to include all kinds of sources that backs up his story. Like I said, I can just take this as blasphemy since there is no kind of sources.
On July 23 2013 04:35 edgeOut wrote: Man, this thread is terrible. EG-TL is not out. And comparing company revenue, really? you must be kidding.
On July 23 2013 04:35 ShoCkeyy wrote: My main question is where is your source? You can't just do a write up of certain companies and teams with out any kind of off site information that proves your statements. I only take this as blasphemy and you just trying to bring down teams and their key role in certain tournaments, leagues. If you want to be taken serious, you need to provide evidence and not just post pictures that anybody could have made.
You can find the revenues of these companies that sponsor the teams on wikipedia. He's making an analysis of which possible esf teams can and will enter proleague.
Yes, but why doesn't he include this? This is just bad reporting. A user isn't suppose to search for it, he needs to be able to include all kinds of sources that backs up his story. Like I said, I can just take this as blasphemy since there is no kind of sources.
I'm just going to ignore this; goes to show you don't even research yourself. Those revenues/net incomes haven't been updated in years.
SK - Revenue Increase USD 13.601 billion (2010) Acer - Revenue Decrease US$16.18 billion (2011) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull - Doesn't even have the revenue or net income.
As far as I know, MVP has been loosely associated with Lotte in the past, which, if their support can be formalized/increased would make them a perfect fit too, as they are also a Koren conglomerate like the other Kespa companies.
Hm, I can't find anything on Liquipedia on this, was I only hallucinating or misremembering?
On July 23 2013 04:18 Kleinmuuhg wrote: Maybe you should wait until they have made their decision. Maybe Papa john sponsors the training house in Korea.
On July 23 2013 04:35 edgeOut wrote: Man, this thread is terrible. EG-TL is not out. And comparing company revenue, really? you must be kidding.
On July 23 2013 04:35 ShoCkeyy wrote: My main question is where is your source? You can't just do a write up of certain companies and teams with out any kind of off site information that proves your statements. I only take this as blasphemy and you just trying to bring down teams and their key role in certain tournaments, leagues. If you want to be taken serious, you need to provide evidence and not just post pictures that anybody could have made.
You can find the revenues of these companies that sponsor the teams on wikipedia. He's making an analysis of which possible esf teams can and will enter proleague.
Yes, but why doesn't he include this? This is just bad reporting. A user isn't suppose to search for it, he needs to be able to include all kinds of sources that backs up his story. Like I said, I can just take this as blasphemy since there is no kind of sources.
I'm just going to ignore this; goes to show you don't even research yourself. Those revenues/net incomes haven't been updated in years.
SK - Revenue Increase USD 13.601 billion (2010) Acer - Revenue Decrease US$16.18 billion (2011) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull - Doesn't even have the revenue or net income.
I never said they were updated numbers. I linked you to where he got most of his information(with a simple google search), don't blame me if the numbers are old. I provided sources for the numbers he showed on his graph.
and the fact that they still are LG-IM long after obtaining the sponsorship more than a year ago, combined with several other noteworthy sponsors I'd wager a guess that they could afford the 100k deposit.
LG still likely isn't as deeply invested with IM as most, if not all, Kespa team sponsors are, but I think the potential for them to be is there though. IM certainly has demonstrated they have the skill, most of their players are competing in WCS Korea, they don't attend many foreign tournaments and I would think that surely LG would want to represented in proleague at some point.
I mean are they really going to let Samsung steal all the glory >_>
On July 23 2013 04:09 y0su wrote: Considering Nestea has been one of ESF's strongest player figures it would be highly unlikely for LG-IM to switch from GSTL to PL. I do agree that I would love to see LG-IM vs whoever wins PL... But it's not going to happen in PL.
Blizzard should just force them to create one big team league anyway.
Too much stuff over there is decided based on money and not based on who deserves to decide. In other sports the guys cheated into office deserve that office somewhat at least.
Question is what IM has to gain from participating in PL? PL does not have that many viewers, most of them are hardcore fans. And there is a 100K entry fee?
On July 23 2013 04:09 y0su wrote: Considering Nestea has been one of ESF's strongest player figures it would be highly unlikely for LG-IM to switch from GSTL to PL. I do agree that I would love to see LG-IM vs whoever wins PL... But it's not going to happen in PL.
hahahaha
Why are you laughing? He is right you know, Nestea is the player representative at ESF and IM is a founding member. IM switching to PL would require either serious change in the relations of ESF and Kespa or straight out dissolving ESF.
Have to say, the two main factors we don't know enough about to come to any sort of conclusion are
- Even if your sponsor is a rich company, how much are they willing to shell out? Hypothetically, ST might get more from an enthusiastic RedBull sponsorship than IM might get from a lukewarm LG.
- Secondly, we don't know exactly how much it actually costs to participate in Proleauge, when you're talking opportunity cost (ie. If EG and TL had already decided they wanted a Korean pro house, then also joining Proleague is much less daunting than if they were originally planning on having their players stay "abroad"). It also depends on how much the teams want to put in - maybe Proleague on its own is not too expensive, but hiring/keeping a dedicated coach so your team doesn't bomb out every match boosts the price tag enough to give them second thoughts.
I don't expect either of those pieces of information to become public anytime soon, and indeed they shouldn't as they are essential parts of a team's internal financial strategy. So, I don't think it's very valuable to speculate on who might join Proleague simply based on the limited financial information we have. If anything, I would consider the "personal connections" across teams, players, and organizations to point to the answer. (Which eSF or non-KESPA non-eSF team/s has/have the best working relationship with KESPA)
On July 23 2013 05:19 painkilla wrote: Question is what IM has to gain from participating in PL? PL does not have that many viewers, most of them are hardcore fans. And there is a 100K entry fee?
Nobody here knows the TV ratings and numbers for proleague but we can assume it is watched by a lot more Korean viewers than GSTL.
On July 23 2013 04:09 y0su wrote: Considering Nestea has been one of ESF's strongest player figures it would be highly unlikely for LG-IM to switch from GSTL to PL. I do agree that I would love to see LG-IM vs whoever wins PL... But it's not going to happen in PL.
hahahaha
Why are you laughing? He is right you know, Nestea is the player representative at ESF and IM is a founding member. IM switching to PL would require either serious change in the relations of ESF and Kespa or straight out dissolving ESF.
I don't know how loyal IM is to eSF, but now that GSL doesn't run independent of Blizzard I don't see any good reason why they have to stay in eSF. eSF doesn't seem to really do anything these days anyway, Kespa has qualifiers for their own players but I never see eSF qualifiers.
On July 23 2013 04:09 y0su wrote: Considering Nestea has been one of ESF's strongest player figures it would be highly unlikely for LG-IM to switch from GSTL to PL. I do agree that I would love to see LG-IM vs whoever wins PL... But it's not going to happen in PL.
hahahaha
do you remember the name of the guy pulling out all the esf player of the last OSL?
I think its pretty obvious LG is forking over a nice chunk of change to IM. Anytime the companies name becomes a part of the team name I tend to think that way.
Jjust to clarify something: both LG-IM teams are doing extremely horrible in OGN LoL. They're easily the worst two teams there. Could effect their involvement in SPL.
On July 23 2013 04:17 Rhaegal wrote: Combine GSTL and SPL, have Khaldor and Wolf cast it. Bam! Scene becomes more awesome and exciting than ever in the history of SC2.
Gnah, not more of them :D
But even if they merge, I guess it will be split broadcasting like WCS KR
Where is this 100k deposit thing coming from? I can't find any info on it. I understand that it's important that the teams fully commit to the (televised) season but 100k seems a bit high.
On July 23 2013 05:48 iKill[ShocK] wrote: Jjust to clarify something: both LG-IM teams are doing extremely horrible in OGN LoL. They're easily the worst two teams there. Could effect their involvement in SPL.
On July 23 2013 04:41 JustPassingBy wrote: I don't know... Proleague has really become bad in terms of production and viewer numbers, live stage and live crowd. Is investing into a tournament like that so heavily really a sound choice for a sponsor who seeks to spend money in competitive gaming or aren't there better ways?
What? Proleague with OGN has superior production with GOM with GSTL. SPOTV production is pretty bad I must say. The only reason people hate Proleague is because of Whiplash and SNM whom I'm pretty sure won't be there next year. Also Proleague is WAY more popular in Korea than GSTL.
Only TeamLeague -> ProLeague Only Individual Leage -> GSL
WCS -> I dont really care as long as there is MLG, Dreamhack ..
My 2 cents and what i'd want to see :/
Since CS has been introduced my interest for SC2 dropped immensly .. i followed every GSL since SC2 came out until that point. Right now it's just way too much going on ... the weird OSL format was the last nail on the coffin for me...
I watch the Premier tournament occasinally atm. and my dimishing interest in SC2 might be connected to the better weather over summer but hell ... it just feels to much, to cluttered ..
On July 23 2013 06:19 forumtext wrote: The bigger the exposure, the bigger the sponsorship.
The problem is not with sponsor's bankroll, the issue is that most company no longer thinks SC2 is worth investing on a large scale.
I think this is especially true for proleague, since it's kind of restricted to Korea and they really do not take good care of foreign fans. Kespa has pushed brood war players to near perfection and will do the same for sc2, but skill is not what sponsors are really interested in.
I don't think that any eSF team right now would move over to Kespa. From my point of view, there are huge bounds connecting those teams, still stronger than Kespa's call.
On July 23 2013 06:27 TeeTS wrote: I don't think that any eSF team right now would move over to Kespa. From my point of view, there are huge bounds connecting those teams, still stronger than Kespa's call.
There are barely any eSF teams left though. Like what is left? Startale, LG-IM, Prime, MVP and FXO. eSF as an organization seems to be pretty much useless right now, to be perfectly honest. They don't seem to do anything. When Kespa teams disbanded, they salvaged them as T8 and found a sponsor after several years. NSHS is disbanding next month, and basically nobody gives a fuck. Kespa has their own qualifiers for tournaments, they have the more prestigious brand names in terms of Korean Starcraft, they have much more television exposure then eSF/GomTV could ever provide. Frankly, at this point it seems (from an outside perspective) that eSF is doing nothing and it is a sinking ship.
Of course, we know nothing about what is really going on, but really, when did we hear about eSF as an organization last time?
I just wish all the good teams would compete in one SPL/GSTL hybrid. SPL is the best teamleague by far, mostly because it features proleague format throughout most games (which is better than winner's league because of preparation imo) and just has regular matches.
GSTL is too much of a joke, just 7 matches for the 'season' and then just a winner's league playoffs where anything can happen and some teams don;t even have all their best players like Genius not playing because he is trying to qualify for WCS...
SPL with EG/TL dropped (the team is nice because it's affiliated to this site but the quality of players is subpar just jaedong and hero that are relatively good with taeja being injured too much) leaves 7 teams. I'd love to see 3 GSTL teams enter SPL: startale, azubu and lgim. These are the only teams big enough and good enough to compete in SPL imo and i'd love to see them compete there, just a shame that the top scene for sc2 is a bit fragmented now. We have SPL where all the top players except about 10ish players compete and we have WCS korea where the top except 5 or so players compete. I just wish the best players would naturally be able to compete in the highest competition so we get to see the best games, not have the top players smeared out so we only have the chance to see the ultimate competition at seasonal finals etc. As for the OP, I don;t think the size of the sponsor company matters much at all. You can;t gauge at all how much sponsoring the team actually gets. As far as quality players go only a few teams have serious oppurtunities to compete in SPL i think, acer or mvp don't stand much of a chance with their current roster I think gauging their individual successes.
To be honest, this thread seems kind of pointless. Speculation is fine, until the revelation comes out it doesn't mean anything. Discussion of who makes enough money is relevant I suppose, but I really think this is a creation of a conversation for nothing.
You can make all the pie charts you want but in the end none of these companies spend large amounts of their marketing budgets on Esports and i would imagine even less on starcraft nowadays when there are 2 more popular games .
On July 23 2013 07:01 nickbalev wrote: You can make all the pie charts you want but in the end none of these companies spend large amounts of their marketing budgets on Esports and i would imagine even less on starcraft nowadays when there are 2 more popular games .
Those graphs aren't too useful tbh, because they don't reflect the actual level of commitment with regards to sponsorship. Kespa teams are practically OWNED by their sponsors, while the sponsors for most eSF teams function much like sponsors in western sc2 teams.
Axiom Acer doesn't have enough players. They have 6 players, and no offense, but Heart is almost like a free win, Crank and Scarlett have injuries, etc. Acer may be a big company, but they have 2 players in Korea. Not enough.
The last thing we want in PL are fodder teams. I love Axiom Acer, but even I'm not delusional.
By revenue alone, Samsung should have 200 sc2 players and 10 LoL teams minimal. You can't compare company revenue to judge how much they willing to sponsor their team. I mean, Samsung Khan is like very poor compared to T1, KT or CJ which are fucking dwarves judging by their revenue.
Terrible post OP. Corporate revenues are not correlated with how much they'd be willing to invest in advertising in E-Sports. Also, just because Coach Park left does not mean EG-TL is dead and leaving SPL. EG just made a huge deal with Papa Johns which might make staying in Korea more financially viable.
On July 23 2013 09:22 rift wrote: http://esports.dailygame.co.kr/ kespa's media arm - top of site has LGIM, MVP logos next to the rest of the Kespa sc2 teams
That makes sense. There is no reason for them not to join. They are good enough by far.
When it comes to EG-TL, they have the sponsorship, they just don't have the raw talent just yet to dominate. If they continue playing, they will though, that is for sure. It's only a matter of time considering they are a huge name in the foreign scene and are a solid team in proleague even if they didn't make it to the playoffs.
As far as how much money is alotted towards each team, the ultimate goal for corporations in sponsoring starcraft 2 professional teams is advertisement. Instead of traditional advertising such as tv commercials and billboard ads, these companies instead opt to use an alternate avenue to spread the word about their companies + product lines.
So really, the amount of money that companies will choose to spend on sc2 is dependent on how much they estimate the value of these teams to be in terms of alternate forms of advertisement.
On July 23 2013 04:08 Glorfindel! wrote: I must say the OP seem to be a lot of "theory crafting" regarding the economic situation.
I dont want to go into details of any of the mentioned teams. But I dont see any sources that actually shows the economical situation for the teams mentioned.
Sure they are sponsored by rich companies. However there is no sources of how much they are actually provided and therefore claiming that "those teams can afford this and that" is not reliable what so ever.
Inside sources on allocation would obviously be helpful but I'm not an eSports insider so I don't have them.
I don't know whether I've addressed that in the OP (I'm wrote this at work while waiting for turnaround on the report), but the point you bring up is good and definitely a viable counter-argument.
My general claim is that a richer company probably can afford to budget more for their SC2 team. I think this is generally true--when a company as large as CJ, Samsung etc. has picked a team up they usually don't go under and usually don't have the same obvious money struggles as teams sponsored by smaller companies. While there is probably not much of a difference between 15 and 25 billion in company budgeting, a company like Razer, that has so many sponsorships going and brings in a relatively small amount of money is unlikely to be able to give any one of its teams such heavy support.
15 and 25 billion is a HUGE difference man. 15 billion is a medium sized company while 25 billion is a large sized company.
Financing for things such as sc2 teams from large corporations (which makes 10s of millions to quarter billionsof dollars in net profit) is mostly going to be impacted by cash flow of these companies and what they choose to alot their cash too (sc2 teams which falls under advertising, research and development, and product and manufacturing).
Samsung spent 4.6 billion USD in global advertising in the financial year of 2012. Only a fraction, maybe around .1% is going to be spent esports.
Haha there is a big difference between LG-IM and other Kespa corporate teams. These giant coporates that actually own the fucking teams (like SK telecom being the owner of T1 etc) and LG-IM is a team owned by an individual... There is a massive difference in terms of financial support, training enviroment, salaries etc.
I hope EG-TL doesn't drop out of the proleague, it was always fun to root for the underdogs and watch them make that crazy comeback after Coach Park joined.
With that being said, I'd also love to see either LG-IM or MVP in Proleague, although I don't know if that'll happen with the GSTL/SPL divide. Would it be possible for a team to compete in both SPL and GSTL? Doubtful, but it'd be pretty awesome to see them try.
On July 23 2013 03:58 Emzeeshady wrote: I would love to see a combined SPL/GSTL league
If IM left GSTL then GSTL just wouldn't be the same...
Imagine the hype there would be though if LGIM was taking on KT in the grand finals of SPL :O
If nothing else, I hope that we could have a fun showmatch between the winner of GSTL (LG-IM) and winner of SPL (STX or Woongjin). Play SPL format first, GSTL format second, then ace match if necessary!
Damn, this is a great idea. I'm totally down for this.
On July 23 2013 03:58 Emzeeshady wrote: I would love to see a combined SPL/GSTL league
If IM left GSTL then GSTL just wouldn't be the same...
Imagine the hype there would be though if LGIM was taking on KT in the grand finals of SPL :O
If nothing else, I hope that we could have a fun showmatch between the winner of GSTL (LG-IM) and winner of SPL (STX or Woongjin). Play SPL format first, GSTL format second, then ace match if necessary!
FXO was supposed to play CJ last year but CJ pulled out last minute
On July 23 2013 03:58 Emzeeshady wrote: I would love to see a combined SPL/GSTL league
If IM left GSTL then GSTL just wouldn't be the same...
Imagine the hype there would be though if LGIM was taking on KT in the grand finals of SPL :O
If nothing else, I hope that we could have a fun showmatch between the winner of GSTL (LG-IM) and winner of SPL (STX or Woongjin). Play SPL format first, GSTL format second, then ace match if necessary!
FXO was supposed to play CJ last year but CJ pulled out last minute
Damn!
On July 23 2013 09:22 rift wrote: http://esports.dailygame.co.kr/ kespa's media arm - top of site has LGIM, MVP logos next to the rest of the Kespa sc2 teams
If LG-IM did join KeSPA, then it'll increase the chances we can get an LG-IM vs SPL Winner showmatch! Make it happen, KeSPA/OGN!
On July 23 2013 09:40 Race is Terran wrote: As far as how much money is alotted towards each team, the ultimate goal for corporations in sponsoring starcraft 2 professional teams is advertisement. Instead of traditional advertising such as tv commercials and billboard ads, these companies instead opt to use an alternate avenue to spread the word about their companies + product lines.
So really, the amount of money that companies will choose to spend on sc2 is dependent on how much they estimate the value of these teams to be in terms of alternate forms of advertisement.
On July 23 2013 04:08 Glorfindel! wrote: I must say the OP seem to be a lot of "theory crafting" regarding the economic situation.
I dont want to go into details of any of the mentioned teams. But I dont see any sources that actually shows the economical situation for the teams mentioned.
Sure they are sponsored by rich companies. However there is no sources of how much they are actually provided and therefore claiming that "those teams can afford this and that" is not reliable what so ever.
Inside sources on allocation would obviously be helpful but I'm not an eSports insider so I don't have them.
I don't know whether I've addressed that in the OP (I'm wrote this at work while waiting for turnaround on the report), but the point you bring up is good and definitely a viable counter-argument.
My general claim is that a richer company probably can afford to budget more for their SC2 team. I think this is generally true--when a company as large as CJ, Samsung etc. has picked a team up they usually don't go under and usually don't have the same obvious money struggles as teams sponsored by smaller companies. While there is probably not much of a difference between 15 and 25 billion in company budgeting, a company like Razer, that has so many sponsorships going and brings in a relatively small amount of money is unlikely to be able to give any one of its teams such heavy support.
15 and 25 billion is a HUGE difference man. 15 billion is a medium sized company while 25 billion is a large sized company.
Financing for things such as sc2 teams from large corporations (which makes 10s of millions to quarter billionsof dollars in net profit) is mostly going to be impacted by cash flow of these companies and what they choose to alot their cash too (sc2 teams which falls under advertising, research and development, and product and manufacturing).
Samsung spent 4.6 billion USD in global advertising in the financial year of 2012. Only a fraction, maybe around .1% is going to be spent esports.
I agree that it's a large difference but I'm not sure how huge a difference it makes in finance.
One thing worth noting is that Samsung (as brought up by another user) is probably funded by a subsidiary instead of by the company at large (similar to how T1 is funded by SKT instead of the SK Group). The SK group is not that much smaller than Samsung (well significantly smaller but still unbelievably huge)
On July 23 2013 09:40 Race is Terran wrote: As far as how much money is alotted towards each team, the ultimate goal for corporations in sponsoring starcraft 2 professional teams is advertisement. Instead of traditional advertising such as tv commercials and billboard ads, these companies instead opt to use an alternate avenue to spread the word about their companies + product lines.
So really, the amount of money that companies will choose to spend on sc2 is dependent on how much they estimate the value of these teams to be in terms of alternate forms of advertisement.
On July 23 2013 04:16 DamageControL wrote:
On July 23 2013 04:08 Glorfindel! wrote: I must say the OP seem to be a lot of "theory crafting" regarding the economic situation.
I dont want to go into details of any of the mentioned teams. But I dont see any sources that actually shows the economical situation for the teams mentioned.
Sure they are sponsored by rich companies. However there is no sources of how much they are actually provided and therefore claiming that "those teams can afford this and that" is not reliable what so ever.
Inside sources on allocation would obviously be helpful but I'm not an eSports insider so I don't have them.
I don't know whether I've addressed that in the OP (I'm wrote this at work while waiting for turnaround on the report), but the point you bring up is good and definitely a viable counter-argument.
My general claim is that a richer company probably can afford to budget more for their SC2 team. I think this is generally true--when a company as large as CJ, Samsung etc. has picked a team up they usually don't go under and usually don't have the same obvious money struggles as teams sponsored by smaller companies. While there is probably not much of a difference between 15 and 25 billion in company budgeting, a company like Razer, that has so many sponsorships going and brings in a relatively small amount of money is unlikely to be able to give any one of its teams such heavy support.
15 and 25 billion is a HUGE difference man. 15 billion is a medium sized company while 25 billion is a large sized company.
Financing for things such as sc2 teams from large corporations (which makes 10s of millions to quarter billionsof dollars in net profit) is mostly going to be impacted by cash flow of these companies and what they choose to alot their cash too (sc2 teams which falls under advertising, research and development, and product and manufacturing).
Samsung spent 4.6 billion USD in global advertising in the financial year of 2012. Only a fraction, maybe around .1% is going to be spent esports.
I agree that it's a large difference but I'm not sure how huge a difference it makes in finance.
One thing worth noting is that Samsung (as brought up by another user) is probably funded by a subsidiary instead of by the company at large (similar to how T1 is funded by SKT instead of the SK Group). The SK group is not that much smaller than Samsung (well significantly smaller but still unbelievably huge)
the only difference that would make really is who the money goes through before it gets to the sc2 players, not how much is given
On July 23 2013 09:22 rift wrote: http://esports.dailygame.co.kr/ kespa's media arm - top of site has LGIM, MVP logos next to the rest of the Kespa sc2 teams
On July 23 2013 18:24 Blisse wrote: Guess it's confirmed with MVP and LGIM. I wonder if this means GSTL is going to go out, or if they're in the talks of combining the two.. :/
They need to be combined. I don't think 8 teams is enough anyway.
Just because a company makes huge amounts of revenue doesn't mean they have huge amounts to spend on e-sports.
Advertising budget/market cycles etc all come into play with funding things like esports. It would be great if the biggest companies in the world supplied sponsorship dollars of large quantities to esports, but for them to do that it has to be worth it.
Spending extra money on proleague, given the numbers that I have seen for the proleague streams would be relatively dumb in my opinion. Although, I have never controlled such large sums of money (lets say 20 million ad budget) I still think that someone in such a high position would be hesitant to spend a large portion of that on esports, starcraft 2 especially, given the numbers that are currently being pumped out by proleague. Infact, they would probably gain more out of GSTL right now (today).
On July 23 2013 19:55 FXOBoSs wrote: Just because a company makes huge amounts of revenue doesn't mean they have huge amounts to spend on e-sports.
Advertising budget/market cycles etc all come into play with funding things like esports. It would be great if the biggest companies in the world supplied sponsorship dollars of large quantities to esports, but for them to do that it has to be worth it.
Spending extra money on proleague, given the numbers that I have seen for the proleague streams would be relatively dumb in my opinion. Although, I have never controlled such large sums of money (lets say 20 million ad budget) I still think that someone in such a high position would be hesitant to spend a large portion of that on esports, starcraft 2 especially, given the numbers that are currently being pumped out by proleague. Infact, they would probably gain more out of GSTL right now (today).
I assume that is for a foreign market? I highly doubt gstl gets more viewers than pl in korea. So I'm assuming that means that at least FXO will stay in gstl?
TBH right now I feel like instead of a merger we will see gstl teams leaving one after another and the league becoming worse every season, just imagine how shity next season would be without the top 2 teams (lgim/mvp).
LG-IM and MVP merged to play in proleague as LG-IMMVP? Then Mvp would finally (kinda) be in team MVP and everybody's OCD would rapidly become unrustled.
On July 23 2013 19:55 FXOBoSs wrote: Just because a company makes huge amounts of revenue doesn't mean they have huge amounts to spend on e-sports.
Advertising budget/market cycles etc all come into play with funding things like esports. It would be great if the biggest companies in the world supplied sponsorship dollars of large quantities to esports, but for them to do that it has to be worth it.
Spending extra money on proleague, given the numbers that I have seen for the proleague streams would be relatively dumb in my opinion. Although, I have never controlled such large sums of money (lets say 20 million ad budget) I still think that someone in such a high position would be hesitant to spend a large portion of that on esports, starcraft 2 especially, given the numbers that are currently being pumped out by proleague. Infact, they would probably gain more out of GSTL right now (today).
I assume that is for a foreign market? I highly doubt gstl gets more viewers than pl in korea. So I'm assuming that means that at least FXO will stay in gstl?
TBH right now I feel like instead of a merger we will see gstl teams leaving one after another and the league becoming worse every season, just imagine how shity next season would be without the top 2 teams (lgim/mvp).
I have 0 to do with FXO nowadays. But knowing choya I'd assume they wouldnt give in to kespa control. If proleague were to be without kespa control they would play. I am not sure how LGIM feel, but ESF in general a quite anti kespa at least in terms of how they talk. If GSTL died then there would be no other option.
Is proleague even on television now? For some reason I thought only one or two games per round were on TV and the rest streamed? GOM has pretty good korean numbers too. I still feel that GSTL would be a better option. But I would recommend GSTL change to a mixed format for the fans.
On July 23 2013 19:55 FXOBoSs wrote: Just because a company makes huge amounts of revenue doesn't mean they have huge amounts to spend on e-sports.
Advertising budget/market cycles etc all come into play with funding things like esports. It would be great if the biggest companies in the world supplied sponsorship dollars of large quantities to esports, but for them to do that it has to be worth it.
Spending extra money on proleague, given the numbers that I have seen for the proleague streams would be relatively dumb in my opinion. Although, I have never controlled such large sums of money (lets say 20 million ad budget) I still think that someone in such a high position would be hesitant to spend a large portion of that on esports, starcraft 2 especially, given the numbers that are currently being pumped out by proleague. Infact, they would probably gain more out of GSTL right now (today).
I assume that is for a foreign market? I highly doubt gstl gets more viewers than pl in korea. So I'm assuming that means that at least FXO will stay in gstl?
TBH right now I feel like instead of a merger we will see gstl teams leaving one after another and the league becoming worse every season, just imagine how shity next season would be without the top 2 teams (lgim/mvp).
I have 0 to do with FXO nowadays. But knowing choya I'd assume they wouldnt give in to kespa control. If proleague were to be without kespa control they would play. I am not sure how LGIM feel, but ESF in general a quite anti kespa at least in terms of how they talk. If GSTL died then there would be no other option.
Is proleague even on television now? For some reason I thought only one or two games per round were on TV and the rest streamed? GOM has pretty good korean numbers too. I still feel that GSTL would be a better option. But I would recommend GSTL change to a mixed format for the fans.
PL without kespa will never happen given that they own pl, not ogn or spo. Afaik it is 2 days on ongamenet and then 2 on spotv2 (which I don't know whether it's an online channel or an actual tv channel, probably the later though). Either way atleast 4 games are on tv, probably all 7/8 per week. I do know how much esf dislikes kespa (most of them were dishwashers afterall so it's understandable), but at what point does gom go fuck it we are out? I mean if lgim/mvp leave their teamleague is pretty much meh (especially with how week nshs/prime are looking and w/e is happening to azubu), they do have exclusive rights on wot and may get them to dota 2. Plus they aren't even allowed to run 4/5 code s per year anymore and have to share with ogn. I do know that gom has pretty good numbers due to their gom player plattform being popular as fuck, but I always figured that tv would beat that, especially given that pl is on 2 channels.
Either way gstl s2 is pretty much confirmed and pl 13-14 should start at then end of the year so we should just wait and see, personally I think star 2 in korea really needs to stop being a split community between gom/esf and kespa/ogn.
On July 23 2013 19:55 FXOBoSs wrote: Just because a company makes huge amounts of revenue doesn't mean they have huge amounts to spend on e-sports.
Advertising budget/market cycles etc all come into play with funding things like esports. It would be great if the biggest companies in the world supplied sponsorship dollars of large quantities to esports, but for them to do that it has to be worth it.
Spending extra money on proleague, given the numbers that I have seen for the proleague streams would be relatively dumb in my opinion. Although, I have never controlled such large sums of money (lets say 20 million ad budget) I still think that someone in such a high position would be hesitant to spend a large portion of that on esports, starcraft 2 especially, given the numbers that are currently being pumped out by proleague. Infact, they would probably gain more out of GSTL right now (today).
I assume that is for a foreign market? I highly doubt gstl gets more viewers than pl in korea. So I'm assuming that means that at least FXO will stay in gstl?
TBH right now I feel like instead of a merger we will see gstl teams leaving one after another and the league becoming worse every season, just imagine how shity next season would be without the top 2 teams (lgim/mvp).
I have 0 to do with FXO nowadays. But knowing choya I'd assume they wouldnt give in to kespa control. If proleague were to be without kespa control they would play. I am not sure how LGIM feel, but ESF in general a quite anti kespa at least in terms of how they talk. If GSTL died then there would be no other option.
Is proleague even on television now? For some reason I thought only one or two games per round were on TV and the rest streamed? GOM has pretty good korean numbers too. I still feel that GSTL would be a better option. But I would recommend GSTL change to a mixed format for the fans.
PL without kespa will never happen given that they own pl, not ogn or spo. Afaik it is 2 days on ongamenet and then 2 on spotv2 (which I don't know whether it's an online channel or an actual tv channel, probably the later though). Either way atleast 4 games are on tv, probably all 7/8 per week. I do know how much esf dislikes kespa (most of them were dishwashers afterall so it's understandable), but at what point does gom go fuck it we are out? I mean if lgim/mvp leave their teamleague is pretty much meh (especially with how week nshs/prime are looking and w/e is happening to azubu), they do have exclusive rights on wot and may get them to dota 2. Plus they aren't even allowed to run 4/5 code s per year anymore and have to share with ogn. I do know that gom has pretty good numbers due to their gom player plattform being popular as fuck, but I always figured that tv would beat that, especially given that pl is on 2 channels.
Either way gstl s2 is pretty much confirmed and pl 13-14 should start at then end of the year so we should just wait and see, personally I think star 2 in korea really needs to stop being a split community between gom/esf and kespa/ogn.
I dno.. I think the live audience is representative of the TV audience. Theres too many others successful games now for sc2 to be successful in Korea overall I think. LoL and WOT are doing big things there, now DOTA is coming (slowly).. I think you are going to see sc2 in terms of numbers get shoved into the corner.
On July 23 2013 09:22 rift wrote: http://esports.dailygame.co.kr/ kespa's media arm - top of site has LGIM, MVP logos next to the rest of the Kespa sc2 teams
EPT![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/6/6e/Proleague.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/nplRfmy.png?1)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/qu6Esev.png?1)
).
That would be perfect.
