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Fenrax
United States5018 Posts
I am afraid that we might soon read an announcement that either the next GSTL season or the next Proleague season is on its way without an inclusion of the other side. I made this thread is to talk about the advantages of a combined League and my fear that the bad blood between ESF, Kespa and Blizzard might result in a self destructive self-denial of these advantages.
The current situation is that with the withdrawal of Airforce Ace we currently have a 7-team Proleague. It has recently ended with a victory of CJ Entus over Samsung Khan. And then we have the GSTL which will end at November, the 24th. It has currently 9 teams, 10 if you count teamliquid (like you should with the addition of Liquid.Sea). I hope I can say without offending anyone that continuing this split would benefit no one. Neither the fans of either league nor the teams themselves, nor the organizers. Let me explain:
I enjoyed the last season of Proleague and I am enjoying this season of GSTL but neither compares in any form or shape to how much I would enjoy a big 16-18 team Proleague / GSTL. Compare it to a situation in football where instead of the Champions League you would get to see the Champions Trophy with Manchester, Bayern, Real and Juventus and the European Club Championships with Barcelona, Chelsea, Milan and Dortmund. Or an NBA in which Western and Eastern Conference teams never play each other. Wouldn't that feel incomplete?
For this season it was fine. CJ Entus is the undisputed split BW/SC2 champion and the GSTL champion will be the undisputed SC2 champion. But imagine another split season. Then who is the real Korean/World team Champion when both are done? Who is the best team? The team that wins Proleague or the team that wins the GSTL? Please don't argue about this, it would be fruitless. It would be like asking who the real NBA champion was if Western and Eastern teams never faced each other. You would have a lot of local fans claiming one way or the other but no one could really say. Both titles will lose their legitimacy if they don't face the good teams from the other Leagues. We would have two titles but no Champion.
Both Leagues by themselves are not big enough to create the same big time feeling that a combined League could give us fans. I noticed during last season's Proleague how big the difference between a 8 team League is from what used to be a 12-team League for a long time (after losing MBCGame HERO, hite SPARKYZ, WeMade FOX and eSTRO in the last couple of years). It was still good but it got repetitive relatively quickly compared to what used to be. Of course the number of different matchups rises exponentionally which each new team. So losing a third of the teams (from 12 to 8) resulted in far less than half different matchups (from 66 to 28).
Two 8-team Leagues have 28 different matchups for each League, 56 combined. A 16-team League on the other hand has 120 different matchups, more than twice as much as both combined and more than 4 times as many fresh matchups as a single Team League. This will create more Starcraft total as well as more fresh matchups total. And it is not overkill by any means. 16-20 team leagues are absolutely standard in European football andit works just fine. In American Sports you even have far bigger Leagues and you don't hear the fans complain "oh no, not more of my favorite team playing my favorite sport against awesome opponents". From a fan standpoint a combined League is the only option you should ever want. Even if you are a hardcore Kespa/GSTL fan: can you imagine an FC Barcelona or a Real Madrid fan wanting to have the two teams play in seperate leagues and not face each other twice a year for the most epic showdown in Spanish football?
Then the marketing possibilities are much more better for a unified team League. With ESF's grab on the International market and Kespa's grab on the Korean market an agreement seems like an obvious choice. Both companies would not only benefit from each other's strengths on different markets, they would also balance out the weakness of not having enough teams for making a big League. On top of that more fresh matchups are not only better for the fans, they are also much easier to sell and advertisement on them sells for more. More money for everyone would be the only possible outcome of an agreement of the two Leagues.
And it should happen now. There simply is no benefit in waiting because there is nothing that is worth waiting for. The end of the Kespa/ESF trade lock? That does not force you to make less money. Wait for HotS? Why? You could simply transition to HotS during the League and it would even give your League as well as HotS a huge boost in interest. Wait for Kespa players to catch up? They already provide good results and will catch up quicker in a tough competition.
In short a combined team league would provide a better product for the fans and make more money for the organizers. Usually if you ask a company if they want more money while making their customers happy you wouldn't have to wait long for a positive answer. The only reason why we haven't read an announcement about an agreement has to be the extremely spiteful situation between ESF, Kespa and Blizzard. Usually in a capitalism "if it makes money it will be done" but my fear is that there has been enough bad blood and hurt pride that people are willing to deny their organization money only to spite their enemy. I hope they will come to terms and I also hope that the fans will pressure the organizations enough to force them into an agreement that they want anyway and that this thread helps at that.
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would create way too many teams thus way too many matches which takes up massive amounts of time imho, they should make qualifiers then a 10 or 12 team bracket if it were to merge
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United Kingdom31935 Posts
I agree. Here in Germany I love watching Bundesliga (our football as you know  ) because I pretty much have something to watch every week and you can build up a better support and general feeling if the seasons are longer and have more teams :D
If ESF and Kespa could agree would be another question but if it would work I would be all for it!
Excellent read and thank you for bringing it up :D
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Fenrax
United States5018 Posts
On October 08 2012 21:25 X3GoldDot wrote:
would create way too many teams thus way too many matches which takes up massive amounts of time imho, they should make qualifiers then a 10 or 12 team bracket if it were to merge
Why? It works incredibly well in Football, Basketball, Ice Hockey, American Football. Everyone makes money and the fans love it. So why not in SC2? You don't have to do Bo9s, that might be overkill. BO7s (maybe BO5s) would be fine though.
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Kespa's main attraction is the Team League
ESF's main attraction is the Individual League
Doing both would take way to much time especially considering all the weekend long foreign events.
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On October 08 2012 21:28 Fenrax wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2012 21:25 X3GoldDot wrote:
would create way too many teams thus way too many matches which takes up massive amounts of time imho, they should make qualifiers then a 10 or 12 team bracket if it were to merge Why? It works incredibly well in Football, Basketball, Ice Hockey, American Football. So why not in SC2? You don't have to do Bo9s. BO7s or BO5s would be fine.
becuz there arent 3 or more channels to view gstls/proleagues on, also teamleague matches take more time than real sport matches. Also, there constantly is GSLs/ OSLs/foreign tournaments happening which would make it a matter of having no time for this format to work
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Fenrax
United States5018 Posts
On October 08 2012 21:30 X3GoldDot wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2012 21:28 Fenrax wrote:On October 08 2012 21:25 X3GoldDot wrote:
would create way too many teams thus way too many matches which takes up massive amounts of time imho, they should make qualifiers then a 10 or 12 team bracket if it were to merge Why? It works incredibly well in Football, Basketball, Ice Hockey, American Football. So why not in SC2? You don't have to do Bo9s. BO7s or BO5s would be fine. becuz there arent 3 or more channels to view gstls/proleagues on, also teamleague matches take more time than real sport matches. Also, there constantly is GSLs/ OSLs/foreign tournaments happening which would make it a matter of having no time for this format to work
For football there is also only one German PPV channel on which you can watch it and it is enough.
There are national Team Leagues with up to 40 games/Season as well as Champions League and the national Cups. And friendly games. And World/Continental Championships, and qualifiers for those, and friendly national games.
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Why not at the end of a season of PL and GSTL have the champions from both sides just face off for an "Undisputed Champion" title? Sounds simpler lol.
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regarding 1 big proleague, count me in!
However, at the moment (although i am not quite the insider) i do see some difficulties on the way. Who will broadcast it? What will be the format? I think gom will not be eager to let their gstl go, and ongamenet their proleague. I don't know.
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Italy12246 Posts
On October 08 2012 21:39 Zerothegreat wrote:
Why not at the end of a season of PL and GSTL have the champions from both sides just face off for an "Undisputed Champion" title? Sounds simpler lol.
AFC vs NFC yo  With a schedule format kinda like the NFL, it might be the best compromise.
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More teams =/= better. I definitely would not want a huge 16 team proleague. Too many uninteresting matchups. A quick tournament between the best teams from each federation spread over a month would be cool though. Take the top 4 finishers in the GSTL and the top 4 finishers in proleague and put them in an 8 team tournament like the first 3 GSTLs. I'd definitely tune in for that.
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I know this is gonna happen someday.It's pretty sad it didn't happen already.We support eSports, we support the same game yet we're still divided.As the saying goes "United we stand, divided we fall"
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Sign me up, either teamleague could collapse at any given moment, you just need a few more teams to fall. Even now it feels a bit like 2 groups of kids sticking to their own playgrounds. United teamleague would have a whole new level of prestige with new eyeballs and sponsorship opportunities for both sides.
People arguing that too many teams would make it uninteresting - you don't have to watch everything, in fact if you tried to, you would probably burn out after a few rounds. Pick one team or just check out the recommended matches, just like the old times.
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On October 08 2012 21:39 Zerothegreat wrote:
Why not at the end of a season of PL and GSTL have the champions from both sides just face off for an "Undisputed Champion" title? Sounds simpler lol.
Yeah, this is what I thought would be more likely. Maybe make it one match with PL set up and one with the all kill GSL style. Not sure how you'd decide it - maybe just a bo3 between the aces or something, though that would arguably favour the PL format.
Of course, there would be a lot of pressure on GOM and KeSPA - if one league's winner got destroyed it would look awful for the league in general, so that's one reason it might never happen. Another is just all the sponsor issues.
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So far GSTL has always been a bit disappointing for me because it always seemed to lack importance so I stopped watching it at some point. I won't watch PL either if it only consists of 8 teams. In the end I think a big league would be a lot more exciting and it would really be a lot more beneficial for everyone.
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Fenrax
United States5018 Posts
On October 08 2012 22:32 FuzzyJAM wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2012 21:39 Zerothegreat wrote:
Why not at the end of a season of PL and GSTL have the champions from both sides just face off for an "Undisputed Champion" title? Sounds simpler lol. Yeah, this is what I thought would be more likely. Maybe make it one match with PL set up and one with the all kill GSL style. Not sure how you'd decide it - maybe just a bo3 between the aces or something, though that would arguably favour the PL format. Of course, there would be a lot of pressure on GOM and KeSPA - if one league's winner got destroyed it would look awful for the league in general, so that's one reason it might never happen. Another is just all the sponsor issues.
This of course would not create additional games like a combined League.
About the prestige of such a match: There was an "Intercontinental Cup" in Football. The winner of the European Champion's league played against the winner of the South American Copa Libertadores. Nobody gave a flying fuck about this match because there was no League behind it to back it up. The big matches were the Champion's League final and the Copa Libertadores final because you played a full League beforehand and not just one random match. Even the teams didn't care too much about the title even though it had such a meaningful name. Preventing injuries and saving stamina was far more important than winning this game. So it was eventually cancelled in 2004.
Maybe a PL winner vs. a GSTL winner game would be a bit more prestigous. But it would still be just one random match out of nowhere between two teams that have nothing to do with each other and it would by all means not mean much.
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On October 08 2012 22:32 FuzzyJAM wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2012 21:39 Zerothegreat wrote:
Why not at the end of a season of PL and GSTL have the champions from both sides just face off for an "Undisputed Champion" title? Sounds simpler lol. Yeah, this is what I thought would be more likely. Maybe make it one match with PL set up and one with the all kill GSL style. Not sure how you'd decide it - maybe just a bo3 between the aces or something, though that would arguably favour the PL format. Of course, there would be a lot of pressure on GOM and KeSPA - if one league's winner got destroyed it would look awful for the league in general, so that's one reason it might never happen. Another is just all the sponsor issues.
I've always supported the KeSPA format. It's the real "team battle" format I would say. It hinges more on the entire team instead of just 1 player on a rampage carrying his team to victory. For some reason 1 player defeating an entire team kinda takes away the teamwork out of "team" league.
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Just give it a few more months for Slayers, Woongjin and HoSeo to fold, and you'd have 6 ESF teams and 6 Kespa teams -> 12 team proleague of old.
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On October 08 2012 22:54 Zerothegreat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2012 22:32 FuzzyJAM wrote:On October 08 2012 21:39 Zerothegreat wrote:
Why not at the end of a season of PL and GSTL have the champions from both sides just face off for an "Undisputed Champion" title? Sounds simpler lol. Yeah, this is what I thought would be more likely. Maybe make it one match with PL set up and one with the all kill GSL style. Not sure how you'd decide it - maybe just a bo3 between the aces or something, though that would arguably favour the PL format. Of course, there would be a lot of pressure on GOM and KeSPA - if one league's winner got destroyed it would look awful for the league in general, so that's one reason it might never happen. Another is just all the sponsor issues. I've always supported the KeSPA format. It's the real "team battle" format I would say. It hinges more on the entire team instead of just 1 player on a rampage carrying his team to victory. For some reason 1 player defeating an entire team kinda takes away the teamwork out of "team" league. I agree with this.
The kespa format feels like it has more tension on every match somehow. Dunno why exactly.
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They could have maybe two seasons a year, though putting all the teams in one tournament would be pretty cool to see. I like the team league format since I think it's interesting how the coaches choose to send out certain players against other players so I reckon the more TL stuff the better
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