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The Lucky Ones
 

Hey guys,

Having had to skip a week due to moving apartments and missed my usual article day of Friday, I've posted up an article this afternoon, dealing primarily with sponsorships and real sports vs e-sports. Have a read, and if you really want to help me out give me some feedback or discussion points. Also, retweeting really helps me out, as does upvoting and commenting on reddit. This article deals with the Australian sporting / e-sports scenes primarily, so my international viewership probably won't be as high, so everything that you guys can do to help spread the blog around I really appreciate. The more people read it and give me feedback, the better quality the articles are for you guys to consume. It's for you guys, not me!

Here's an excerpt:

"I've met a lot of gamers in my time in 'e-sports'. Some are in it for fun, a weekend hobby, a place to flex their competitive muscle. Others have this distinct glint in their eye. It's a shiny, wondrous speckle of hope that one day e-sports will sit next to real sports as a legitimate form of competition. An entertainment to be celebrated by the masses. It's likely they've grown up following real sports, supporting a team and baring witness to professional players in a stadium, enclosed by the sights and sounds of an audience tens of thousands strong. While we've seen similar spectacles in e-sports around the world for the better half of the last decade, our corner of the world has yet to come to fruition. In our small sphere, we're incredibly lucky to have a fistful of dedicated sponsors that are fueling our still strapping, young dream. It's important to recognise these companies as legitimate investors that are using their profits to inject money into their own prospective markets and work in direct contact with the people who are building that market from the ground up.

If we take rugby league and look under the surface, we can see that these teams have more money than they can spend. Inherent to the game is a market for players, in which teams will make bids for certain stars that will either win games or sell tickets. The scheme isn't as fleshed out or as open as systems in the States for basketball and baseball, but it's still very competitive. So much so that salary caps are placed on clubs to limit the amount of money paid to particular players in order to keep things humble and fair. With the pockets of sponsors and investors so deep that these restrictions are necessary, it's easy to understand how far e-sports has to go to be considered legitimate in Australia. With our small but powerful group of reliable sponsors, perhaps it's not critical to compare ourselves to these sports. Taking a look at the ethos of marketing within our scene and that of the nationally recognised can reveal that while we share the word, we aren't built the same."




Read the whole thing here: http://shitsundersays.blogspot.com.a...ucky-ones.html

Follow me on twitter, where you can easily find my tweets about the article to re-tweet!
https://twitter.com/iM_SundeR

Reddit posts for upvotes/comments:
http://www.reddit.com/r/esports/comm...ip_esports_vs/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/commen...ps_esports_vs/

Re: The Lucky Ones
 

Really good points highlighted in the article!

"then we need to start recognising sponsors not as a badge to collect for your pro-gaming resume, but a primary investor in our future"
I received a sponsorship request just the other that supports this point entirely

I will say some of your figures in regards to Olympic sports are a little skewed as there are more than just one event they compete in (Pan Pacs, World Champs etc) not to mention the numerous individual endorsements they receive from various companies from cereal, to clothing (both fashion and sportswear) to automobiles. whether it is just product endorsement or whether the cash they throw around is significant I couldnt tell you, but it exists nonetheless.

Re: The Lucky Ones
 

Absolutely! However its unfortunate that for each household name that gets those kinds of deals for side money, there would be a larger number of athletes that never reach that level of exposure in order to make that money. I'd say that the athletes who get those deals are the outlying exceptions to the rules, akin to the top progamers in the world. Definitely something to consider in the equation though!

Re: The Lucky Ones
 

Loved it, like everything else you pump out.
Keep it fresh bro.

Re: The Lucky Ones
 

I have always wanted to have e-sports calenders.

Re: The Lucky Ones
 

I just wanna say in further response to Arnor that I definitely should have made clear that I was using the Olympics as a reference point to compare with tournaments in e-sports, like a yardstick, but I glossed over it a bit too quickly I think. This is the kind of feedback that I'm looking for!

Re: The Lucky Ones
 

Another swell blog post, and I agree that we're far luckier than most of us realise.

Outside of the glamour sports such as Aussie Rules, Rugby and our handful of blessed Gold Medal winning athletes, the pickings in most competitive sports are slim indeed. Most sports get by in much the same way the e-sports community does, through the hard work and passion of those that make it happen.

There are times where I wonder if it's no bad thing if e-sports remains in the 'amateur' field. As a lover of the AFL, I'm really not sure the increased professionalisation and corporatisation of the sport that has taken place since the 1980's has contributed to much to the game, at least from the perspective of the average fan and player. Sure there is more gold at the end of the rainbow for the elite players, but try getting a grand final ticket as an entry level club member.

Now, not for a second would I deny a e-sports 'field' a cent. Every little bit count. But I would simply add that we must pay attention to what we lose along the way, and what it is about e-sports we really value. Should the goal be squads of high profile players earning large salaries, or a broader, more inclusive spectrum of competition? (Not that the two are necessarily mutually exclusive)

The example that I would use for this is MLG, and their decision to facilitate the Korean invasion that is now standard at the event. Sure, I got a huge kick out of watching Boxer compete at a huge foreign event. But how much does this influx of high profile players really benefit the US StarCraft community? I feel that it's a very real impediment to the development of a vital '2nd tier' level of competition that successful sporting competition has. What might have happened to a player like Kiwikaki had he emerged in 2012?

Re: The Lucky Ones
 

Such a good read man.
As someone that studies marketing and consumer behaviour I saw alot of correct assertions in this article.

However, I will add to
Brands associate with the Olympic team because of those factors your mentioned, but also because - 'I wanna be a fast runner and healthy, cut dude... That guy is fast, healthy and damn fit.. Maybe if I eat three Wheatbix a day I'll look like him?' The image that traditional athletes portray is alluring and desirable. However, not many people out there want to turn themselves into the basement dwelling sterotype gamer nerd. Sadly.

But top read boss, Enjoyed it

Re: The Lucky Ones
 

Simple solution: All gamers need to get ripped and wear rolex watches at tournaments.

This is interesting though, what can you market about pro gamers that people would actually like/aspire to? Without actually changing the gamers themselves.

Re: The Lucky Ones
 

I guess since its a strategy game, you could market that the highest level of gamers are really intelligent.

Re: The Lucky Ones
 

This opens up a huge separate discussion that some people in the NA scene have discussed. It's my opinion that at the moment the Korean stars are bringing in the highest skill level and are integral elements in the storylines going on around the world in SC2, and to me those storylines are too important to the overall growth of e-sports to limit the environment they can breathe in.

I think if e-sports was ever going to be COMPLETELY mainstream then another conversation has to be had about how you support amateur e-sports on a local level (similar to how local, amateur football clubs operate at the moment), but we're a bit of a ways off this kind of discussion I reckon. Still very interesting to think about though.. storylines are a huge part of "E-SPORTS" marketing as a sport that I might touch on in a future article.

And Chadmann - extremely valid point that I could have delved into as well.. it's definitely something to consider and it's interesting that the overall 'marketing' of e-sports is rather limited to what keyboard, mouse and technology brand you use in your set-up, as fenner said there has to be other ways to market dat e-sports that perhaps haven't been utilised yet!

Cheers for the comments guys! Appreciate it a whole bunch.