[SLCN.Kez]

http://esfiworld.com/news/why-e-spor...fl-inspiration

Saw this today on esfi. Through the analogy of how UFC started of as a tournament based business, but chagned quickly to a model of hyping up certain matches and rivalries in "superfights" causes audiences to be more emotionally invested, thus more likely to throw their dollars at a PPV model to watch.

As recently there is big hype and controversy over numbers "declining" and what else the business side of e-sports (something I find extremely interesting) I thought this article was particularly relevant, even though they could have gone into a lot more depth of how it relates to e-sports, but the links and similarities aren't that difficult to see.

Personally, through listening to podcasts such as 'Inside The Game' and 'Live On Three' and how much they talk about the correlation between emotional connection and viewers in e-sports tournaments, its not surprising that we see a tournament with 2 nameless good koreans playing get magnitudes less viewers than someone with a lot of personality and hype such as stephano vs lucifron or huk vs idra back in the days.

Perhaps extremely hyped "super matches" between two players is at least deserving of being properly fleshed out to see the possibilities. Yes "show matches" have been done before in the past, but these are typically between two players who haven't had much rivalry, are hyped poorely, and aren't PPV, thus not generating much monetary gains.

What are your thoughts on a model similar to UFC, and other thoughts about the business side of e-sports in general?!

[Blitz]

something like this http://sphotos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphoto...88182387_n.jpg

[Unstable]

I like the premise, but what people seem to skip over is that those fighters fight their way through the competition with win after win after win to make that "superfight" championship bout.

Say for example you started a series of these events, sooner or later your just going to be rehashing the same few people over n over because if you let anyone start themselves from the bottom up in the way UFC does it it will end up exactly the same as it is now with it korean vs korean

In regards to the business of esports, right now there is a massive crunch in SC2, its a thinning of the herd, most wont survive it, but those who do will be better off because you wont have those 100 events every weekend, but only 2-3

[Meatex]

I disagree with unstable
SC2 does enjoy a very enthusiastic player base even if it isn't as big as LoL
there will always be so many events because you see guys doing it for the fun. Casters are still casting BSG tournaments even though few watch
If I were able I would be casting tournaments to all of 3-7 viewers on a weekly basis

[FS.Kezz]

The thing that makes those hyped up superfights viable is that the fighters have public personalities that are very over the top, and are created into 'characters' that gain huge followings through things like catchphrases, focus on stereotyped idiosyncrasies, and signature moves. To try and adopt this style of competition into eSports and SC2 in particular, all players would have to commit to creating these kind of varied, whimsical 'characters'. Very few players have done this to a noticeable extent so far, and the one that comes to my mind is MC. Another could possibly be IdrA, who has a very distinct 'either love him or hate him' following. Incontrol could be a sort of 'class clown' personality, but he currently switches back and forth too often between being 'serious business' and being class clown. It's possible, and done right it could generate large amount of money, but it requires a lot of organisation and commitment to do.

[FSBuu]

I disagree with unstable
SC2 does enjoy a very enthusiastic player base even if it isn't as big as LoL
there will always be so many events because you see guys doing it for the fun. Casters are still casting BSG tournaments even though few watch
If I were able I would be casting tournaments to all of 3-7 viewers on a weekly basis
so true