[ESLSEA]

Hi all!

Happy New Year in 2012!

Sixcube here. For those not in the loop or might not know who I am, I am the National/Regional Head at ESL for South-East Asia and Oceania Regions at the moment. The ESL SEA team has been running a series of online cups and qualifiers for months now, and has always received huge support from everyone here, from whether it was casting, spectating or even participating in some of them.

I would like to give my thanks to everyone who has been involved with us since 29th May 2011 when the first Go4Sc2 cup started, and also the Season 5 IEM Qualifiers back in early 2011. From seeing some of our fellow residents in these regions going to the global stage has always been one of my proudest moments, and giving them the rights and meeting them (iaguz and PiG back then in Guangzhou), was one of my favourite esports moments in my life .

In the year 2012, there are a few more IEM qualifiers, mainly being IEM Kiev from 19 January - 22 January 2012, IEM Sau Paulo from 9 February - 12 February, and the CeBIT World Championship in March at Hanover, Germany. Qualifiers for IEM Kiev are already over, and we are moving on to IEM Sau Paulo right now.

As a guideline to running IEM Sau Paulo this time around, I would like to get a general consensus from everyone involved in participating in events in SEA, whether it will be viable for anyone to attend the event as I don't wish to waste anyone's time of running this qualifier.

In the process of doing so, we hope that most of our representatives can attend the events but usually due to budget considerations, we do face a general opinion of not being able to attend the events due to high costs.

I have went through some research for most of the countries in SEA and Oceanic Regions regarding the cost of the tickets and accomodations, and would like to know if you still have interest in going for this event if you win a qualifier organised by the ESL SEA team.

Australia to Sau Paulo : $3050 USD/AUD minimum
Singapore to Sau Paulo : $2500 - $2600 USD minimum
New Zealand to Sau Paulo : $3100 USD/AUD minimum
Thailand to Sau Paulo : $3000 USD minimum
Philippines to Sau Paulo : $3000 USD minimum
Indonesia to Sau Paulo : $3000 USD Minimum
Malaysia to Sau Paulo : $2800 USD minimum

Most of the countries that have players participating in sc2 events are listed above as a rough gauge, and the costs above does not include accomodations or transport costs. If you think the price involved in travelling to Sau Paulo is too high, please help to vote in the poll, so that a decision can be made to the IEM team whether we (SEA and Oceanic Regions) would like to participate in the upcoming IEM Sau Paulo event. If the majority is agreeable with it, there will be a qualifier held. If not, the qualifier will not be held for the slot reserved for Asia participants.

I hope to get everyone's opinions on this, and at the moment, we are hoping to work out something with our sponsors to get you guys covered for the next season of IEM qualifiers and events so that you guys can attend it.

Lastly, if you have any suggestions or opinions or information you might require or have, about ESL events, you can always pm me or contact me on Skype (Jasper.Mah) and I will do my best to answer your inquiries, comments or questions you might have.

As my role usually means I work in the background most of the time, I hope to get to know more about what you guys would like to expect from ESL SEA in this coming 2012 so that we can serve you better, and create better cups and community events for the SEA community.

Best Regards,
Sixcube (Jasper)

[dippa]

This may not be what you wanted, but holding qualifiers anyway will allow for more players to pitch to sponsors - I won the right to travel to this country, I came first in a qualifier to go to here, and so on - which in turn would give people more access to the funds necessary to travel overseas.

Just a thought.

[ROOT`iaguz]

Ha ha ha........

Nope.

3k to get owned by some of the worlds best sc2 players is just too much and the state of most SEA sc2 sponsorships cannot cover a trip the bloody expensive that most likely won't result in wins from the players. The ticket from Aus to china was just under half that for me and PiG. I understand why ESL cannot provide financial support to SEA players though.

[x5_Potter]

Send TargA.

[TargA]

Send TargA.

Quick Comments

	Antel0pe:	I see what you did there :3
	ROOT`iaguz:	send FXOTargA
	Nemo:	My TargA is rich

[x5_Potter]

Called it!

[mOOnGLaDe]

I think this would be too expensive for just about any sea player to afford with the kind of sponsorship sea players get in our area at the moment, so i think skipping qualifiers for this could be a good idea.

It would look a lot worse if we have a qualifier, then no player wants to go cause of the expense. That imo would give ESL more reason to stop giving a spot to SEA for these iem tournaments all together.

[Peleus]

Thank you for consulting with the community, but realistically it would be most likely too expensive as many of the pro's have said.

[Cordance]

Seems significantly pricey I doubt anyone in SEA is going be able to wrangle that kind of cash. Budgets are budgets better to not over spend Im curious how often travel costs comes up in conversations when picking location. Perhaps group booked flights are a solution for the future. An example would be players get to California for a cheep group flight down to the event.

As a side note how many esports tournament organizations are talking to the tourism industry. You are advertising a location every time you say their name. Considering a vast majority of esports audience are younger people around university age it seems like their perfect target audience. Cheaper accommodation for players to bring in the full paying viewers to the location seems like exactly the kind of thing people like that would love. It would need to line up with not the most popular travel times of cause.

If you could get an airline sponsor you could get a central location in the area for a fixed sponsor deal/cost and organize the flights from there (probably somewhere like Singapore or Australia) then people would only need to fund their travel to get their then get the sponsored (cheep or free) flight from there to the event.

[cruxBsK]

I think it cost too much for the likely hood of not winning any prize money. Unless a team like maybe xGKing's sponsors could afford it

[NvJazBas]

God damn NZ, highest cost out of all those countries

Quick Comments

ROOTPetraeus:

Only cause we so baller :D