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On October 20 2017 11:23 Gahlo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2017 11:09 NeoIllusions wrote: Team SoloMid: looking for minority investors soon (tm) Cloud9: "individual" investors Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, NFL hall of famer Joe Montana, Golden State Warrior owner Chamath Palihapitiya Counter Logic Gaming: Madison Square Garden Team Liquid: aXiomatic eSports (Magic Johnson, Peter Guber and Ted Leonsis) Echo Fox: New York Yankees OpTic: Chaney Sports Group New Team 1: Joe Lacob of the Golden State Warriors New Team 2: Cleveland Cavaliers FlyQuest: Wesley Edens of the Milwaukee Bucks and the Fortress Gaming Investment group
So DIG couldn't compete with 76ers money and who knows if IMT had anyone backing them, but these are all serious levels of monies. OpTic's backers are least notable to me but even then, they have such a stronk eSports background for an orga not already in League. To be fair, they are owned by the owner of the Sixers, who also own the NJ Devils, and is the co-founder of the Apollo Management Group. The guy is worth $3b by himself. We're reaching the point where numbers don't really matter.
They were scared of the 3 4 years where dig would tell their fans to "trust the process"
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On October 20 2017 11:33 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2017 11:23 Gahlo wrote:On October 20 2017 11:09 NeoIllusions wrote: Team SoloMid: looking for minority investors soon (tm) Cloud9: "individual" investors Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, NFL hall of famer Joe Montana, Golden State Warrior owner Chamath Palihapitiya Counter Logic Gaming: Madison Square Garden Team Liquid: aXiomatic eSports (Magic Johnson, Peter Guber and Ted Leonsis) Echo Fox: New York Yankees OpTic: Chaney Sports Group New Team 1: Joe Lacob of the Golden State Warriors New Team 2: Cleveland Cavaliers FlyQuest: Wesley Edens of the Milwaukee Bucks and the Fortress Gaming Investment group
So DIG couldn't compete with 76ers money and who knows if IMT had anyone backing them, but these are all serious levels of monies. OpTic's backers are least notable to me but even then, they have such a stronk eSports background for an orga not already in League. To be fair, they are owned by the owner of the Sixers, who also own the NJ Devils, and is the co-founder of the Apollo Management Group. The guy is worth $3b by himself. We're reaching the point where numbers don't really matter. They were scared of the 3 4 years where dig would tell their fans to "trust the process" But the League process got them back to semis in 1. =[
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On October 20 2017 11:10 AlterKot wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2017 10:52 chipmonklord17 wrote: I hope Riot never tries the OWL approach as it feels like there's too many logistical holes beyond the fact that its Overwatch and not some proven esport. Having a geolocation based esport sounds absurd when you consider that the nature of competitive video games is that they can be played anywhere with an internet connection That's an approach very specific to games that were made in internet era and are designed with some ammount of input lag in mind. If you look at CS, that's a game that sprouted in an era where LAN Parties were extremely common, people played only on servers with very low ping (ie located in their own region) and what do you know, until recently teams were for the most part national. And a 100 times better example, fighting games which originated from arcades and maaaybe consoles (with no online play), and thus were very regional (Norcal vs Socal, East Coast vs West Coast, America vs Japan etc etc etc). Even nowadays when online play is standard, the genre is built on timing so strict that 16ms of lag changes everything. It's only games like League that force everyone to connect to the same server that made it seem like regions don't matter.
While I see where you're coming from I just disagree. Regions don't matter. At all. Maybe it helps those that aren't "in the know" in the esports world but it just doesn't matter. I guess IMT is a good example of what I mean. When you're not in the know, their OWL team being in LA might be appealing to someone who is in LA themselves, but anyone in the know knows IMT has a Brazilian CS:GO team, an NA LCS team, and a Korean DOTA team, once you found an org you like you're gonna support their team. I don't root for an NA CS:GO team, I root for a brand I like. Who I root for in Melee isn't influenced by who is east coast despite me being east coast myself. My favorite teams span regions, hell ,continents. I get that that's where esports was but there's no indication that its where it IS. Not to mention having a geolocation based league that spans continents has its own set of stupidity. What happens when the Shanghai Dragons can't get a visa to play in London? Why even risk that?
The only thing its good for is being able to go see a game live like someone mentioned earlier. But I just don't see the OWL model working. I think what Riot's doing now is going to be far more successful than this iteration of the OWL ever could be
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Gonna be honest, I don't think inter-esports teams carry over many fans. There are TSM-LOL fans, and they dont necessarily support TSM-CS-Hearthstone-Etc. The regional thing is kinda good because it actually means more revenue (theoretically) because of ticket sales. Unlike the NFL, adding another stadium of ticket sales would be a massive boost to revenue for the tiny pool that is LCS revenue. IDK why Riot doesn't do this already. Instead of only selling in LA all week, have have your games in LA, and half in NYC/Chicago/ATL/Dallas. For most sports, gate is how leagues made money for almost all of history, basically up until the late 80s. Some sports still have gate > broadcast.
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GrandInquisitor
New York City13113 Posts
Yeah people try so hard to strip geography out of esports and I don't know why. At the end of the day we are all tribal humans with weird petty allegiances and loyalties to things that shouldn't matter, but do. I mean, college sports is ostensibly the stupidest thing ever. You get to watch indisputably bad players make tons of money for their rich owners while seeing none of it in a horribly corrupt system.
And yet people are insanely loyal to their college teams, even though there's theoretically little bond between a State U student and a State U football player, because they essentially go to different schools with different admissions processes, entrance requirements, living facilities, and classes.
If I were Riot, I'd try to make things geographic, but I'd also invest a ton into collegiate League play. Huge marketing opportunity right there. Fund some small scholarships for some good schools, pay for some spruced up tournament finals, and use it to market to a whole bunch of potential players who aren't necessarily interested in League, but will be like "Hey our college team is doing well, let's check it out and see what it's all about." It's basically the perfect demographic for them anyway.
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Isn't it a conflict of interest that 2 teams have backing from people involved with the Golden State Warriors?
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On October 20 2017 13:37 lilwisper wrote: Isn't it a conflict of interest that 2 teams have backing from people involved with the Golden State Warriors?
Only in terms of competitiveness within the league. And Riot doesn't give a rats about that.
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On October 20 2017 12:31 cLutZ wrote: Gonna be honest, I don't think inter-esports teams carry over many fans. There are TSM-LOL fans, and they dont necessarily support TSM-CS-Hearthstone-Etc. The regional thing is kinda good because it actually means more revenue (theoretically) because of ticket sales. Unlike the NFL, adding another stadium of ticket sales would be a massive boost to revenue for the tiny pool that is LCS revenue. IDK why Riot doesn't do this already. Instead of only selling in LA all week, have have your games in LA, and half in NYC/Chicago/ATL/Dallas. For most sports, gate is how leagues made money for almost all of history, basically up until the late 80s. Some sports still have gate > broadcast.
Because we don't know what the demographic is like that watches games live. How many people actually go to see the LCS in the studio? Is it worth splitting the venue, will they even fill the place up every week? Will the number of attendants recuperate the extra costs? Who is going to pay for transportation? What happens when there is a technical difficulty, do they have to hire twice as many technicians? My guess is that it's just not worth it to Riot to increase running costs. I'm pretty sure the attendance rate of sports fans is a lot higher than esports as well, we've all grown up watching this stuff being streamed, a lot of sports fans are people old enough to remember when TV quality was only decent, and watching a game was a real experience.
If I were Riot, I'd try to make things geographic, but I'd also invest a ton into collegiate League play. Huge marketing opportunity right there. Fund some small scholarships for some good schools, pay for some spruced up tournament finals, and use it to market to a whole bunch of potential players who aren't necessarily interested in League, but will be like "Hey our college team is doing well, let's check it out and see what it's all about." It's basically the perfect demographic for them anyway.
Esports isn't mainstream enough for an approach like that. That's an investment were Riot would almost certainly lose more money than they take back in with new player base, especially because from what I've understood, LoL player base is stagnating, the market is saturated.
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For people who dont think geography works in esports. What do you think the whole na vs eu rivarly is based on?
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On October 20 2017 13:25 GrandInquisitor wrote: Yeah people try so hard to strip geography out of esports and I don't know why. At the end of the day we are all tribal humans with weird petty allegiances and loyalties to things that shouldn't matter, but do. I mean, college sports is ostensibly the stupidest thing ever. You get to watch indisputably bad players make tons of money for their rich owners while seeing none of it in a horribly corrupt system.
And yet people are insanely loyal to their college teams, even though there's theoretically little bond between a State U student and a State U football player, because they essentially go to different schools with different admissions processes, entrance requirements, living facilities, and classes.
If I were Riot, I'd try to make things geographic, but I'd also invest a ton into collegiate League play. Huge marketing opportunity right there. Fund some small scholarships for some good schools, pay for some spruced up tournament finals, and use it to market to a whole bunch of potential players who aren't necessarily interested in League, but will be like "Hey our college team is doing well, let's check it out and see what it's all about." It's basically the perfect demographic for them anyway.
I guess this is another big difference in mentalities. I've never had professional gaming here, it's never been relevant and we had basically no international success. Teams I support in esports have nothing to do with me and never have. So geography isn't important, in fact it's actually a negative in my view. I like that a team isn't fixed to a location but instead an entity within the game itself. Esports definitely helps bridge boundaries. I think any move that goes opposite to that is doing it a disservice. Isolationism does seem to be on the rise so though I can understand why it makes sense from a marketing perspective.
edit: Also can people stop saying esports isn't "mainstream". I don't get it at all. I play Hockey(Field hockey for you guys) and that's barely a sport in most countries. It doesn't have a professional scene here and only has one in a few countries(Netherlands for example). I wouldn't be surprised if the people that play+watch it is 10 times less than League. The pro players in league most likely earn far far more money. How is something that is watched by so many, played by so many, with so much money not mainstream?
Is "mainstream" just some arb metric people dream up to justify certain attitudes? The metric surely can't be if it's on TV since I've been at gym with one of the TVs showing Overwatch Apex live on supersport.
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On October 20 2017 18:41 JimmiC wrote: For people who dont think geography works in esports. What do you think the whole na vs eu rivarly is based on? An inability to beat Korea?
@Numy, if hockey is on TV over here that's already a million viewers or so, add in Australia, India, Great-Britain and the viewership dwars League in every aspect. And that's for a small sport.
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On October 20 2017 20:22 Fildun wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2017 18:41 JimmiC wrote: For people who dont think geography works in esports. What do you think the whole na vs eu rivarly is based on? An inability to beat Korea? The timing of this comment
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On October 20 2017 20:25 Ansibled wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2017 20:22 Fildun wrote:On October 20 2017 18:41 JimmiC wrote: For people who dont think geography works in esports. What do you think the whole na vs eu rivarly is based on? An inability to beat Korea? The timing of this comment I literally came home one minute ago, guess I should've checked results first :>
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If they lose you jinxed it.
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On October 20 2017 11:54 chipmonklord17 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2017 11:10 AlterKot wrote:On October 20 2017 10:52 chipmonklord17 wrote: I hope Riot never tries the OWL approach as it feels like there's too many logistical holes beyond the fact that its Overwatch and not some proven esport. Having a geolocation based esport sounds absurd when you consider that the nature of competitive video games is that they can be played anywhere with an internet connection That's an approach very specific to games that were made in internet era and are designed with some ammount of input lag in mind. If you look at CS, that's a game that sprouted in an era where LAN Parties were extremely common, people played only on servers with very low ping (ie located in their own region) and what do you know, until recently teams were for the most part national. And a 100 times better example, fighting games which originated from arcades and maaaybe consoles (with no online play), and thus were very regional (Norcal vs Socal, East Coast vs West Coast, America vs Japan etc etc etc). Even nowadays when online play is standard, the genre is built on timing so strict that 16ms of lag changes everything. It's only games like League that force everyone to connect to the same server that made it seem like regions don't matter. While I see where you're coming from I just disagree. Regions don't matter. At all. Maybe it helps those that aren't "in the know" in the esports world but it just doesn't matter. I guess IMT is a good example of what I mean. When you're not in the know, their OWL team being in LA might be appealing to someone who is in LA themselves, but anyone in the know knows IMT has a Brazilian CS:GO team, an NA LCS team, and a Korean DOTA team, once you found an org you like you're gonna support their team. I don't root for an NA CS:GO team, I root for a brand I like. Who I root for in Melee isn't influenced by who is east coast despite me being east coast myself. My favorite teams span regions, hell ,continents. I get that that's where esports was but there's no indication that its where it IS. Not to mention having a geolocation based league that spans continents has its own set of stupidity. What happens when the Shanghai Dragons can't get a visa to play in London? Why even risk that? The only thing its good for is being able to go see a game live like someone mentioned earlier. But I just don't see the OWL model working. I think what Riot's doing now is going to be far more successful than this iteration of the OWL ever could be You say you "see where I'm coming from" but you just ignore what I said :D
The regionalism is rooted in competitive gaming. Rushdown West Coast vs Zoning East Coast, Chinese Dota vs whatever other regions are playing, NA vs EU in League, Poland vs Sweden in CS and so forth and so forth and so forth and so forth and so forth. Saying that "geolocation makes no sense since games can be played anywhere with an internet connection" is like saying that gelocation makes no sense in football since it can be played anywhere with a ball.
And that's just me talking about principles. As for OWL model in particular, there are two simple points - one is to have a touring show, and in this particular model it works better if every team has a "home stadium", and the other is to give people more reasons to care. No one says you have to root for your local team, plenty of football fans I know root for teams in other regions, but on top of them there's a lot who do in fact cheer for the home team. When IEM is in Poland, polish fans come to cheer for teams that have poles on them. When Worlds are in China, crowd cheers the loudest for Chinese teams. That to me is enough proof that it's worth to at least try the state-team model.
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GrandInquisitor
New York City13113 Posts
Yeah I mean, look, not everyone roots because of geography. But it is completely ridiculous to claim that NO ONE roots because of geography, or to deny that huge numbers of people root based on geography. Like, every single other sport in the world derives almost all their fans on the basis of geography. Esports is not different, and the daily NA >< EU salt threads on Reddit are proof of that.
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I'm looking forward to Sneaky memeing in a backstage segment during Raw.
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