Esports Fans Need To Start PAYING
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- Опубліковано 21 тра 2023
- #esports #csgo #football
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After hearing how much money these players make, I cannot fathom how any owners would be able to see profits anywhere unless they have multiple huge sponsors.
Sponsored by Saudi Arabia.
Its easy to spend when its not your own money
@@xxyz9819 and CsgoRoll, btw fuck G2 And fuck their ceo
@@xxyz9819 Sponsored by the government of China
They take a large percentage of sponsor deals. The big orgs aren't doing this out of the goodness of their heart.
how can e-sport orgs afford to pay these crazy 20-30k dollars/month salaries to players when the players keep most of the tournament winnings and a large portion of sticker money (if they even make it to the major), there is no way that can be sustainable without new investors throwing money right?
You'd be surprised how many companies shouldn't be alive, but are because of constant investment from people speculating eventually these things are going to be sustainable.
that’s precisely what’s happening. wealthy investors are throwing money at a seemingly “booming” market
I remember when Dota 2 first came out and you could buy in game tickets to events to get in game spectator access (dotatv), along with some cool skins.
I'm pretty sure some of the skins also leveled up and tracked the amount of games that you had watched - which is pretty sick.
Real shame valve just abandoned this feature and never brought it to csgo
Dude you could even pay for 3rd party events, remember when the First DAC in 2015 had close to 2 million dollars prize pool majority raised by the community
Its honestly crazy that they never brought the pool for tournaments into cago. They provided millions for additional prize pool and somehow didnt think to move it to their other huge esports brand
Richard Lewis back at it with the most honest takes on the eSports industry
I think people don't want to invest money into esport because they think they already supported the gaming companies so they assume the money they spent on the game are then reinvested into the esport.
Personally I do think companies that want to have an esport segment should be the one investing and supporting the scene
this is essentially riot's model, but valve can do that and they can probably do even better, they just choose not to because of their completely hands off attitude
@@riilhiiro true but they barely support the scene
All they do is give it a prize money and bare minimum to keep companies afloat while at the same time is the reason the amateur scene is dead.
As someone who paid to watch GSL for a couple years, then paid ESL for a few events when they used to have PPV, and then paid to watch MLG in good quality, I couldn't agree more.
I cant believe we somehow went from having PPV and subscription streaming to everything being free in 4k and some people actually expected the industry not to eventually collapse...
they overpaid for players on a niche hobby and now they're suffering the consequences. most people don't care about stream quality they just want to watch some games on twitch or youtube. There's plenty of cost cutting measures that should've been implemented but people cared too much about being "real sports" and "player welfare" and we're in this situation. I don't think anyone can justify a 410k average salary for a league player.
@@kavinh10 none of what you said is true if you were just willing to pay a monthly subscription, like you do for EVERYTHING ELSE.
And if what you say about stream quality is true, then you wouldnt object to the free stram being in 360p and having to pay for HD, would you?
Honestly, its people like you that have ruined esports.
GSL was the shit, insane production quality, top of the line casters and unbelievable talent. Easily the peak of e-sports, will probably never be there again.
Streaming is dirt cheap, player salaries what is bringing down the esports.
I gladly paid for GSL back in the Gomtv days, one of the main reasons for doing so was cause of their brilliant vod player that was completely void of spoilers.
They've been paying with brain cells for quite a while now, hence the current situation.
For majors, buying the pick'em pass should be your 'ticket' to being able to watch the live games. Also could always do something where the stream is free at 720p 30fps but you pay £5 for higher quality? Idk!
I’d gladly pay subscriptions for esports events. Let the true fans sustain the industry. Saudi Arabia, USAF, or other shady capital interests should never be the model
Exactly, I’m dropping $100 every major on these stickers and viewer passes. I’ll happily move my money to a pay per view model if the developers don’t subsidise the scene better if they are going to keep it free to view
Lmao. You underestimate how much money the Arabs can pay up. It's hard to compete with the kind money they're willing to cough up
I have a question, and it ties in a number of points here - I completely agree that the fans should be paying in some way to help sustain the ecosystem and prevent teams and TOs from having to turn to dubious sources of funding, but given that tournament organizers and teams seem to be so corrupt and unsavory, why would I want to give my money to them? I am not a super e-sports fan, but I'd certainly be willing to pay to watch some games or a tournament, but at the same time, why would I want to give my money to ESL, for example? And to tie in another point, if I don't agree with what a TO or team is doing, a method of boycotting would be to not give them my money until they apologize or fix something or whatever, which brings us right back around to where we are now. I want to know how I can support the e-sports scene I enjoy without givng my own money to unethical companies, as things currently stand.
16:37 Had me in stitches, cheers for all the content over the years Richard!
Richard: "Mate i'm telling you, stop squeezing your hands around your neck so hard and you might survive!"
Esports Teams and Fans: "Nevah!" *choking on his own strangulation* "Esports shall stay free forever!" *starts turning blue*
😂😂😂
I remember OGN (Korean Esports) charging its viewers a few dollars per months to have access to streaming resolutions above 480p and to VODs. The Chat experience was far superior as well, and the model worked.
"Maybe if nobody is willing to pay to watch esports, maybe esports deserves to die. If I had a product that people aren't willing to pay for, is that product good? No. The answer is no." Thank you for hitting the nail so squarely on the head, time and time again. American football fans pay like $60USD a month for NFL Sunday ticket and we're out here talking about how traditional sports don't need PPV.
You're 100% misreading the market if you think most esports fans will pay to watch tournaments at this point.
@@joshteafordcomedy You 100% didn't read my comment because nowhere in it did I claim most esports fans will pay to watch tournaments. I'm not sure if you even watched the video either. Let most esports fans leave if they aren't willing to pay anything for these leagues and events. You'll be left with a small, hardcore base of paying fans or the scene will wither away and better ideas will take its place.
@@Polyvalent The reason a product like Sunday Ticket exists is so that the hardcore fans can watch all the games, including out of market ones which isn't really an issue in esports. I guess you could argue that ESL/Blast could charge a fee for their tournaments with yearly passes at discounted rates and that would be similar, but Sunday Ticket is really an apples to oranges comparison. RL makes a good comparison with UFC fights as they're singular events and you get what you get. And, while I could potentially see people paying $5 per tournament, I have a hard time believing that moving to a PPV model will do more for scene than the exposure will.
@@joshteafordcomedy Sure you can make the argument that it's not a great comparison, but you having a hard time believing something is not an argument. The quip about Sunday ticket was simply highlighting how silly it is to say that traditional sports don't have PPV models. All of them do.
Excellent take Richard. People will throw hundreds or thousands at skins or gamblin but simply wont pay a couple dollars/euros for a tournament its silly. What you opted : pay 5-10 euro for a tournament get a couple skins pack or whatever and help fix the proffessional scene
blowing my mind that valve don't give major hosts a % of the viewer pass money. 10% of that would go a long way.
Maybe they should just call it a "Viewer Battlepass", people seem to have no issue forking out $$$ for those.
Riot really killed the golden goose that was OGN viewers paying the twitch sub for 1080p, it was (in my opinion) the perfect way to manage it. If you are short on cash or young, you can still watch it while others have the option to watch it in higher quality for a reasonable fee.
I believe DOTA 2's TI is a good way for people to actually support esport in this game, since it always creates a huge prize pool, which is then redistributed to the orgs and to Valve. I do not understand why we don't have an equivalent tournament on CS. I believe it would drag other orgs if there was a 40M€ cashprize. I'd buy stickers and stuff like that if I could clearly see the orgs benefiting from them. Right now it's kind of a shady thing where you don't really know who gets what, plus it's clearly not enough for a scene to keep running.
I also strongly agree with the idea of paid subscriptions, but I think it should be "globalized", I don't wanna pay 5 bucks for Blast, 5 for ESL etc... Ask me to pay 20€ a season or 5€ a month whatsoever and I'll do it if I get access to all the events online. People that do not understand why esport is dying and why we need to pay for it to remain big are clearly not real fans.
I think another solution like in Football would be to have pay-per-view for the season, but to get the World Cup or the equivalent for free, so that big events keep attracting people, but the scene itself, the matches you watch every week is paid by hardcore fans.
You’re right, but to also add, it goes both ways. I love not being able to not get tickets to events because they are sold out in 5 minutes. Hilariously I’d spend 50-100 dollars for a ticket, but I wouldn’t pay the $4.99. However I like the idea of hearing the players mic’d up, I would pay a premium for that, including sports like football and baseball.
I wonder how that average spending calculation would change if you included in game purchases that esports fans make in the games they follow. I bet that makes up for that missing $45/year and then some. I think issue with esports fandom is that the context that an esports fan would be most likely to want to express their fandom is within the game that they are a fan of.
Localized sports teams are able to sell merch because people are incentivized to wear it. When you go to a game, wearing the merch is positively reinforced. In my experience, people who are planning to attend a game, will by merch ahead of time just to fit in. Additionally, when a local sports team is doing particularly well, people will often start wearing the merch out in their daily lives as a sign of support. This creates incentives for bandwagoners to buy merch so they can participate in the excitement.
Esports fans on the other hand get very few real life opportunities where they would be incentivized to wear merch. I own a C9 shirt that I don't think I've ever worn out in public. I bought it after I bought tickets to the LCS finals. However, C9 didn't make it to the finals that year, so I sold my tickets to a TSM fan for an $80 profit. I'd bet, most esports fans never attend a live game. And even less attend a live game of a team they are actually a fan of. There aren't enough incentives around physical esports merch to make that a viable path to profitability.
The place where esports fans would be incentivized to express their fandom is within the game. However, that requires devs to share profits with the teams that help generate and maintain interest in their game...
This is true. I got a MOUZ shirt and i've never worn it in public. There is just never a reason for it where i'm from (UK). Well over half the 'gamers' in the UK are on Console, and the other few don't even know what CSGO is so theres almost no chance of anybody knowing what the fuck a MOUZ is. It's just a weird shirt with weird branding.
I still support PPV because most of the players who care about the game have spent triple digits on skins already. and it would obviously keep the scene alive, however i'm not sure i support paying PPV purely to support these pro players contracts. I come from a warehousing background, shit pay, shit hours, shit environment and the only thing keeping you sane is your workmates and the little peace you have on the forklift truck, so hearing these gamers complain about having to get up early to play a game, or complain that theyre only on 40k a year, or even worse FNS complaining on twitter recently in valorant because he has to play 1 BO3 a week for 9 weeks is fucking ridiculous.
This also ties in to why i believe the standard of CS has never been worse, the Players are on such high salaries who gives a fuck if they win a tournament anymore? Sure the extra money is nice, but when your already on so much when you need to spend so little, what is the motivation really? They have no need to innovate, they have no need to grind 24/7, they're getting a hefty paycheck either way.
I find that there are many pre existing problems with gaming and esports culture that fundamentally can't coexist, at least not on this level. How many times have you heard this statement? "I would rather play the game than watch pro". A much more prevalent statement that exists in this space than any other because its really just that easy to start playing yourself than compared to traditional sports. Many people are also unable to keep up with pro scene or the meta which creates an immediate trough of lost opportunity. The original fans that championed this scene have probably grown out of it or fail to see the value of paying for esports. You are left with the true fans that will pay and the new generation which will need to be fostered. This is not sustainable at this scale when people are getting overpaid to hell and everything is overproduced. We need an immediate paywall.
Watched this at least 3 times now, love this piece thanks Rich
For reference the utilita arena in Newcastle is £40k for 2 days renting venue and security only.
I quit Esports after I was a TO and was met with pushback for trying to make it more sustainable.
I'd be interested to know if that average esports fan investment included paying for things like skins/stickers that directly go toward prize money, players, orgs and funding tournaments (ie., Crowd funding of Dota2 TI, CSGO Major, etc)
I've been watching csgo for past 8 years, and to avoid complications... with all the matchfixing going on paying is a huge no. Another thing worth noting: not everyone watching is a grown person, with credit card who would be able to pay for subscription... and even if they were, there're always alternative options to watch... unless you move esports completly out of twitch/youtube etc it won't happen, and if you were to move esports out... maybe 5 percent of the people would watch... maybe.
I find it funny how an esport fan will be willing to spend 10 pound on a skin they may use a few times in a game every week to a month but not spend 5 pound on 10s of hours of esports content that may actually bring fullfillment like traditional sports and not dread from buying a useless skin
I understand the point, but if esports events are paywalled their viewership will tank into oblivion. The only way I can see fans ever funding esports is through in-game purchases that provide revenue towards esports events etc. That however means developers working with T.Os.
As always, really interesting points from Richard. I particularly like the emphasis on the fact that most fans are now grown-ups that are willing to pay if required. I started watching CS specifically because it was free and mostly available. I was a huge sports fan (based in CAN) but moved away for school and no longer had my parents TV package. From then on I've been hooked to watching CS.
Personally, I've never bought a single PPV, however I understand the benefit. The idea of a subscription package that has multiple CS events intrigues me more (perhaps that's a result of where I'm from). I pay monthly for a sports coverage channel, which allows me to watch all of the sports I still care for. If Esports was interested in launching something similar that covered multiple titles I'd almost certainly buy.
As Richard points out, the greed is unfortunately what will prevent many great collaborative ideas from ever being brought to the surface.
Nonetheless, always great to hear Richard discuss Esports & it's economy.
I think one problem may be that a lot of the money goes back to the game. When the game doesn't own the esport and support the teams within it. All the money that these people spend is on the game I mean seriously i've probably spent 20 bucks on csgo skins while I've spent 0 on team liquid. I play csgo more during the majors everyone does. Teams get sticker capsules, but without pay per view these other events aren't sustainable. Pay per view may make it bigger.
Was training Rocket League while listening, it was a workshop map similar to surfing in csgo, and that comment about being an egg in the crowd absolutely destroyed me lol
I think a paywall for Majors/LANs would do well for Rocket League. But a post-live, free option (with ads) would be nice to get me back into games that I'm not a die hard fan of.
Substack man smashing out bangers on the reg!
Very insightful video!
I would agree with that. Definitely would pay for proper open circuits events. But Valve should pay for the Majors, in my opinion, because of how much money they are making of skin sales.
I will never pay.
Never.
Not for e-sports.
I don´t think the fans are the problem.
If we had to we would pay, plain and simple. That´s why people get a streaming service for one show.
The industry itself seems to be deathly afraid of what PPV would do to their precious viewer counts and watch hours.
While not a related topic I am excited to see a video from Rich on the recent OW2 news. THAT IS GONNA BE ABSOLUTELY FIRE.
m o d e r n s u v s
It'd actually work pretty well with League - pay for a pass for your region (or global one) and get in-game content.
As someone who is a sports fan and importantly for this conversation a Pro-Wrestling and MMA fan, I'm used to buying PPVs for shows I wanna watch (I just bought a PPV last night for this New Japan Pro Wrestling show, was really fun with a bad ending because of an injury) so if an esports league went to PPV model I might pay for a tournament. However because all these tournament and leagues have been free forever, fans have expected that these events should be free because they've always been free when in reality it takes A LOT of money for these leagues and TOs to put on these events. It can take upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars to produced these events because you have to pay for a production team, a wide range of equipment from video boards and PCs, on-screen talent salaries, paying for lodging and catering and a lot more mundane bullshit that can't be sustainable to keep free unless your a game studio like Riot who sees it as a marketing tool or if your burning though VC money. Now that the VC money is drying up these TOs are realizing its not sustainable yet the fans are not willing to give a dime to keep this sport that they love so much alive. Its just sad to see
Edit: Lmao I just finished the video and this comment is just what Rich said, this comment feels a bit redundant now ngl
for years I’ve thought that if there was a RedZone type of thing for CSGO, maybe even FPS/ESports games on the side like other sports on the side of the screen, id absolutely pay a premium subscription price for that type of product. even the $5 price tag mentioned is a steal for the honestly amazing shows we get.
How did I know Heroic would be the first comment under that tweet. Only org I've had to block, strange org with strange social media management and strange takes. and yeah, for the sake of virtue signalling and to 'look cool' they decide to 'disagree' with an opinion/take that could actually steer them in the right direction and actually help them stay a float!! hahahaha, It's brilliant.
I think PPV is a great idea. Not only will it help esports to survive, but it will also help it to grow. Initially, the viewership will drop, but that doesn't matter. Event organizers could use the PPV money to not only pay for the event and make a profit, but also to advertise their events properly (I'd imagine). The only reason I know about some boxing fights happening (even tho I'm not into boxing at all), is because of advertisement; Which I guess they can afford because of PPV. The same thing would probably then happen with esports, which sounds great. This is just one potential benefits, besides, obviously, finally making a profit.
The UFC and ONE Championship I believe are massively successful. Plus, they put up highlights to grow an audience of their respective fighting organizations and entice new viewers.
Could totally see buying a PPV major... I'm not sure how I feel about paying for a league though. Definitely playoffs could be hidden behind a PPV wall. This could let viewers watch group stages for free and then entice them to watch the last 2 or 3 days of the tournament to finish up the story. If you want to throw bonuses in like skins, go for it but I think CS has a recipe for success from a spectator point of view. It's easy to watch and understand but if you play it, the skill ceiling is insanely high. This is what makes traditional sports so good as well.
i wouldn't be against paying 5-10 euro a month for good content/documentaries and higher quality streaming. Stuff like SEN city are rly good initiatives IMO
Yeah I agree you have to charge more or reach an unimaginable scale of an audience to see any profit margin
The virtual egg Rocket League PPV absoloutely sent me
I think the bigger issue is that I don't find e-sports to be worth my money.
I think as long as the ppv prices stay reasonable it wouldn’t be that bad. 5$ like you said should be easily doable for all esports fans. I watch ufc and struggle to pay the 70-80$ that the Ppvs are and would much rather watch esports and pay 5-10$ per ppv.
Honestly I fall into the bucket of someone who wouldn't pay/watch, barring MSI and Worlds for league. There was a time when I was more invested into it and would've, but barring the flagship events, my viewing is mostly just as something to occupy my secondary monitor while I do other things. The leagues that occupy the bulk of the season like LCS, LEC, etc. just don't have the value prop. I have a feeling a lot of people are in this boat, tuning in because it just happens to be on, as opposed to seriously being invested.
Another big challenge these events would face is that if you paywall live viewing, alternatives exist for free. For example, if LCS would paywall, I could just wait the next day when IWillDominate puts up a YT view of his costream or live viewing. Broadcasts would have to maybe shutdown some of this stuff, which just creates a different problem.
Flagship events like MSI, Worlds, assuming the Majors for CSGO, etc. could probably get away with charging PPV, but only a handful of orgs can even make it to these events, it doesn't really help the financial viability of running a team for the other orgs, and these other orgs are still critical to the overall scene. Other 7 LCS orgs wouldn't get anything.
More money from the developer probably needs to fill this gap, with them benefiting the most from an esport scene retaining player interest. Am I wrong in thinking it can be flipped this way: if orgs and TOs can't successfully negotiate and bargain with the devs for a more fair payout, that's them failing to use their leverage with the scene dying tomorrow if they walked away.
I used to pay for the OGN thing a decade ago, that was a good system. Now I don't care enough to watch it if there is a paywall in the way, I just put it on in the background sometimes when I'm doing other stuff so its basically just expensive white noise for me at the moment.
"We have a million viewers who don't pay anything" - $0dollars + Sponsors
"We have 200 thousand viewers who pay 5 dollars" - $1M + Sponsors
Just to help people with the math: the Lakers have approximatelly 30M fans worldwide, and signed a 100M sponsor for 5 year... the lakers play at least 82 days a year, the average tournament in eSports has 20 days that are active.
100M/5(number of years of contract) = 20M
20M/4(average days of exposure per year) = 5M
5M/30(number of millions of fans) = 165thousand.
(that is crudest number the sponsor will offer a company but if they do better math the number will be lower)
(remember that the sponsor of the Lakers is exclusive on the shirt)
Thats a very crude and poor way to show that 1M of nothing with sponsors and nowhere near better than 200thousand paying 5 bucks.
My favourite was riot, who implemented "pro view", a product I enjoyed, which was effectively PPV for an extra service ON TOP of the already free stream. Then they shuttered it with covid. Reimplemented it a year and a half later without ANY advertising for it. I only found out when I saw headlines of them closing it AGAIN. My subscription had ended when the service did. I was a paying customer who enjoyed a product they sold, did they even send an email to tell me "hey we're doing this again"?. Fuck no.
Then I find out it was a 3rd party company providing the service, riot only received a CUT of the profits. Suddenly it all clicks into place.
The companies have the fans to match.
A problem I see with ppv is that riot will never go for it, as for them their esports are pretty much ads for their games, and therefore I doubt anyone in the cs/dota space would be willing to try this.
For smaller genres like fighting games however ppv sounds very nice, specially for Melee (assuming Nintendo wouldn't use it as an excuse to shut them down).
i agree esports fans need to pay but i think there is validity to people who say ppv will kill the scene, i think a good middle ground might be to's hosting a couple ppv events per year (maybe 3-4) with bonuses like chances to win skins or stuff and hosting regular free events throughout the calendar
19:17 single celled organism level thinking
It's a shame Valve doesn't let tournament organizers sell cosmetics with their digital event tickets. This always seems like a great system to me.
I think it's more of a shame Valve doesn't invest in CSGO esports with all the billions they make.
@@recarored9862 So were just going to pretend that valve does give team sticker revenue to the teams and players....Look into it. They do...
@XdognateX Yes the players are getting paid very well on top off their high salary but what about the ESPORTS scene that is struggling to survive?
I like the guy who said "13yr olds couldnt afford to pay to watch tournaments". All while those 13yr olds play on $1500+ gaming computers
I remember in dota they had a ticket system that allowed you to watch the game and gave some skin. But I am with full agreement with richard its better to have a small crowd that is willing to pay then a large crowd that doesnt pay for anything. But I one thing I need to understand, about ESL X FB. I get it why ESL went for FB its a direct boost to their revenue but the product was sub par compared to YT. Personally, if YT made that offer I think the backlash would not be so bad. Good Video overall, its funny I spoke to a person who is a big sport fan and follows CSGO. I asked if he would pay for a PPV for csgo. He just flat out said no but I then asked do you pay for PPV for UFC or a sub for baseball? He answered Yes. It just culture we need to start making it normal for people to accept PPV mode or maybe I dare say exclusively steaming rights (Please not FB thou). Its up to the fans to give a shit and pay or else this dies. So much for esport trying to copy sports.
I wouldn’t pay blast or ESL to watch on there personal websites because most csgo matches are late at night so I only watch like 30% of most tournaments on twitch
Hi Richard. Is the International and Evvo and all other stuff that happened somewhat organic before the venture capital appeared also broken? They used be self sustained, afaik.
Another aspect of esports that's fucked up is delaying payment. Plenty of people work events and don't get paid for months! It's rife for abuse and has to stop. Pay per view events should come with an expectation of paying the money down.
There should be a percetage cut from players salaries or winnings to help sustain the esports scene, these players are getting insane monthly salaries. I mean i don't mind paying $5 to help the esports scene but i can't be paying $5 to ESL, $5 to Blast, $5 to PGL, etc.
I’d be willing to spend money to watch stuff, the only issue I can think of is time zones, I probably wouldn’t buy a pass for an event I’d have to wake up at 3 am to watch.
I used to buy ppv for old mlg events and it didn't bother me at all
Even as small as something like:
$5 to watch a pro league-level event
$10 to watch a major, maybe $5 extra to also watch the RMR's (which shouldn't even exist as separate tournaments)
Would make an unbelievable amount of money for CSGO compared to what it makes now, not to mention esports with fans who actually care like League
Or they could get all the big tourney org companies to get together and have a year-round league pass like the NBA and MLB with extra content coming from it, but that would require the people who run these companies to not act like actual children and work together
If people don't wanna pay you can't force them. If the show can't go on just let the scene die.
Kinda crazy to expect fans to pay for the pro scene when Valve is the one making 20 mil a month just by case openings.
The fuck have Valve got to do with the pro scene?
No need to shit on fans.
MMA fans don't pay for UFC because they love the sport, they pay because they were conditioned from the start to pay. Same with esports fans just in the other direction.
And about fans being judgemental about the quality of events? I wonder where they got that from? Maybe from listening to 2-3 hour long podcasts that shit on every aspect of those events every time.
i wouldnt mind a sub fee per major tournament, valve could give out a souvenir sticker in return for paying that to reward the viewers too, the problem would be, what about other tournaments excluding majors?
Somehow this sounds crazy to me... Ive always bought the passes and just been even talking about pricing models at my own streams that what they could so. AND THE CRAZIEST PART IS THAT MOST OF THE EXTRA SHIT THEY COULD GIVE IS DIGITAL! its not like they have to make physical products. It would be awesome to buy a year pass for example blast or esl events that cost like 50€ that holds a replica mini tophy and some ingame tournament boxes that you can open for example. and other tiers that can be even more expensive that could even hold a free jersey of your favourite selected theam and some of the winnings goes directly to a team from that shirt etc. This would be SO EASY TO DO. I dont understand this idealogy when it literally brings more value to the scene almost for free.
thank fuck I'm not an "Esports fan"
i'll pirate esports too if they try to reach into my pocket
based
The most mental thing about this is I guarantee some of the people that think esports should never ever be PPV had no issue paying a tenner just to do the fucking pickem
It's a tough sell for viewership premiums because the pro games are only marginally more interesting and better than watching a high ranked amateur streamer for free. I can't turn on a game of amateur football for free 24/7 and a watch a guy only 100 elo below Mbappe. I think esports is worth making sustainable though but I don't know what that looks like. The CS sticker sales, and the Valorant team skins seem like a good start.
they should restructure the whole thing then. have transfer windows, and also make it like a football league. have a world cup of countries every year or few. people get faster into sports when they see their own country perform. current teams and orgs are good for a club style system. have matches at different places every day and get a fee from tickets. have different trophies and cups throughout the year. present it as a full sport and competition to the world. have lots of different stats for teams and players to showcase, heck make trading cards too.
i would buy pay per view for worlds. they should bundle it with services like proview or stats access
Mate, do you offer any kind of online courses? I'd love to listen to some journalist anecdotes
i think we should have ingame shop items like a gun buddy or something dumb or whatever 5 bucks and it goes straight to the esports side if they do it where its like with cases and u can get rare rolls people will buy the shit out of it
I never understand how we have 60M+ hours viewed on our biggest event in CS yet almost no orgs make a profit. I'm not sure if that money doesn't exist or ESL and blast are just hording it all (I doubt it) or we are just incapable of proper advertising.
Ultimately, pay per view seems like a viable model, but almost no one will do it unless its kato, cologne, pro league, blast world finals, or a major no one is going to pay to watch. I am a diehard and I wouldn't pay to watch dallas or spring finals. Not to mention illegal streams.
Free viewing is possible, we just need to attract more sponsors + maybe put it on tv.
What makes the most sense is locking it behind a streaming service that is used by all TOs for like $5 a month, something akin to DAZN. The problem is with the current ecosystem, blast and esl would have their own services and smaller TOs would be forced to pick from the two options or operate on a free basis. There simply is no good solution.
Not to mention, without some kind of revenue share, orgs are still broke. ESL+Blast are extremely unlikely to do this without franchising which sucks, and partner team agreements have already proven to be bad for the ecosystem. Orgs are in an even worse situation as there are no obvious revenue streams for them beyond tournament $ and sponsors.
Also, as someone on the aspirational ladder, lets pay players less. Like jesus christ if its not big enough and orgs are struggling, lets not pay average players 10k-15k a month or pay out the ass for female teams that are a black hole for money.
I wish the leagues and valve could work together and make the major passes the way to watch the majors. Keep the price or even raise it, keep the tokens and pickems shit and make this the only way to watch the major. Im just spitballing so im not sure how the money would be split up between the orgs, the league and valve but I just wanted to get the thought out there to make this work
My problem is that a service i would pay for has to have some actual features.
I would pay 5-10 bucks a month or PPV to watch league for example. However if i pay for that, i expect every single players POV in-client atleast or vastly improved coverage.
I´m not paying that to listen to an uninteresting, boring and surface level broadcast.
I´m already paying anyways since i have a sub running to not get ads on IWD´s channel.
The problem with pay of f*** of is: Most likely ppl will f*** off and the scene will die. Maybe that's for the better.
Those tweet/reddit comment reacts sending me every time
I just wanna point out that i live in Poland(a 3rd world country according to some, that borders a country currently at war) and 5 dollars won't get you 2 beers at a bar.
5 dollars is sometimes enough to buy a ticket to cinema.
5 dollars is what a pack of better cigarettes costs.
Pretty sure average teen in my country spend more on alcohol in a month than an average esports fan spends on their "favourite hobby" in a lifetime at this point.
The esports cases back in the day was an alright way for valve to trickle money into the scene, atleast thats what I thought Valve was doing with the money. I always wondered what happened with those.. is be sown to pay per view or season. I think if valve worked with the organizers and I xould just pay a flat fee per year id be more willing to do that.
The wildest part about this whole video is when he said $25 ufc pay per view nah man its like 70 now plus the espn plus subscription
A more palatable solution might be to have some key sale money go to the scene. Valve used to have some cases but that would also mean less money for valve and only tournament organisers, teams and players who are associated with valve would benefit. Which brings a lot of problems itself.
Obviously only with cs in mind. Maybe dota? I only follow cs
@hNk what was that with do not assume? I never wrote that. In an earlier comment, if you want to dig through the comment section, I even said the opposite. Before talking about what's sound, learn some etiquette. Mate
Only sustainable at a grass roots level and that's fine, doesn't have to be any more or less.
These so called 'fans' require the industry to fund their entertainment, rather than the person wanting entertainment paying the price of the product.
It’s a game. It will never be the nba, nfl, or football. Accept it.
why aren't broadcasters of those events have sub badge as an option? is there a reason for it?
When I was player, everyone in the room was on a team.
and that's what it is. There is no audience.
Richard the audience was the the people knocked out. That's the model for eSports.The people that actually play.
I'm not paying money to watch gamer legion v vitality
$25 would be a dream! If you can believe it, UFC Pay-Per-Views are actually $79.99 here in the US
The fact that most answers to the tweets were simply “no” with no elaboration sums up the intelligence of the industry completely these people are supposed to be professionals.
The god honest truth is that esports isnt worth a dollar to most people, they watch bc its on and someting to do, if it costed money people would just watch a youtube video, or play the game itself which is free. I could easily stream premiere league on totalsportek but i pay for it because they have proper clubs that are linked to communities and have centuries worth of history, esports orgs are just brands, yes its true football clubs are businesses too but they at least have a home, a stadium, and an actual community attached to it, in esports fans switch teams on a monthly basis.
Its not fans job to make esports profitable, the ones who value it at a dollar or more will pay, but the majority can and will just take it or leave it and consume something else for free on the internet as is the culture of internet products, people barely even pay for youtube premium and that has yt music included.
I can’t believe how much players make
Selling broadcast rights was the way to go, but the whole Facebook fiasco and even youtube exclusivity fan backlash ruined that. That is how most sports survive though.