Few tournaments this week, but some interesting discussions about Dota 2, CS:GO and League of Legends. Here’s what you need to know!
Do it for the memes
For many, Dota 2’s The International 2016 was the best Esport event ever. The level of the teams, the record breaking money prize and the great storylines made it memorable, but a detail struck us and reminded us why we love Esports: for the lol.
These past years, our industry has grown tremendously and gone pro, often looking up to the likes of Football league, the NBA, ESPN… From grassroot events we evolved to professional tournaments. But some of what makes the Esport community unique seemed to be left behind. The clowns, the lol, the memes, the kappa.
After the Shanghai debacle where Valve fired the event host for not being professional enough, we feared that this TI would become a very serious event, with casters in suits and television-like content. We were pleasantly surprised.
Switching from top-notch analysis to savage banter, obnoxious fans bashing or even muppets (!), TI6 delivered each day and conveyed the soul of Esports, a phenomenon born on the Internet. We don’t need to mimic dominant sports to get credibility. Skateboarding got huge and the contest judges didn’t have to wear ties for that. We’ll see if Riot, Blizzard and Activision will take note and stay true to our roots, or go the pure mainstream way.
Coach-Hell-a
Valve did good with Dota 2? Valve did wrong with CS:GO, their other top Esport. The publisher reduced the coaches role this week. So far, coaches could talk to their players during a match and even lead the game. Valve felt that coaches had become 6th players and wanted to restrict Counter-Strike to 5 men experience. They can now communicate with players before and after each half-time and during 4 authorized time-outs per map.
The outcry from both the pro teams and the community has been swift and loud, also condemning the ESL for adopting this rule for its non-Valve sponsored events. Even tho this coach approach is already used by LoL or DotA, the CS:GO backlash shows how each Esport is evolving with its own codes. Let’s compare with Sports: NFL coaches have headsets, Football coaches have to scream – and tennis coaches can’t even go on the court…
Wanna build a pro LoL team? Think again
LoL analyst, caster and personality Monte Cristo has published a very interesting vlog on the struggle to build a professionnal Esport team nowadays, especially for the LCS, Riot’s top league. From the lack of shared revenues, to the sponsor volatility, this video is a must-see if you want to understand the high-risk, low-reward that is running an Esport team.
This piece from Monte Cristo highlights the main differences between Esport and Sport teams in terms of revenue source. The broadcast rights are the main ones for Sports teams, the sponsors are everything for the Esports ones.