Finally, I've been seeing several job postings relating to this site for weeks!
I'm a big SC fan and have been watching the community and the money grow the last year, since SC2 got released. As they have on the frontpage, the SC2 community is huge and between TSL, MLG, GomTV, and NASL, lots of money is flowing their direction for ads and promotions. MLG Columbus took place this weekend with an estimated 110K viewers over the weekend. It's a growing market!
I personally prefer the league model of GOMtv.net or MLG.com to the individual user channel structure that Justin.tv has pursued here.
When people sit at home watching sports they want to see the latest game from the NHL/MBA/NBA/NFL, etc, not a stream someone's recorded in the field across from their house.
People like to watch professional players so they can learn things, and also entertained.
There is value being created for these individuals and JustinTV has snatched up the market by offering revenue sharing deals to get people to switch.
Just the other week, a player named TheLittleOne has 15-20k Uniques watching his stream for twenty four hours.
They are not massive audience draws like MLG, or GomTV, but for the cost of producing one could easily argue the marginal profit is higher.
Secondly, a lot of tournaments actually stream through JustinTV, like NASL. While not having the production value of the previously mentioned it has a large amount of consistent audience draw.
As the gaming team lead at Justin.tv, let me just say that I agree with you that there's a lot of structure on GOMtv.net or MLGpro.com (they don't own mlg.com unfortunately) that I think is awesome.
But when you sit at home watching Starcraft and you want to see NASL or IPL or MLG you catch it on TwitchTV. We carry (almost) all the biggest tournaments.
120,000 spectators came to an outdoor stadium in Busan, South Korea, to watch StarCraft at the 2005 SKY Pro League final -- roughly 50,000 more than attended the Super Bowl in 2009. In Korea, Starcraft is the second most watched sport after Soccer. You can roll your eyes, but I think you are lacking in knowledge about this market. In some places, people do indeed believe that Starcraft is better than real sports.
[+] [-] riprock|15 years ago|reply
Global Starcraft League is pretty much monthly. first place wins $80,000, second place wins $25,000, and so on
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=141...
The North American StarCraft League, funded for a minimum of 3 seasons with a $400,000 total prize pool
http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/news/14686-400-000-priz...
IGN Pro League, $50,000 prize pool for each season
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=218...
Then there are MANY other tournaments, such as MLG, Blizzcon, Dreamhack, and TSL.
http://pro.majorleaguegaming.com/competitions/17#event_36_pr...
starcraft2, if anything, is a huge GLOBAL success so far as an esport.
[+] [-] askedrelic|15 years ago|reply
I'm a big SC fan and have been watching the community and the money grow the last year, since SC2 got released. As they have on the frontpage, the SC2 community is huge and between TSL, MLG, GomTV, and NASL, lots of money is flowing their direction for ads and promotions. MLG Columbus took place this weekend with an estimated 110K viewers over the weekend. It's a growing market!
[+] [-] Hates_|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peterquest|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emmett|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sawyer|15 years ago|reply
When people sit at home watching sports they want to see the latest game from the NHL/MBA/NBA/NFL, etc, not a stream someone's recorded in the field across from their house.
[+] [-] ianl|15 years ago|reply
There is value being created for these individuals and JustinTV has snatched up the market by offering revenue sharing deals to get people to switch.
Just the other week, a player named TheLittleOne has 15-20k Uniques watching his stream for twenty four hours.
They are not massive audience draws like MLG, or GomTV, but for the cost of producing one could easily argue the marginal profit is higher.
Secondly, a lot of tournaments actually stream through JustinTV, like NASL. While not having the production value of the previously mentioned it has a large amount of consistent audience draw.
[+] [-] emmett|15 years ago|reply
But when you sit at home watching Starcraft and you want to see NASL or IPL or MLG you catch it on TwitchTV. We carry (almost) all the biggest tournaments.
[+] [-] thomasgerbe|15 years ago|reply
rolls eyes
[+] [-] justin|15 years ago|reply
I don't think any sports viewers are going to show up on TwitchTV and then cry themselves to sleep because they saw the slogan.
[+] [-] jmtame|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timsally|15 years ago|reply
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/virtua...
[+] [-] starnix17|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] javanix|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] middus|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emmett|15 years ago|reply