The controversy over the StarCraft ProLeague broadcast rights broke early last week, sending fans into a frenzy. 

What happened: the Korea e-Sports Players Association decided to auction off the broadcast rights for ProLeague to the highest bidder. The winner of the auction was none other than International E-Sports Group Inc., better known as IEG.  IEG reportedly agreed to pay $1.7 million USD for three years of broadcast rights.

Here's some background for the uninitiated: As we all know (or should know), pro-gaming in Korea is more mainstream than anywhere else in the world.  Korea also routinely has the highest paid professional players.  The two channels dedicated to broadcasting competitive leagues in Korea are Munhwa Broadcasting Corp.'s MBC Game and OnGameNet (OGN). 

MBC and OGN used to run separate StarCraft leagues, but realized after a while that they'd have to combine forces to make a profit.  Thus was born ProLeague, a joint venture between the two channels where the best and brightest teams compete against each other.  The league's prestige grew to the point where major sponsors such as South Korea Telecom, Korea Telecom Freetel and CJ were backing the best teams, and those sponsors wanted representation with the broadcast networks.

The major sponsors formed the Korea e-Sports Players Association with the co-operation of the South Korean government. Along the way KESPA grew into a rules and standards organization as well, refereeing ProLeague games and providing vital infrastructure for the league.

When it came time for the auction, MBC and OGN balked at the notion of paying for broadcast rights to a league that they created.  IEG was the sole bidder in the auction.  I would hardly call myself a legal expert, and certainly not an expert in Korean law, but it stands to reason that if anything illegal was going on there would be a giant lawsuit filed that very day.  It certainly seems as though KESPA owned the rights to ProLeague and therefore could legally sell them to whoever it wished.

As the news filtered out of Korea, some concerned fans predicted that gunshy sponsors would pull out of StarCraft, dealing a mortal blow not only to ProLeague but also to the country's competitive scene.  Others expressed outrage at the idea that that KESPA could conceivably sell the ProLeague to channels other than MBC and OGN.

The situation is beyond convoluted, but I have to ask: As long as the matches are still being broadcast, does it matter what channel they're on?  Why do some fans act with such loyalty toward MBC and OGN?

It's true that MBC and OGN built up StarCraft into the pro-gaming phenomenon that it is today, but in a toss-up between (hypothetically) watching Lim "Boxer" Yo-Hwan's comeback match on channel XYZ or not watching it at all, what do you think his millions of fans will do?  The choice seems pretty clear to me.

L-R: ChRh, H.O.T-Forever, Clon and Boxer. Do you care if these guys are on MBC, OGN, or ESPN? Hell no, you just want to see them play.

I can't speak for Korea because I don't live there, but my gut instinct is that most fans don't have loyalties to any channel.  All major sports leagues in the world have been selling their broadcast rights off to the highest bidder for many many years.  Fans simply follow the SuperBowl or World Cup to wherever it's broadcast because they don't particularly care if it's on NBC, Fox, ABC, Sky TV, or ESPN.  They want to watch the stars play the game,  regardless of who owns the signal. 

Despite this, many have accused IEG and KESPA of greed.  This is baffling to me as well, because it seems as though some fans haven't realized that nothing is free.  No one promotes, broadcasts, or plays in prestigious competitions such as the ones in Korea for charity to fans.  e-Sports is a growing business, and it's bigger in Korea than anywhere else in the world.

If anything, auctioning off the broadcast rights for ProLeague is a sign that the scene is maturing.  The sale of broadcast rights would (in theory) bring higher salaries and prize money as those media outlets who can afford higher broadcast fees would then bring the game to bigger and bigger audiences to get a return on their investment.  That's how it works with "real" sports anywhere else in the world.

Indeed, IEG's International Brand Manager, Stuart Brooks, has already spoken out about IEG's intentions to spread ProLeague broadcasts to Europe and North America through TV or Internet video on demand.  If it's done in a timely fashion with properly targeted ads, the initiative could be a boon to ProLeague and the global StarCraft scene. 

Another possible outcome is the availability of VODs from the entire ProLeague and not just the important matches. If done properly, interested fans would be able to get their fix throughout the season without having to scrounge for Korean language VODs on YouTube and Google Video.  Beaming StarCraft matches outside of Korea is a risky proposition because Koreans--and Koreans alone--dominate the game, but no one ever made a fortune in anything by playing it safe.

Whatever the channel, the Firebats will still burn.

Let me add that ProLeague isn't going away.  According to the Korea Times, "only" 40,000 people attended the 2006 ProLeague finals, and that was on a rainy day.  In 2005, 100,000 fans showed up to watch Boxer's SK Telecom team play.  Ditto for 2004.

No sponsor would ever turn its back on that kind of exposure.  Western promoters would kill for the entrenched fanbase that exists in Korea; in fact, the number of fans is enough that Angel Munoz's dream of a video game stadium is feasible there.  At least for finals events, anyway.

Lastly, it's not as though the broadcast rights deals are limited to Korea.  Online media outlets such as Inside The Game, Team Sportscast Network and even GotFrag have secured rights to various events in the past and will continue to do so in the future. 

If the rest of the world looks to Korea as a shining example of where competitive gaming is headed, then the world's up and coming broadcast outlets--and yes, fans too--should take note of the ProLeague developments over the last week.  In the future, big money will decide who gets to broadcast your favorite competitions.

Fans demand the best players, the highest quality broadcasts and the biggest prize pots, and with big ratings come big broadcast rights fees.

The only question left is: What forward-thinking broadcast outlet is going to send Nick "Tasteless" Plott to Korea for English-language VODs of the 2007 ProLeague?  The Storm Observer is waiting...

Huge thanks go out to translators Waxangel and Uhjoo for bringing the story out of Korea.

Posted by mahmood on Feb 28 2007 8:30AM