The CGS has closed up shop on it's televised competitive video game league. It has been a ride full of ups and downs, controversial at times, glorious at others. In the end, was it that the CGS simply did not have the viewers and advertising dollars to stay afloat or was it sponsorship issues that sunk the CGS . After two struggling televised seasons, it is no more. Why was this? Was it a lack of support or advertising by DIRECTV? Was it that there may not be a market in the mainstream for this type of event? In time we may know better what exactly went wrong now, but for the time being, let us allow history to be our speculative guide.
Alternative sports has been a hot time ever since televised poker hit it big in the early part of this decade. When ESPN picked up the World Series of Poker, plenty of people laughed, saying no one would watch poker being played. But it proved to be a lucrative gamble as poker on TV has become a true international phenomenon, with networks the world over picking up and broadcasting tournament in casinos everywhere. Ever since then, networks have been searching for the next big `poker` of the alternative sports genre. Even alternative mainstays, like lumberjack games, received a small boost in the new millennium. Even Blackjack, an entirely non-competitive game, had a world championship televised one year. With competitive video games steadily growing since the 90s, DIRECTV set it`s sights and hopes in this arena. The CGS was supposed to be revolutionary, the CGS was supposed to grow into an international media event. What went wrong? Are there any parallels in the past we can look to.
In 1973, a tournament was held, promoting Tournament Soccer, a brand of foosball table. The total prize purse for this event was $5000. The sensation grew fast, astoundingly fast. Only a year later, the first national foosball championships were held, with a prize purse of $50,000. The sport kept growing over the course of the next decade, in addition to a storm of media attention surrounding it's rise. The 1978 foosball tour gave away a total of $1 million. The top players were all making a very comfortable living and were traveling all across the country, one player had even won a brand new Porscha 911 Targa. In 1981 the biggest foosball tournament ever ($400,000) was held and would prove to be disastrous. Prizes were not paid, Tournament Soccer went under, and foosball would never be the same again. The next major tournament wouldn't happen until 1984, when a new company, Dynamo, held it's $30,000 world championship. The money was gone. The failure of foosball was a compound issue. The advent of video games cause the tables themselves to stop being profitable in an arcade environment. The tournaments grew too large, too fast, for the player and fan base to support. There was no income and thusly no tour. Foosball would survive the shock, but tournament organizers learned to build slowly, allow the player and fan base grow the sport, not outside money and interests. Today there is a $500,000 tour built with no artificial inflation, promoted by an organization that has never been unable to guarantee their payouts. It is solid, and still growing.
Is this what happened to the CGS. In their own statement they claimed, `profitability was too far in the future for us`. What determines profitability? Television makes it`s cash from advertisers, who pay for ad spots based on viewers. If the viewers were there, the money would be too.`As a General Manager, I did not discuss viewership numbers, except to hear they were pleased`, said Kat Hunter, General Manager of The San Francisco Optx, indicating she was not aware the CGS was having trouble.
When asked whether or not this was a surprise, she said, `We all found out the news this morning around 9:30 PST (12:30pm EST)`. When asked about possible causes of the failure, she said, `I think it is exactly what was in the statement. Profitability was too far in the future. The Board decided to go ahead and close the doors. I believe we had a chance of success this time around. I had expected major changes in 2009 for the company, but shutting down was never something I had expected. But yes, CGS closing has not changed the fact I believe in the future of E-sports.`
Was the CGS something fans could embrace? Many seemed excited about e-sports coming to TV, but not all were convinced. Christopher `triV` Savage, of current CS 1.6 cal-main team Nerd Herders, had this to say, `My main issue with the CGS was the fact it stole so much talent from the North American 1.6 scene and brought it to a gimmicky gaming league`. There was bitterness in the communities of the games that weren't chosen. As for the games that were, the CGS changed many of the rules long established for competitive play, in an attempt to make it more watchable for your average viewer. Unconcerned with the possible alienation of some of an already established fan base, this enterprise sought to bring the events to a new, larger audience, one that may not be that familiar with competitive gaming, they marketed heavily towards the average non-competitive gamer.
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