The Chairman's Office - MLG Chairman and Co-Founder Mike Sepso Responds to the Community
By sepso | Published: February 7, 2009 12:03am EST
 First off, I had actually meant to start off this first blog of the year by talking about MLG’s plans for 2009… Then we rolled out the new rankings system and tournament structure and the sh*t hit the fan as they say… If you are reading this blog, then you should already know that I, along with everyone on the MLG team, take our community’s opinion extremely seriously. I know why MLG has been successful while other leagues have not – we grew out of our community and have stayed intimately close with it as we have grown. That fact is indelibly intertwined with the corporate culture at MLG. It is our history and our future. So onto the new rankings system and tournament structure… “Why fix something that’s not broken?” is a sentiment I’ve seen a lot in the now over 100 pages of forum posts on the topic. What I would like to do with this blog is explain what it is we are trying to achieve for the league through these changes. We have also taken all the feedback to heart and made significant adjustments to the 2009 plan that you can read through in the Commissioner’s Statement. Was the system broken last year? No. Could it be improved upon? Absolutely. If we at MLG don’t continue trying to improve the league, we will fail. In fact, all of the success we’ve had to date is because we have taken risks and sometimes made unpopular decisions that in the end have been great for the league, the players, and the sport. There is one core dilemma that we always have to struggle with and that is to balance the need of the league to have stable pro teams with a need for there to always be a clear path for amateurs to make it through to the pro level. In this way, MLG is different than any other pro sport and it’s a difference we are absolutely committed to keeping. However, it requires constant monitoring, adjusting, and tweaking to keep the balance right as the league grows. In the 2009 plan we have tried to adjust that balance to put the league in a better position to continue to grow its audience. However, it’s clear from the community feedback that much of the community feels we went too far. To be completely transparent, it was and continues to be a topic of big debate among our staff. I would like to accomplish two things with this installment of my blog: First is to tell you, the MLG community, that we hear your feedback, we take it seriously, and in response we have put aggressive and dedicated effort into adjusting the new system. In essence, we have “dialed it back” to make it much less difficult for Amateur Teams to advance, but we have also kept many of the elements of the new system that achieve some of the goals we need to expand our audience. Again, please review the Commissioner’s Statement for the specific rule changes. The 2009 Pro Circuit pages will be updated shortly with these new rules as well. The second is to lay out exactly what our goals are so that you understand why we have implemented the new system. MLG as a league is constantly evolving and it always has been a dialogue with our community that drives that evolution. Today is no different. So here, very clearly, are the goals we laid out for ourselves when designing the new system: 1. Stability at the top. We need the league to grow through top pro players and teams. Creating a large fan base worthy of the next major American sports league will not happen without some stability in the top teams – both in terms of the teams that have pro status and the players on those teams. A lot of team changes by players along with constantly changing teams in the top 16 makes it very difficult for any more than the top three teams to get any notice outside of the hardcore fan base. If teams are going to have a shot at big sponsors, meaningful press coverage, and long-term careers in MLG the top teams and the players on these teams NEED to be more stable. However, it’s impossible to make the top more stable without making it a little harder for amateur teams to break through – this is a critical balance that I think we have achieved by incorporating your feedback into this rules update. 2. Improve the spectator experience with meaningful Pro Team matches throughout the tournament. Everyone in the MLG community wants the fan base of the league to grow. We all do. It’s good for everyone. One way we identified to do that is to have the top pro teams play throughout the weekend. This is critical to improving both the live and video spectator experiences. Again though, it forces us to balance the capability of amateur teams to break through with changing the bracket structure for a Friday night start of pro matches. That is the background on how we got to the new system as clearly as I can state it. Of course we recognize that this does still make it more difficult than last year for amateur teams to achieve pro status and to receive the benefits that go along with pro status – both the financial and promotional benefits. In order to balance this, we have also devised new financial and promotional programs to counter some of the negative attributes of Rolling Rank Points and the new bracket structure on amateur teams. There are many efforts that will go on throughout the season; however, the key programs are as follows: Financial: We recognize that the expense of competing in MLG tournaments for amateur and semi-pro teams is heavy and that a key benefit of pro status is the removal of entry fees for those teams. So, because we have made it more difficult to reach pro status, if a team finishes within the Top 16 at a tournament, we will cover their entry into our next tournament – whether or not they achieve pro status. To be clear – every team that finishes Top 16 at any MLG Pro Circuit event this year will be given free entry into the next 2009 Pro Circuit stop. Promotional: Our content and production teams have been working feverishly on new programs for the upcoming season and many of them have a strong focus on promoting up and coming amateur teams and players. In previous seasons we have not had the time or resources to do this in any meaningful way; however, under the new system, we feel it is critical to shine the spotlight on breakout amateur teams. This is a key benefit of achieving pro status, and now it will be a benefit for those teams who show real potential through performance. The new promotional content programs are as follows: Prior to Live Competitions • An additional preview feature before each Live Competition, focused on up and comers to watch out for, and highlighting teams that have performed well online or done well at previous tournaments. During Live Competitions • During tournaments, there will be editorial coverage for the most successful amateur teams as they reach the Championship Bracket. Following Live Competitions • Post-Tournament interviews with amateur teams that make a major showing. • Special edition of the “Pro-Am Showcase” following each tournament that will feature the amateur players from the previous tournament who made the best showing. Read more about the Pro-Am Showcase here. • Following each Live Competition, we will make two team profile pages that will remain active until the next Pro Circuit Competition. One will be for the Amateur or Semi-Pro Team that placed highest at the previous Live Competition. One will be for the Pro Team ranked 9-16 that placed the highest at the previous Live Competition. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. I hope that it has given you a clearer understanding of our decision making process and increased confidence that the people in charge of Major League Gaming take everything that our community says very seriously. I hope you also have a renewed sense of excitement about the new season. I believe that what we have now is an excellent balance in the system that will allow new teams to achieve pro status and also bring a larger audience to the entire league. Please provide follow up comments to me in the thread linked below. I will not respond to each of them individually; however, I, along with the entire league staff, will continue to read them all and take your opinion to heart. Again, we all want the same thing – for MLG to grow, for our community to expand, and for the league to maintain the key community-driven strengths we built it on. I wish you all the best of luck on the 2009 MLG Pro Circuit! -Sepso PS: Please read the official Commissioner’s Statement before posting comments. |
