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How Do E-Sport/Pro Team Organizations Work?

Mulchy·10/5/2016, 4:20:05 AM·1 votes·3,025 views

I am often interested in the "behind the scenes" type stuff. For example, I like to learn about the coaches/managers and owners of sports teams, movie executives, not-so-well-known political figures/events, and big brand name executives - not just the "stars of the show" we know via media or whatever. Having been around league for a few years I have noticed the recurring teams and "newer" teams coming to LoL fame (and fading from it), particularly during worlds. Researching, I can often find information about the teams' players and (head) coaches, but not necessarily the "background organization". Most/all of these groups appear to have sponsors and/or a funder of sorts, yes? It seems to be hard to find information on this type of thing and the history of it all. Am I just looking in the wrong places? Would anyone be so kind as to help me out or, perhaps, start a discussion? Thanks!

EDIT: to clarify, anything about e-sports organizations (but, maybe, not so much about the professional players themselves). Are they all sponsored/"true professional" teams (are the "clubs" clubs?)? Who pays for this (companies? donations? interested individual backers? all of the above?)? What are the "behind the scenes" peoples's earnings and responsibilities, how many are there (compared to the actual players)? Do the teams just sell sponsorship slots like in race car driving or are the teams "owned" by the "sponsor" or both? Etc.

4 Comments

Wh1teWu1f10/5/2016, 6:42:30 AM2 votes

From my understanding, the original clubs that are currently around in NA are effectively their own organizations that are running off of sponsors from various companies (TSM for example is sponsored by Geico, HTC, Red Bull, Twitch.tv, and several other brands). The newer organizations that are entering onto the scene such as Shalke, Immortals, NRG, and Echo Fox are all backed by venture capitalists who have shares of the organization. So technically speaking, some of the more well known teams from previous years are owned by 1-2 people it seems, while newer orgs seem to be tapping into some very wealthy stake holders.

I believe TSM, CLG, and C9 are sort of owned by the sponsors due to the fact that the sponsors will have them do various things they have to do since the sponsor could very easily stop giving them money to operate. The newer teams also have sponsors, but they don't rely on them as heavily I think (Immortals has 2 sponsors in Twitch.tv and MeUndies).

If you haven't watched Monte's video on franchising the LCS, I suggest you do so considering he himself was an owner of Renegades before being banned and he gives a little insight into where clubs usually get their money from. You can also get the idea of where the money comes from through a handful (maybe just 1 tbh) of articles on thescoreesports.com. I know there's one about Phoneix1's owner(s) losing 500k just off of their first split because they couldn't get any sponsors.

This is all mainly the LCS though, LCK and LPL I think all the teams are directly owned by corporations except for ROX Tigers who are sort of confusing as to whether they're sponsored or not currently. They originally started out as the HUYA Tigers and were being sponsored by a Chinese streaming company (they bought the team to promote their site); however, they were registered under a subsidiary: GE Entertainment. Eventually they became sponsored by kooTv (no idea if their Chinese sponsors dropped or not), who eventually dropped the sponsorship. ROX is a 100% original name it seems.

As for the LMS and Wildcard regions, it probably varies. I know J Team (formerly known as Taipei Assassins) was bought prior to the start of the Summer Split by a musician, so I assume they're sponsored similarly to the LCS.

Secret Baller10/5/2016, 11:31:28 PM1 votes

They function the exact same way professional teams for any other kind of sport or competition do; through sponsor's, advertising, marketing and (most importantly) winning.