Jonathan Boyd · @VexXGamingCEO
2nd Mar 2015 from TwitLonger
Call of Duty eSports - My personal thoughts on some things.
Hello everyone,
My name is Jonathan ( HellRazor ) and I am the CEO/Co-Owner of VexX Gaming. Some of you might know me and who VexX is and some might not, but I'm just here to express my opinion on somethings that I have issue with within Call of Duty eSports and hopefully it will spark the conversations that are needed to make some better changes.
I'm going to label my topics and I also might go into some stories to better explain my position and why I feel the way I feel on these issues so please stick with me here and I try and be as brief as possible.
1. EVENTS - The average cost for a event for a team is around $2.5k (flights,hotel and other expenses). Last year there VexX attended 7 Call of Duty events a spent a total average or about $17.500 just on getting the teams there, this isn't taking into factor extra cost like jerseys and equipment that some players/teams might need. For a lot of newer teams and younger players this isn't really realistic for them and newer sponsors aren't going to be able to fit the bill for everything, thus slowing the growth of the newer teams/players and slowing the overall growth of the sport. Sure you'll get the top teams their and your viewership will be alright, but your not going to see the grow that say the LCS saw in their second year in eSports, your not going to see bigger prize pools because slowly their will be less teams at each event.
2. 2k's/5ks - Having to pay for 2ks and 5ks each weekend has been a HUGE drain on a lot of teams/players, I mean its $140+ a week to for a team to play in both of them. That's $580 a month and about $7280 a year each team has to spend if they want to remain "competitive" and fight for a top 16 seed! For a lot of newer teams/players this is too much for them and the same goes for newer sponsors that might want to invest in CoD eSports. This again slows the growth of the scene and makes for less competition from both teams and sponsors.
3. Season Play - With "Pro Points" being able to be acquired in the pro league it keeps the top 12 teams pretty far out of reach for newer teams/players, it almost certainly ensures their spot in Champ bracket at any event throughout the season leaving 4 more spots to be fought for and almost forcing teams to play in each 2k-5k. This makes it really hard for new teams/players to feel like they can have an effect since the road it pretty cluttered.
4. Exposure - All of these points above lead to less exposure for newer teams thus why so many "AM" leagues have appeared trying to help grow the scene. When the top teams stay at the top and newer teams can't compete due to funding it also slows them from getting any new sponsors because no one can see them. Sure they can try and grow their brand though YouTube, Streams and other media outlets but we all know that you don't make money on that over night and when everyone else is watch Optic and Faze it's going to make it that much hard for your new team to be seen.
5. Rostermania/Season drafts - This needs to be done with more involvement with MLG and owners. Players should have the right to grow and expand there career but there also needs to be some protection for teams. Trades or buyouts should be talked about and agreed upon before anything else. The season is important to all players I know that, but if I invested say $1,400 into a player and they want to move to a different org shouldn't that org pay for the player? Isn't that players talent worth the cost?
There's a few other topics I would like to bring up but will start with these 5 for now. With the average cost for a team to compete set at about $30k a year and so many systems that are slowing the growth of the sport it seems like some things could be changed for the better and my hope is to try and inspire that change though talking about it and getting more people to help make the change! I love eSports and I love Call of Duty eSports but let's face it, when compared to a lot of other eSports out there we're still small fish and I want to change help change that by getting more sponsors involved, bigger prize pools and more teams into the fray!
Thanks for your time and please feel free to reply and share this post!
Jonathan Boyd
CEO/Co-Owner of VexX Gaming