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The Intro Hey everyone. I'm sure many of you read the recent thread on in-game advertising as well as TotalBiscuit's musings on the sponsorship situation. Based on my introduction to these topics, it should be somewhat obvious where I'm going with this.
The Build Up However, both of these suggestions were aimed at online tournament providers. My proposal is more aimed at independent youtube casters(such as myself). Obviously casting players makes them more popular and appealing to sponsors, but what if we just ACTUALLY gave their sponsors more screentime? What if our thanks to the many players that provide the replays to cast was to have THEIR sponsors displayed throughout the cast of that game.
What do we use this part of the screen for again? The Proposal Youtube casters, when you cast a game, put the sponsors of the players you're casting somewhere in the video. Teams, make sponsor banners that casters can easily put in their videos. The hardest part about this will be maintaining an updated sponsor list but if teams help out, they only stand to gain from this. I'll note I first tried this with EG's sponsor list and even in 480p, you could read, if not recognize all the logos. And if you can fit all of EG's sponsors in that area, I think every other team will be ok. Edit: A lot of the feedback has been regarding the legality of the situation. I'm not 100% sure about what you can get away with and what you can't in regards to this but even if this turns out to be a bust, vocally naming out player sponsors during introductions wouldn't hurt as an alternative. It would take even less time and editing also considering all you have to do is look up the sponsor list and read it out loud during the cast.
The Benefits I think this would not only incentivize making cool replays available for casting, but it would also reward some of the lesser known players that have cool and exciting play-styles...but might not be getting tournament results that net them sponsors. If sponsors being included in youtube casts became more popular, sponsors might be more likely to sponsor some of those players we love because their play-style is unique and their games are more likely to be casted, even though they might not be able to get screen time at big tournaments.
Maybe with a box saying player sponsors, not casters? The tl;dr The long story short is, I think doing this can really help boost the desire for sponsors to...well...sponsor more players and teams. There are a thousand threads about how important ROI is to a team, and if all us casters have to do is spend an extra 5 minutes adding little banner overlays with the sponsors to our cast as thanks to the players for the great game, shouldn't we?
The Clarification I'll admit, I'm a no name caster. I'm a full time student and am pursuing a full time job in software development with no intention of dropping out to cast, despite how much I love e-sports. So realize I'm not making this thread to advertize myself; I'm doing it because I think this is a good idea that could have an impact without taking a substantial amount of effort. I'm a no name caster, but I hope other bigger name casters decide to join me in doing this in their casts. I swear, it doesn't take that much more effort once you set up the system(no more effort than setting up the overlays you put over the replay bar!).
Another thing to note is that this is really for casters that don't already represent sponsors. Online tournaments, often times, already utilize the space I'm proposing we use for their own sponsors. Sometimes, there can even be a conflict of interest for online tournaments(Steel Series sponsoring a tournament, but razer sponsors the player? What happens when player sponsor gets more air time than the tournament sponsor?). For these reason, I'm not addressing those situations.
The Plug The last note I'll add is that I'm going to start doing this with my own casts. I'm posting one of my own casts as an example, but I'll admit, it comes across as a bit of a plug. Hopefully putting it at the end and in spoilers takes away from that.
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I honestly do not think that this is really a good idea because then you make it look like they sponsor you......which they aren't. If you have your own sponsor then go ahead, plug them all you want. But I really don't think it is the way to go for the independent caster to plug companies with basically free advertising. You also have to be incredibly tip toeish on what you say because a company may not want your name associated with their brand if you do really stupid stuff.
With that said, if you want to do that there really isn't anything stopping you. But if you are trying to build up your own brand....I personally wouldn't do it.
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Great idea, hope it takes off.
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To display brands without permission is unprofessional, and it would backfire horrendously once a caster gets into trouble. However it would be amazing to ask the teams' consent - it's a chance to show they're committed to get the sponsors exposure, and you get your name around.
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I see what you guys are saying about it seeming like you're representing a sponsor. I suppose it's not hard to imagine a better presentation of it that would disassociate the caster from the players' sponsors(a box saying Player Sponsors?).
I have to admit though, if teams were to consent to it, then I imagine it would be fine. I have trouble envisioning situations where a caster is cast in a negative light and people would send negative criticism to...the sponsors of the players who were casted?
Maybe I'm just ignorant and optimistic, but I feel there has to be some good way to give team sponsors ROI without associating the caster them self with the sponsor.
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I think if teams do a good job in creating these banners then it will be good, but having straight sponsor logos may make it seem like they're sponsoring you. though having attention drawn to the sponsors is good no matter what.
awesome idea, hope people start doing this
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From what I remember, Youtube is extremely restrictive on third-party advertising. That's why streamers prefer to use twitch and other streaming site.
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it would be better if dota 2 idea of putting it on the map worked in starcraft2 but if we dont have it then your idea is good
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Northern Ireland20729 Posts
This is actually an interesting thread. Hope there is at least more discussion on this and other areas in which we can give struggling casters more exposure.
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Blazinghand
United States25546 Posts
Perhaps instead of an overlay, just mentioning the names of the sponsors once would do.
The amount of recognition we're talking about here, which is naming rights, is pretty expensive. Only a couple of teams have this level of sponorship (TLAF-Liquid, LG-IM, and one or two others) that means constant, total exposure. That being said, more recognition for sponsors is always good-- think about the amount of sponsor viewship you get for a soccer jersey. A soccer jersey is always on the camera. In Sc2 you could get on the player's jersey but that's not always con camera, it's just on camera at the beginning and end. So more ways to expose and display a sponsor's brand would be good.
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Yeah i think it's a pretty good idea! gj;]
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Perhaps just getting teams to approve usage of a special "team banner" would be the best solution(after Blizzard implementing an in game team solution but we shouldn't expect that until 2040 or something). Getting it to actually happen is another issue however, unless this became a large enough matter than teams were made aware of this possibility. Ultimately, this is a proposal for both casters and teams. Both stand to benefit if they can create a system for this.
A legally safe alternative, albeit not as good as having the ROI of an entire cast, is the just give a vocal shoutout to the player's sponsors during their intros, as Blazinghand mentioned. This would be no different than saying LG-IMMVP or something of the sort in terms of legality as far as I'm aware. And as long as the wording isn't incredibly ambiguous, I don't imagine confusion arising between player sponsors and caster sponsors.
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On August 31 2012 08:49 RUFinalBoss wrote: what does tl:dr mean? Too long didn't read - indicating a short version of what was said in the main part of the post.
I love the idea though... Hopefully it will work out well for the teams and the sponsors!
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It's not a youtube casters job or any casters job to promote sponsors. That's the team and players job.
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Quick question: can someone legally show sponsor logos on a video/webpage even though they are not officially sponsored ?
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On August 31 2012 09:02 Jakkerr wrote: It's not a youtube casters job or any casters job to promote sponsors. That's the team and players job. Did you miss the part where he said " this would not only incentivize making cool replays available for casting". Teams give more replays to casters, in exchange for their sponsors being promoted. How is that not the team/player promoting the sponsor? They are promoting them by giving replays to someone to cast.
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