Prize Money and Sponsorship in Professional Electronic Sports
There are a number of titles that support a professional gaming scene. Sometimes game developers will use e-sports as a marketing outlet for their games, providing prize money for competition directly. In other cases, sponsorship extends well beyond the developers of the game in question. This commonly includes tech companies and companies selling computer hardware or energy drinks. For some games, total prize money can amount to millions of dollars a year. Popular tournaments include those run by the World Cyber Games, the World e-Sports Games, and the Electronic Sports World Cup.
Besides direct prize money earnings, players may also receive money through direct sponsorship of themselves or their team. A team sponsorship usually includes travel expenses and sometimes free hardware specific to that company. Although sponsorships have evolved over the years, the first all inclusive team sponsorship was given to Team Abuse in June 2000. Team Abuse was a well-respected Quake II team led by Doug 'Citizen' Suttles and a gamut of talented players . Upon their hosting of a grass roots event called Lansanity in Portland, OR, Team Abuse was offered a complete sponsorship, setting precedents for many gamers to come. The Speakeasy sponsorship included a fully leased gaming studio in Lake Oswego, OR, with a Speakeasy.net T1 connection. Additionally Team Abuse was sent to many CPL events, Quake Invitational League events, hosted Lansanity 2, and also found itself sending Marc 'pureluck' Naujock to the XSI Invitational in London as part of the Top 10 USA players vs the Top 10 European players tournament. Speakeasy paved the way for fully immersive corporate marketing sponsorship for professional gaming by applying merchandising, PR, grass root events, and a serious interest in the gaming community.
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Famous quotes containing the words prize, money, professional, electronic and/or sports:
“He saw, he wish’d, and to the prize aspir’d.
Resolv’d to win, he meditates the way,
By force to ravish, or by fraud betray;
For when success a lover’s toil attends,
Few ask, if fraud or force attain’d his ends.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
““... he’s helpless
In ways that I can hardly tell you of.
Sometimes he gets possessed to keep accounts
To see where all the money goes so fast.
You know how men will be ridiculous.
But it’s just fun the way he gets bedeviled
If he’s untidy now, what will he be?””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The American character looks always as if it had just had a rather bad haircut, which gives it, in our eyes at any rate, a greater humanity than the European, which even among its beggars has an all too professional air.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“Ideally, advertising aims at the goal of a programmed harmony among all human impulses and aspirations and endeavors. Using handicraft methods, it stretches out toward the ultimate electronic goal of a collective consciousness.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“The whole idea of image is so confused. On the one hand, Madison Avenue is worried about the image of the players in a tennis tour. On the other hand, sports events are often sponsored by the makers of junk food, beer, and cigarettes. What’s the message when an athlete who works at keeping her body fit is sponsored by a sugar-filled snack that does more harm than good?”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)