Welcome to the scene!

Thank you! Appreciate the support.

nice invite team

All Hail the KRIT KINGS! Welcome to our humble community :)

Thank you, excited to see what it has in store for us.

Welcome! :)

Thanks!

I wonder what their med will run

orgs in tf2 are nice

what's drawing them in tho, especially when the game is in this state? by pretty much any outsider's standards we're a dead game with little future.

go froot!

I dunno man, comp tf2 has been shrinking as a scene but esports in general continues to grow, if there are organizations trying to get a foot in the door and they want to start with tf2 because it's familiar, I don't see why we shouldn't support them. They get a bit of exposure and bring some credibility to the game - it's a win-win no?

Beyond that, I think tf2 is getting back into an upward trajectory because we're finally starting to introduce more lans back into the scene - the importance of which cannot be understated - as well as regular cups with prizes. I think the last real hurdle (assuming we keep making progress in the other areas) is to make sure our leagues are relevant and not systematically flawed (I'm looking at you etf2l, if anyone thinks tf2 has always been dying have a look at etf2l sign-ups before and after they introduced the tier system, it goes from steady numbers to sharp decline).

I'm not an overly optimistic person with matters like these but I don't think it's completely unrealistic for tf2 to be at least somewhat worthwhile, financially speaking, in the not too distant future.

Not what but who.

Mad props to Jarlow, Kredible and all the other heroes in our community

tf2 has real value from a marketing perspective- there isn't much competition, there's no high investment required, and no one expects salaries. we have a reasonably sized dedicated audience for such a small game, and get better viewership numbers than a lot of newer titles (i know that sounds insane but where is lawbreakers on twitch right now). in the end you're talking about a stable audience for little effort- plus it's the best game so

Adding to Nuze, the cost of entry into tf2 is quite low, especially with the invite price going down. Fees aren't terribly much and there really isn't a need to worry about travel costs, you're likely just covering a seasons ESEA fees, and maybe a server. Very cheap and does 2 things:

1. Gets your name out there (at least in the comp tf2 following) which starts a fan base. For example I'm a liquid CS fan, and when I started watching Dota for TI, they were the team I cheered for solely because of their CS team. Or even closer to home, after i58, when I started casting CS and saw Crowns had a CS team, I started rooting for them if they were in tournaments I was involved in.

2. Starts to give new orgs a track record. As long as there is no negative publicity from the tf2 team, they start to build their reputation as an org. As that grows they can venture into more main stream esports.

TL;DR it's a low cost investment to both build your brands reputation and build a fan base.

I agree with Nuze, TF2 may have been shrinking in the last few years, however the esports scene is definitely growing, with that TF2 may not be keeping with other games like CS, but I think starting from around this season, you're going to see alot more orgs coming in and supporting teams in the following seasons (S27, s28, s29, etc) because growth is exponential.
Also
Good Luck catface <3

Yessssssssssssss

@12
I was not around when this change happened (assuming you were talking about the change to high-mid-open system, which is the only significant ETF2L change that I know of). How exactly do you link it to fewer signups ?

@KRIT Which teams have reached out to you looking to get sponsored? Any plans to send people to lans like rewind?

Also i demand pics of super cool krit tshirts

#18
http://comp.tf/wiki/ETF2L

Correlation obviously doesn't imply causation but there is a clear difference in numbers between the old system and the tiers system. This is just one factor in the decline of tf2 - it doesn't mean too much, I have a few theories other than this one though, when combined they provide a fairly adequate explanation by my standards, at least in terms of EU tf2 (though I'm sure there's someone out there that has identified similar patterns in NA).

I dont see any references to an old system there.

#21
Scroll down to the Hall of Fame table and your can see the sign-ups, and you can see the bottom section of the table labelled "Season 20 and later Premiership winners (Tiered System in effect)".

I would've linked to the table directly but idk how to on mobile..

I do almost feel obligated....

tf2 orgs are joining because b4nny wants them to

UGC had an almost identical decline to what etf2l had and they did not change system. ESEA has remained reasonably stable, however ESEA is different as in it is a paid league and has also historically had a far far lower number of teams compared to free leagues. I do not have any data for OzFortress or AsiaFortress.

Seeing OzFortress numbers would be very interesting as OzFortress introduced swiss system for Season 15 which was in Feb 2016 which almost a year later than ETF2L did. If OzF noticed a decline around the same time as ETF2L/UGC or noticed it closer to when they swapped to swiss.

My theory is that around the same time as swapping to swiss there were a large number of factors of which changing system was a minor one. The growing popularity of other games such as CSGO and later OW. It was also around the time that the frequency of TF2 updates dropped. The growing number of people who argue in favour of the tiers and seem to think it would double signup numbers over night are grossly over simplifying.

This isnt really directed at you anymore nuze more just a rant, sorry.

There's only one factor you need to take into account here, it begins with P and end with ermzilla

Jersey design is in progress. Once they're released, we'll let you know.

3 open teams reached out for us.

As for any LAN, we'd need to work out logistics and get exact costs for each player's flights, hotel/Airbnb, etc.

I'm not sure the difference between 200 signups and 300 signups (for example) is really significant or meaningful at all - personally I think tiers provides a better league/playing experience and that's most important for tf2 in my opinion. It's all very well looking to improve tf2 as an esport but you have to have some realism thrown in there as well.

I'm open for debate for whether it's actually benefited the league or not, but I don't think it's causing these poor signups. The long con lads.