...If that's serious advice, how would one do it? If not, you sure trolled me :rolleyes:

A necessary but not sufficient step.

Tomislav

Duder, that's a question for eXtine.

I wouldn't recommend trying that right now. Once DHW is over, around November-December time frame, we'll be looking to secure some sponsorship money for the Summer LAN. At that point is when we'd want to see if Valve will reconsider sponsoring a TF2 event, or at least pitching in for the prize pot.

We do look at local LANs. ETS is one that eXtv wants to run a TF2 tournament at, as well as Quakecon.

Cbear asked me that on stream last night, too, and I haven't figured out anything specific yet. Continuing to stream TF2 and build strong personal brands/reputations is extremely important. It's the individual personalities that hook people on the sport. Continually growing viewer numbers for TF2 is right there alongside it, as is bringing in more competitive players. Keep doing Newbie Mixes and demo reviews and all that.

Anyone who has contacts at sponsor organizations (hardware manufacturers, Monster energy, etc) should poke them and see if they'd be willing to chip in. Try to copy me on those communications if possible.

The absolute biggest hurdle to getting TF2 at major LANs is money. TF2 is competing for floor space with other games, so sponsors have to be able to pay for us in favor of them. Sponsors will want to see the potential for viewership growth and engagement (in lieu of already having a massive market they can reach out to). So that's food for thought.

MLG and IPL, the North American equivalents of Dreamhack, aren't terribly interested in TF2. They'd probably cost even more for a TF2 tournament than Dreamhack would. Not that I'm not trying to get some kind of deal with IPL - I am - but for now that will be online-only.

He has an itemized list. I don't know if he'd want us to share it, but it includes computers for 48 players, floor space at DH, setting up a booth for the casting, administration (which we could pay a similar amount and maybe get Tapley there instead), event pass, and a 10,000 Euro prize purse.

It sounds reasonable to me, although I've never done anything like this before. Nevertheless, DH Summer 2013 is probably the way to go.

edit: I'm optimistic that the sponsors will be able to get us there by Summer. Winter's too short of a turnaround.

Got an email overnight from the DH sales guy, here's the long and short of it:

"Basically we will need to find sponsorship/s for: EUR 45.300

...

Thinking this will be very hard to reach for a TF2 set up taking in where we are only 2 months before DHW12 leave us a limited time to solve the total price for activation."

So DH Winter is unlikely. Think we're focusing on next summer, which is a long time from now :(

Yep. Sooooo maybe tune in for that.

It definitely seems like a structural issue. I don't think I've seen a season go by since last year without at least one invite team dying before the season ended. Once a team realizes it's not going to LAN and thus has no real reason to keep playing/practicing, there's just no incentive to keep the roster together.

So how does ESEA change that?

Nobody's cock is better than John's.

I can't guarantee anything regarding guests right now, since the identity of the guests depends on the topic of the week. For the moment I'm trying to choose topics that appeal to a broader audience than the normal competitive base, hence the pyro discussion. However, Seanbud and Lange would of course be awesome guests to have.

In case this is unclear to anyone - I don't believe eXtv will be running any more community fundraisers to put teams overseas. The time for that is past. It's up to teams to find sponsors if we're going to do that again.

http://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/10i9sj/10_hours_from_this_post_fully_charged_tf2_podcast/