It was a Monday night and I just had a long day at school. I came home and chose to procrastinate on doing my homework and pug with friends for an hour or two and then it was time to hit the books. I hurried up to finish my homework so I could be prepared for a long night of matches in CAL-i. I opened up GotFrag and would have to sit there and wonder what match I wanted to watch, because so many were being played at once…

This was almost three years ago…

The point of that over descriptive opening paragraph was not for entertainment, but to start the point of this article. I am telling everyone that wasn’t around, or doesn’t remember about a day when you would actually be excited for CAL nights. Now, we all pretty much sit around reading the GotFrag melee and wonder if the match of the night will actually get played.

During this time CAL had enforced two rules that seemed crazy at the time. I even thought they were crazy and I was nowhere near CAL-i. Now that this rule has somehow vanished, it makes perfect sense why they enforced them.

The first rule enforced was that all rosters must have seven players on it at all times or they will be demoted.

“Seven players for a five man game?! My team needs to practice with the same five for upcoming LAN tournaments!”

Get over it. All you hear top teams say, as well as the community say is, “It’s online, who cares about that loss.” Exactly. The great thing about Counter-Strike, that differs from other sports is the fact that there is zero difference from an online scrim and an online match. Teams scrim dozens of times with their lineup during their week to brush up on their teamwork and tactics.

Now you’re trying to tell me that one “scrim” a day without your normal 5th is going to make you lose CPL?

The second rule that was enforced was that if you cannot field five at the default time, you forfeit, no exceptions. Crazy right? Wrong. If you have a seven man lineup, there is absolutely no reason for you not to be able to have five players in the server at that time. Remember all those infamous 3D CAL match demos featuring Torbull? You would never see one of those again, unless the opposing team absolutely refused to reschedule.

One of the best examples of how well the second rule was enforced during this season was around the time of KillerLAN. The situation was that both TEC and GX attended this LAN event, and while they were in town, they had a CAL match…against each other. Well this was a great situation, now the two teams could play the match from a local LAN center and everything would be nice and fair! Nope. CAL had a rule that did not allow both teams to play at the same LAN center. Stuck in a predicament, they requested a reschedule. This request was not granted, due to such a strict rule. Both of these teams were at their peak during this time and did not want to receive a forfeit. GX then decided to do some research and find another LAN center nearby. The match was played on schedule, just as the rules stated.

I think bringing back these rules would be a great idea. Sure, all of the players would be pretty angry, but why? Just because you don’t want to organize your schedule better? Emergency? Then another player on your roster plays. Maybe the fans won’t get the best match possibly played by both teams for such an exciting match, but just like everyone says ,”It’s online.” and even still, and emergency may come up once a CAL season, we are beginning to see the same teams reschedule every week and it is getting out of hand.

All these rules are enforcing responsibility, but even more so, organization. Tournaments only happen a few times a year, but leagues are year-round. Maybe if the teams could show some sort of stability in the matches being played for a few seasons, someone from CAL or maybe GotFrag could try to convince some mainstream media to get involved with it (It doesn’t sound that crazy if you’ve recognized the larger amount of mainstream coverage eSports gets every year. But that’s a completely different article).

Aside from the potential to maybe get some better mainstream coverage, what it all boils down to is that no sport is made to cater to the players; it’s there to cater to the fans. The larger numbers of fans each match brings is more proof to sponsors that they need their product invested in this game. The more the sponsors that are available to the game mean that there is more money. The more money that is invested into the game ultimately boils down to how much money the players can make.

The United States has more competitive Counter-Strike players than any other country in the world. All I am saying is that if we brought some more organization to CAL, the biggest league out there, then maybe we could actually start bringing in somewhere near the numbers that tournament matches get for HLTV. In the end it benefits the players, the fans, but mostly the sport itself. Now, I know the leagues aren’t going to ever get as big as these international tournaments, but it is still a huge step for eSports if we can get 8,000-10,000 people in an HLTV for a seasoned match. It might actually be possible if the fans trusted that if they sacrificed going out to dinner with friends or doing other activities they were guaranteed a match being played.