It’s CPL time, well CPL UK time. This coming weekend will open up yet another massive CPL event but if those events are so important why are we seeing so many major teams pulling out? As of now the list has grown to eight major International teams including WEG winner Begrip.

 Begrip
 Clan-IT
 aAa
 Bizounours
 Wings
 evermore
 mTw
 a-Losers.MSI

Yet even with these teams pulling out there’s still quite a few impressive teams including the Swedish duo NiP and SK.swe. This brings is a very interesting statement of the evolving CS economics, some teams attending while others are not – Why?

It’s time to play the role of CS Manager, take your favorite BDS mask out of the closet.

Let’s get a few basics out of the way. When deciding to go to an event a few factors have to play in; exposure for sponsors, travel costs, prize money, experience and headache. Each will have to be dealt with but let’s take the two that are the easiest to quantify, prize money and travel costs.

Anyone can find out how much prize money is on the line at CPL UK, $10,000. That’s not the whole story though, a purse prize doesn’t go to one person but in this case it’s split between the top three teams. First place will receive $5,000, second earns $3,500 while 3rd place gets $1,500. One other benefit is an autoberth to the CPL Winter event in Dallas, which depending on your team could have some value or may have none.

Now that you know what there is to directly gain financially from attending CPL UK, let’s look at costs. Below I have broken down flight costs from different places throughout the World based on five players plane tickets bought roughly a month before the event. Also included are the costs for a train ticket to the event.

Event Travel

Hotel Room – $200 per room for four nights x 2 for a team

Tournament Entry Fee - 175 Pound or $322

Total Team Costs

Team Net Gain/Loss for winning CPL UK 

Obviously all of these numbers can fluctuate dramatically based on busy weeks for air travel, food costs (which aren’t even accounted for here) and hotel rooms filling up. Not to mention if teams delay buying plane tickets or forget to purchase train tickets before hand, fees can build up exponentially. Now consider the costs added in of putting your guys up in a bootcamp situation before the event in order to prepare them for having a chance to even win the event.

The scary part about these numbers is that some teams even after looking at all these costs are STILL attending.

Say for example you are BDS, the manager of SK.swe’s CS team. Is it really worth sending your players all the way to the event when each player will walk away with at most $560? Doesn’t seem like a smart business move does it?

Let’s try another example, say your Torbull, the manager of Team 3D, and you’re deciding whether you want to send all of your players, let’s even say they all live in New York (even though we know they don’t). The most you can hope to make off of the event is $215 per player, ouch. Now it’s obvious, you are saying – “but they have sponsorships?!?”

Think about that for a second though. Say I’m Nvidia who operates in the USA and spends advertising dollars on Team 3D. How much benefit will I get for a team that I send to CPL UK? See the dilemma. This is only Team 3D though, arguably one of the most sponsored teams in the World. For many teams, especially the ones dropping out of CPL UK they simply don’t have sponsors.

So what makes it worth it for teams to attend? Especially teams like mibr who end up costing each player $845 to get there even if they were to win the event.

Exposure, Experience. The two E’s.

Getting a chance to play against other top teams and claim a CPL title is enough for some teams. It’s hard to get better if you don’t play against the best teams in the World, ask mibr who flies almost any team they can down to Brazil to bootcamp with them. It’s hard to argue with the success the Brazilian community has started to enjoy recently. Some of that success has to be contributed to the frequency of which they travel to major International events and lure major teams to practice down South.

Drawing the line between the benefit of the two E’s and the financial reality is truly the hard part. Its unfair to say but the teams that really can’t afford to go are the ones that need to go most of all. The benefits for the NiP’s, SK.swe’s and even Team3D’s of the world really aren’t as large. They already have the exposure and experience but if a smaller team ever hopes to reach this level they have to attend the bigger events. Complexity has shown this, recent attendance of CPL Spain, ESWC and ACON5 have increased their exposure drastically but they still have yet to claim a major sponsorship with their attendances at these events.

Risk versus reward.

Next time you wonder, “Well why didn’t my favorite team attend this event?” Do a little math. Put the blame at the feet of the correct people; the tournament organizers who didn’t put enough prize money or exposure for the teams to benefit from traveling to their event.