While certain games will receive praise from all varieties of hardcore gamers, the allure of competitive gaming is something that tends to be hit or miss. Even gamers who love the games that are the focus of the various tournaments may not be interested in watching strangers play. This is due to a variety of reasons, including lack of media exposure for the gaming leagues and a failure of the various professional circuits to truly differentiate themselves from one another.
Things might be changing, however, if recent announcements have been any indication. Major League Gaming has signed several key sponsors and partnerships for the coming 2008 season. If its momentum continues, it could well emerge as the number one competitive gaming league in North America.
We sat down with Matthew Bromberg, CEO of MLG, and discussed what's helped MLG achieve its level of critical mass and why advertisers ought to be paying attention.
MLG: Reaching that 18–34 Demographic
With MLG coming into its own, we were curious as to why marketers would be interested in the brand. After all, competitive gaming is still largely unproven compared to most traditional forms of "sport" in the U.S. Bromberg, however, feels his company is uniquely positioned among marketers, citing statistics that demonstrate MLG's critical mass.
"I think there are three reasons [MLG appeals to marketers]: brand, audience and platforms," described Bromberg. "If you want to reach young men, you have to be able to affiliate yourself with a good brand; otherwise it's nearly impossible [to get their attention]. MLG has become a very powerful, authentic brand [for reaching that core demographic].
"Secondly, our audience has become enormous. We've gone from 25,000 unique monthly users two years ago to five million currently. We host 200,000 online matches a month and sign up five thousand new online tournament players everyday; that's more than a 100,000 new users every month!"
"Finally we have platforms, or the numerous locations where consumers are that marketers want to reach," he continued. "With MLG, marketers can reach that audience with a live circuit, an enormous online experience, our television coverage and all the other platforms we can be found on, like Xbox Live and iTunes. To reiterate, I feel that when you can provide those three elements, you have a lot of value."
Dr Pepper: Official Beverage of MLG
While it'd be very easy to say that you've arrived, it's a whole other thing to demonstrate it. With marketing partners like Stride, Panasonic, GameStop, Microsoft, Old Spice and the Navy, MLG is as set up very well for the 2008 season. Bromberg commented that getting to this point was a very gradual process.
"We've had some great long term partners, like Microsoft and GameStop that have been around since the beginning, but our goal is to find a very broad and diverse group of sponsors to help the league grow," said Bromberg. "It's key when you can keep your [sponsors] in the beginning, when all you have is an idea that people believe in. Stage one: you have these people who believe you, and after that you reach critical mass and some sponsors do the math on the media impact and see that it's a good investment; that's stage two, and that's where you want to get. They and their agencies can do the math and that's when you start to pick up more sponsors."
"At the beginning, you sell on vision," he added. "Maybe some of the bigs say, 'come back where you're a little bigger' or maybe say 'wait to see who emerges from the competition' and we've emerged!"
One thing that has undoubtedly helped MLG is that its competition is less fierce than in years past. In particular, the World Series of Videogames folding (and emerging as Giant Realm) really helped establish MLG as a competitive gaming league in North America without peer. "It's been a lot of hard work, but we finally have important components like media and game development partners, top sponsors, and a large audience," said Bromberg. "There are no more leagues that can make these claims so it's good to help us differentiate ourselves.