A VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 12:42 pm
Hey guys!!
There has been an exciting development in grrrland over the last week or so, and it’s about time that I presented this to everybody for discussion, as it’s something that could affect us all – both positively and negatively.
Effectively, we may over the next couple of months land ourselves a sponsorship deal unlike any previously seen in South African PC gaming.
Sound exciting? It most definitely is!!
To give a little background:
At rAge last year, Flycatchr got into a discussion with a gentleman by the name of Martin Green. Martin is the sales manager for Digital Life magazine. Martin was interested in potentially setting up a sponsorship arrangement with a gaming clan, and was looking to get some more information on our clan in particular. Fly gave him some details surrounding our history, as well as discussing out involvement in the community and our achievements to date. He also provided Martin with a copy of the grrrAge 2008 video that Lee had made for us.
As a result of the above detail, as well as a recommendation from another clan leader - none other than Vinko (Chaosadpumkinhead of BBH), Martin decided that we were definitely the clan that he was most interested in. At this stage I can only speculate as to the reasons for this, but I believe them to be as follows:
1. Our membership demographic. We’re a little older than most, and most of our members are married or in serious relationships. A number of us are also parents, managing a gaming hobby whilst raising children. Having female members is also a drawcard, particularly in an activity that is very much dominated by young males. To all intents and purposes, we are ‘normal’ adults, that happen to have a gaming hobby (and as long as we keep him away from Paul, we can hopefully keep up this impression).
2. We are competitive, if not the best clan around. And we have a drive to improve on that record and become one of the best clans.
3. We have a strong bond between members. We have always prided ourselves as being as much a family as a gaming club. This appreciation of each other can be clearly seen in the fact that we engage in group activities outside of gaming, and also in the superbly edited grrrAge video from 2008.
All of the above should enable Digital Life to use us as a showcase of what normal people can do in terms of gaming. Gamers are becoming a serious group, and clearly Martin feels the need to identify with a certain segment of the gaming community, and we fit the bill.
Anyway, last week, Fly had a meeting with Martin, in order to discuss a potential sponsorship arrangement in more detail. Prior to the meeting, he and I had a brief discussion to cover off our expectations/desires in terms of sponsorship. This boiled down to the usual requests: Some cash towards T-Shirts, contributions towards our annual rAge pilgrimage, some assistance towards web server hosting and possibly a clan server for practicing. It turned out that Martin’s vision was a little more grand...
Martin has a number of partner organisations that he works with at Digital Life. Although he didn’t list them all, names like Rectron and AVG were mentioned. From what I gather (Fly, please add to this) Martin’s idea is to build an identity for us in conjunction with these partners. What this means is that we would be required to include sponsored logo’s in our tags and on our website, provide product placements, reviews and endorsements for relevant products (think graphics cards, not shampoo – especially since J0nny disposed of his ‘Legends of the Fall’ look!!). We will also be required to participate at a number of LAN’s throughout the year (up to four, rather than the usual one), and I would imagine provide interviews and appearances on behalf of Digital Life.
Sounds like a fair amount of stuff, eh? Of course, this sort of partnership would have to come with a significant reward to the clan (and of course to the members who are most involved). To this end, Martin asked that we should provide him with a breakdown of all costs associated with competing as a gaming team, over the course of a year. The numbers were to include travel and expenses to appear at LANs, hardware costs, general merchandising, and anything else that we deemed a requirement to successful competition. Martin will use this input as a motivation for sponsorships from his partners (either in terms of cash or product – Rectron supplied hardware for example).
Understandably, Fly left the meeting with Martin fairly fired up and excited about the prospects. He gave me a call to update me on the opportunity, at which point I got very excited too!! This agreement has the potential to be a landmark event in SA gaming sponsorship. As far as I know, no-one has been presented with an offer like this before. However, this sort of agreement also has some ‘costs’ associated with it, and they could be serious to the clan.
I called the clan admin team together to discuss these issues, in order to get a steer from them as to whether or not this would be something that we’d like to progress. Attendees at the discussion were myself, Lee, Sheri, Odi, and J0nny. Fly was included as a matter of course – he had brought this entire deal to the table after all. The only missing admin member was Mr Mega, who is unfortunately cooling his heels in Chad at the moment.
The issues discussed were as follows (if I miss anything here, please do update the list):
1. The sponsorship on offer will be for a specified number of individuals. It’s not as yet confirmed how big a BC2 team would be, but assuming it were 8 players (like BF2), there would be a sponsorship to cover a maximum of 10 people (allowing for two reserves). We would need to define exactly how people would be chosen for the team (both initially and on an ongoing basis), and ensure that there is no reason for resentment by non-selected clan members. It is unacceptable to create a rift in the clan because of this. Of course, certain sponsorships would benefit all members, e.g. merchandising, website hosting and clan server hosting.
2. Those members chosen for the team would have to provide a level of commitment previously unseen in the clan. Practice sessions would become scheduled and mandatory for all players, strategic planning and team management would have to be tightened up, and a disciplinary process would have to be introduced to punish infractions. ‘Real life’ will no longer be sufficient reason to skip on team commitments (of course with reasonable exceptions).
3. A clan code of conduct will have to be introduced, and fairly rigidly enforced. We are fairly strong on inappropriate behaviour currently, but this will have to be formalised. We will be representing a brand, and as such we will be required to behave appropriately at all times.
4. There is a fear that sponsors would wish to gain control over clan activities. Under no circumstances can we allow ourselves to be dictated to in terms of the game(s) that we play, the membership of the clan, or any leadership/management decision.
5. I do not want this clan to become another FiB – respected for our ability, but generally reviled by the community. One of the things that makes our clan special is that we are without a doubt one of the coolest clans out there, and it’s very important that this ethos doesn’t change. We cannot allow ourselves to become elitist because of a sponsorship arrangement, or because of an increased competitive focus.
Despite these concerns, it was unanimously agreed by the admin team that we should progress with this opportunity, and see what it was that Martin had to offer.
I sent a follow up email (complete with Spreadsheet attachment on costs) to Martin yesterday, and have already received a response from him. I’ll post this correspondence in its entirety shortly.
But before I do that, there are a few things that I want to make clear at this stage:
1. There has not been any agreement reached as yet. At this stage, it’s all vapourware. Although signs are encouraging, no agreement has been reached and it could all very easily come to nothing.
2. No team selection methodology has been defined as yet. We will be giving everyone an opportunity to voice their opinions on this, as well as declaring their own eligibility/ineligibility. There will most likely be members that are unwilling or unable to provide the level of commitment required to be in the team.
3. Although we should obviously discuss this amongst ourselves, please treat discussions as clan confidential until notified otherwise. As such, please confine all conversation about this to the Pryfart board of our forum, or secure chat between clan members (Skype/Steam chat/MSN etc.). That also means no chatting about it on the Shoutbox. We need to be very careful how we manage the communication with other clans should any deal be reached.
Guys, this is an amazing prospect!! We could very well be entering a new game (Bad Company 2), with heavyweight support from a major sponsor. Of course we will all be excited by this, and so we should be. It’s an honour to be selected as the preferred clan for this sponsorship. Let’s enjoy discussing the possibilities of what we could achieve. But at all times, remember that nothing has been agreed as yet, and it could all come to nothing.
I and the admin team (including Fly) will be working hard to ensure that we do everything that we can to make this a reality. We may ask for assistance from time to time from other clan members and I’m sure that everyone will assist wherever they can. If anyone has any ideas of anything that we can do to make this a reality, please let me know, or post it in this thread for general consumption. Having said that, Fly and I will be taking the lead on this initiative, and as such we will be applying our discretion as to how we interact with Martin and his partners. Of course logic and common sense must prevail, and if you feel that the clan is being misrepresented in any way, please raise any concerns that you have with a member of the admin team.
That’s all for now, let the discussions commence!! I’ll post the transcript of communications with Martin below, as well as a very interesting spreadsheet on costing. Well worth a look, I think!!
Oh, one last thing. HUGE kudos to our resident Flycatchr. Without your efforts, we wouldn’t have got anywhere close to this!!
There has been an exciting development in grrrland over the last week or so, and it’s about time that I presented this to everybody for discussion, as it’s something that could affect us all – both positively and negatively.
Effectively, we may over the next couple of months land ourselves a sponsorship deal unlike any previously seen in South African PC gaming.
Sound exciting? It most definitely is!!
To give a little background:
At rAge last year, Flycatchr got into a discussion with a gentleman by the name of Martin Green. Martin is the sales manager for Digital Life magazine. Martin was interested in potentially setting up a sponsorship arrangement with a gaming clan, and was looking to get some more information on our clan in particular. Fly gave him some details surrounding our history, as well as discussing out involvement in the community and our achievements to date. He also provided Martin with a copy of the grrrAge 2008 video that Lee had made for us.
As a result of the above detail, as well as a recommendation from another clan leader - none other than Vinko (Chaosadpumkinhead of BBH), Martin decided that we were definitely the clan that he was most interested in. At this stage I can only speculate as to the reasons for this, but I believe them to be as follows:
1. Our membership demographic. We’re a little older than most, and most of our members are married or in serious relationships. A number of us are also parents, managing a gaming hobby whilst raising children. Having female members is also a drawcard, particularly in an activity that is very much dominated by young males. To all intents and purposes, we are ‘normal’ adults, that happen to have a gaming hobby (and as long as we keep him away from Paul, we can hopefully keep up this impression).
2. We are competitive, if not the best clan around. And we have a drive to improve on that record and become one of the best clans.
3. We have a strong bond between members. We have always prided ourselves as being as much a family as a gaming club. This appreciation of each other can be clearly seen in the fact that we engage in group activities outside of gaming, and also in the superbly edited grrrAge video from 2008.
All of the above should enable Digital Life to use us as a showcase of what normal people can do in terms of gaming. Gamers are becoming a serious group, and clearly Martin feels the need to identify with a certain segment of the gaming community, and we fit the bill.
Anyway, last week, Fly had a meeting with Martin, in order to discuss a potential sponsorship arrangement in more detail. Prior to the meeting, he and I had a brief discussion to cover off our expectations/desires in terms of sponsorship. This boiled down to the usual requests: Some cash towards T-Shirts, contributions towards our annual rAge pilgrimage, some assistance towards web server hosting and possibly a clan server for practicing. It turned out that Martin’s vision was a little more grand...
Martin has a number of partner organisations that he works with at Digital Life. Although he didn’t list them all, names like Rectron and AVG were mentioned. From what I gather (Fly, please add to this) Martin’s idea is to build an identity for us in conjunction with these partners. What this means is that we would be required to include sponsored logo’s in our tags and on our website, provide product placements, reviews and endorsements for relevant products (think graphics cards, not shampoo – especially since J0nny disposed of his ‘Legends of the Fall’ look!!). We will also be required to participate at a number of LAN’s throughout the year (up to four, rather than the usual one), and I would imagine provide interviews and appearances on behalf of Digital Life.
Sounds like a fair amount of stuff, eh? Of course, this sort of partnership would have to come with a significant reward to the clan (and of course to the members who are most involved). To this end, Martin asked that we should provide him with a breakdown of all costs associated with competing as a gaming team, over the course of a year. The numbers were to include travel and expenses to appear at LANs, hardware costs, general merchandising, and anything else that we deemed a requirement to successful competition. Martin will use this input as a motivation for sponsorships from his partners (either in terms of cash or product – Rectron supplied hardware for example).
Understandably, Fly left the meeting with Martin fairly fired up and excited about the prospects. He gave me a call to update me on the opportunity, at which point I got very excited too!! This agreement has the potential to be a landmark event in SA gaming sponsorship. As far as I know, no-one has been presented with an offer like this before. However, this sort of agreement also has some ‘costs’ associated with it, and they could be serious to the clan.
I called the clan admin team together to discuss these issues, in order to get a steer from them as to whether or not this would be something that we’d like to progress. Attendees at the discussion were myself, Lee, Sheri, Odi, and J0nny. Fly was included as a matter of course – he had brought this entire deal to the table after all. The only missing admin member was Mr Mega, who is unfortunately cooling his heels in Chad at the moment.
The issues discussed were as follows (if I miss anything here, please do update the list):
1. The sponsorship on offer will be for a specified number of individuals. It’s not as yet confirmed how big a BC2 team would be, but assuming it were 8 players (like BF2), there would be a sponsorship to cover a maximum of 10 people (allowing for two reserves). We would need to define exactly how people would be chosen for the team (both initially and on an ongoing basis), and ensure that there is no reason for resentment by non-selected clan members. It is unacceptable to create a rift in the clan because of this. Of course, certain sponsorships would benefit all members, e.g. merchandising, website hosting and clan server hosting.
2. Those members chosen for the team would have to provide a level of commitment previously unseen in the clan. Practice sessions would become scheduled and mandatory for all players, strategic planning and team management would have to be tightened up, and a disciplinary process would have to be introduced to punish infractions. ‘Real life’ will no longer be sufficient reason to skip on team commitments (of course with reasonable exceptions).
3. A clan code of conduct will have to be introduced, and fairly rigidly enforced. We are fairly strong on inappropriate behaviour currently, but this will have to be formalised. We will be representing a brand, and as such we will be required to behave appropriately at all times.
4. There is a fear that sponsors would wish to gain control over clan activities. Under no circumstances can we allow ourselves to be dictated to in terms of the game(s) that we play, the membership of the clan, or any leadership/management decision.
5. I do not want this clan to become another FiB – respected for our ability, but generally reviled by the community. One of the things that makes our clan special is that we are without a doubt one of the coolest clans out there, and it’s very important that this ethos doesn’t change. We cannot allow ourselves to become elitist because of a sponsorship arrangement, or because of an increased competitive focus.
Despite these concerns, it was unanimously agreed by the admin team that we should progress with this opportunity, and see what it was that Martin had to offer.
I sent a follow up email (complete with Spreadsheet attachment on costs) to Martin yesterday, and have already received a response from him. I’ll post this correspondence in its entirety shortly.
But before I do that, there are a few things that I want to make clear at this stage:
1. There has not been any agreement reached as yet. At this stage, it’s all vapourware. Although signs are encouraging, no agreement has been reached and it could all very easily come to nothing.
2. No team selection methodology has been defined as yet. We will be giving everyone an opportunity to voice their opinions on this, as well as declaring their own eligibility/ineligibility. There will most likely be members that are unwilling or unable to provide the level of commitment required to be in the team.
3. Although we should obviously discuss this amongst ourselves, please treat discussions as clan confidential until notified otherwise. As such, please confine all conversation about this to the Pryfart board of our forum, or secure chat between clan members (Skype/Steam chat/MSN etc.). That also means no chatting about it on the Shoutbox. We need to be very careful how we manage the communication with other clans should any deal be reached.
Guys, this is an amazing prospect!! We could very well be entering a new game (Bad Company 2), with heavyweight support from a major sponsor. Of course we will all be excited by this, and so we should be. It’s an honour to be selected as the preferred clan for this sponsorship. Let’s enjoy discussing the possibilities of what we could achieve. But at all times, remember that nothing has been agreed as yet, and it could all come to nothing.
I and the admin team (including Fly) will be working hard to ensure that we do everything that we can to make this a reality. We may ask for assistance from time to time from other clan members and I’m sure that everyone will assist wherever they can. If anyone has any ideas of anything that we can do to make this a reality, please let me know, or post it in this thread for general consumption. Having said that, Fly and I will be taking the lead on this initiative, and as such we will be applying our discretion as to how we interact with Martin and his partners. Of course logic and common sense must prevail, and if you feel that the clan is being misrepresented in any way, please raise any concerns that you have with a member of the admin team.
That’s all for now, let the discussions commence!! I’ll post the transcript of communications with Martin below, as well as a very interesting spreadsheet on costing. Well worth a look, I think!!
Oh, one last thing. HUGE kudos to our resident Flycatchr. Without your efforts, we wouldn’t have got anywhere close to this!!
I always knew grrr was the best clan around (purely because I am in it) but this is seriously a whole new level.
