eSports

The Total Cost of Attending Summer CPL for Counterstrike Clans.

The purpose of this little commentary, is to get a good idea of how much clans (and their sponsors) are investing in the CPL Summer. Lets first of all look at the current situation. As the situation stands for the up coming tournament, the prizes on the line are:

Counter-Strike Cash Prize Distribution for 2004 Summer CPL
Total Purse: $100,000
1 - $30,000.00
2 - $21,000.00
3 - $14,000.00
4 - $9,000.00
5 - $6,000.00
6 - $5,000.00
7 - $3,000.00
8 - $2,000.00
9 thru 12 -$1,500.00
13 thru 16 - $1,000.00
Source

List of Confirmed Teams contains roughly 120 teams, however only about 30 of the teams are really important. For a successful tournament from a spectators point of view the other teams would not be required. A short list of some of the more popular teams.

Schroet Kommando Sweden
Four Kings United Kingdom
Team 64 Sweden
Lehnitz*e2sports Germany
Boomtown.cph Denmark
ALTERNATE aTTaX Germany
G3X Brazil
Adrenaline Sweden
mousesports Germany
mibr Brazil
tec USA
Team 3D USA
United 5 USA
NoA USA/Norway
Source of Participating Teams

What makes this tournament big and important, are the international clans and few top domestic clans. There are at least 25 clans flying in from all over the world, to participate.

Now I want to illustrate the total cost of the tournament per clan. Note, this is an estimate. Now I want to use some basic math to give a rough idea, how much the clans are contributing to this event. Each team consists of 6 people (5 players and a manager/trainer).
1) Cost for accommodation:
A Hotel room costs about 100$ for a double. The Tournament will last from Wednesday 28th until Sunday August 1. So most international teams will arrive on Tuesday, and leave on Monday. So for 6 people accommodation will cost =>
=>number of rooms * price of room * amount of nights spent
=> 3 * 100$ * 6
=>1800$ pet team (without food)

2) Cost of airfare:
This one is difficult, but I think if we estimate 700$ per person, we should be close(for International Flights). Since their will be about 6 people per clan flying in:
=> people per clan * cost for ticket
=> 6 * 700$
=> 4800$

3) Daily expenses:
Just to make it easy, lets say each person spends 40$ per day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner etc...
=> days * avg. daily expenese * people
=> 7 * 40$ * 6
=> 1680$

Total cost for a non-American clan
=>accommodation + flights + daily expenses
=> 1800 + 4800 + 1680
=> 8260$ Sum of all expenses for a non-American clan

So unless a clan achieves a better end result than 5th place, they will be making a loss!

Total sum invested by all 25 international clans:
=>Total cost for a non-American clan * 25
=> 25*8260= 206,500$.

Off course this is excluding the sum that has to be paid by all the other domestic clans attending.

Sum of all costs Domestic clans (100 domestic clans attending):
=> (accommodation for 7 days * number of clan) + (daily expenses * number of clans)
=> (1800$ * 100) + (1680$ * 100)
=> 180,000$ + 168,000
=> 348,000$ (and this is without traveling expenses!)

So the total sum that all clans investin the Summer CPL
=> Sum of all costs for International clans + Sum of all costs for domestic clans
=> 206,500$ + 348,000$
=> 554,500$

Now does 100,000$ prize money still look like a good deal, when the total amount invested by the clans is 554,500$? Off course the real calculation is not that simple.Still some more parts missing :D

Total value of all the CPL Qualifiers
There will be 13 CPL qualifiers , around the whole world. Each qualifier is worth around 15,000$ (on average).
=> 13 CPL Qualifiers * Prize money (for tickets and accomodation)
=> 13 * 15,000$
=> 195,000$

Total Sum of costs after the CPL qualifiers
So technically we should substract the value of the CPL Qualifiers from the total sum that all clans investin the Summer CPL
=> 554,599$ - 195000$
=> 359,500$
Then again teams like titans (Denmark) and mousesports (Germany) had to travel all the way to Greece to attend a qualifier. I am sure that this Trip cost each team a few thousand Euros too. In fact this can be applied worldwide. However I don't want to make the calculation more complicated.

Conclusion: The final result!
In conclusion we are left with 359,500$ subtract the 100,000$ total prize winnings, and you still have the counterstrike teams all making a loss.
=> Total Sum of costs after the CPL qualifiers - total prize winnings
=> 359,500$ - 100,000$
=> 259,500$ This is what the clans are investing into the CPL

If one considers the amount of time that the players invest, the infrastructure and the bootcamps, then I can easily imagine that the figure would be even higher, way beyond 350,000$.

In most cases the players are not financing 259,000$. The money is financed by the sponsors of the clans. The question the clans have to ask themselves:
Are the sponsors getting a good return (exposure) from their 259,000$?
How much are the sponsors of the CPL investing, and equal amount?
How much might the CPL be making?
Is the deal really fair between all parties involved?

Too be honest I am eager to see about the details about the "World Tour". 1 Million devided by 10 = 100,000$ per tournament. Does this still sound rosy, considering all the costs involved in running a clan?

The idea of the blog is to try and quantify the figures involved. MAybe raise a few questions.

Please send me a comment if you find any irregularities, and have any other suggestions. As I stated this is just a rough estimate.

posted by Sebastian @ 30.5.04