Originally Posted by
James
Well, I'm not sure what the general attitudes are of the pro gamers out there. I do obviously follow the news around it and sometimes see the little issues that arise.
Playing for Team South Africa is a commitment, and the MSSA has certain processes to follow in this regard. It seems that some SA pro gamers want all the perks of the trips to compete overseas, but none of the responsibilities (both time and effort) toward the Team South Africa brand that comes with it.
Let's keep it all in perspective; sport is seen as a societal transformational pastime under our constitution - an upliftment activity. This is why MSSA tries to get involved at the school level, and this is why various sports get the help of government funding.
Our constitution and SASCOC are actually quite progressive in this regard - for example, USA doesn't have any government support for eSport - it is not recognised by their Olympic committee. The only US eSport stuff we see is all private commercial operations. It's not the MSSA's responsibility to form teams to compete in these private professional leagues. That would be like SAFA funding the South African football team to compete in EUFA. This is where the private sponsorships and player ambition are required to get SA players into these leagues, and even then, they won't be competing as Team South Africa.
One of the things MSSA must do (as per SASCOC regulations) is compete in globally recognised events where nations go head to head. The IeSF is pretty much the only organisation that fits the bill, especially now that WCG is on ice. It's much like how SAFA must register with FIFA to compete (of course there are many more choices for nation-on-nation contest in football).
As far as I'm aware, the only real restriction on the team members is that they must be paid members of MSSA, or a member of a clan that is a member of MSSA. The reasons being that the fees go toward the administration of the federation, and there are various stakeholders that need to be protected. You can't have Team South Africa pitching up at a world championship, and then they all ditch their Team SA sponsored gear and wear gear from a club and sponsor that isn't even a member of MSSA.
Again, this is common in all professional sport. You can Google the player contracts the SA rugby team signs - many, many more rules and restrictions. I'm not sure why gamers feel entitled to special treatment in this regard (i.e. not having to sign a contract).
Basically, what I'm getting at, is that professional eSport in SA isn't entirely about the MSSA - they are just the route you must follow if you want to represent the country. It seems that the gaming community is laying the blame for the entirely lacklustre eSport scene at the feet of the MSSA, when it really should be a collaborative effort between players, sponsors, and MSSA. It's going to be really difficult to get there if everyone just slags off MSSA all the time and refuses to work with them, and then (ironically) turns around and says MSSA didn't field the best team possible. MSSA isn't going anywhere, so people can work to improve it from within (and maybe get some new perspective) or contribute to eSport in other ways.
One last note for perspective; eSport is insanely niche in SA - I don't mean the kind of eSport where buddies get together, form clans, and enter DGL for weekend battles and a grand outing at rAge once a year (and a few more organised clans making a moderate success out of the pastime). I'm talking about dedicated eSport professionals who want to make a career out of it, much like people make careers out of rugby and football. It's a time consuming and expensive thing to achieve, and in SA, eSport just doesn't attract the glamour and sponsorship money that other sports do (e.g. cricket, rugby, football). Go look up some stories of what people go through to get to the Olympics for their niche sports - often their campaigns are self-funded because they are passionate about what they do, not because they want a free trip overseas to play bit of StarCraft.
The fact that the MSSA struggles to promote eSport in SA at levels we would like to see isn't a cause of the problem, its a symptom of the overall eSport milieu.
hope I was not to harsh ^^
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