The World of Wolfenstein is about to under go some phenomenal changes that it has never experienced in its long existence. Another 2,500 euros has been sent ET's way and it will equate to the games third international lan of prestige this year. More importantly, it will become the third lan event in 4 months and that represents a growing change in the need to be able to finance teams desires.
Now is the time for teams to evaluate how they are going to fund their trips to events, and suddenly the need for professionalism within ET has suddenly become apparent. Until August of this year, ET had only truly known online events.
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With just one Quakecon, at which only two European teams attended the ET world was centred around online handouts, a few hundred Euro's from Clanbase and the Arctic eSports Challenge giving away shuttles, since August though the centre of competitive ET has been taken away from this online realm and into the very real world of lan events, whilst lan events, the prestige and enjoyment they bring are a valued asset of any competitive video game, they also come at a huge cost.

The total cost to send a team to any event in Europe, can be estimated at a cautious 1,000 Euros, now if you're paying 1000 euros and that bill is going to come around again some two months later, you've a real problem on your hands. Where is that money going to come from?

Everyone looks to Estonia and idle for leadership, I have myself, often used idle as an example as to the exposure ET can bring organisations and nations. If you were to example, ask an average Quaker who reads ESReality, one of the few things they might be able to fire off about ET would be the words Estonia and Idle. However, its very possible that the Idle gravy train has dried up. Since the departure of Manager and huge ET fan, Galahad the support that the team can expect to receive from the other managers in idle (admittedly ex-mp40 using managers) is likely to be far less, so infact they too are in the same boat as possibly everyone else.

So whats in that boat? That boat is filled currently with multigaming organisations who have dreams of becoming the next mousesports. I chose that example because the most notable are both German, 141 and Helix. If you want to attend a lan event you're never going to get anywhere with organisations like this, either they're just nowhere near ready for financial contribution and are just looking for squads as a marketing tool or they're just full of people that have dreams but no ability to realise them. In the two previous Quakecons, I've experienced alot of these types of people and organisations, Saevus had signed contracts to attend in 2005 and also many organisations stated they might have the money also, but in reality they weren’t going to Dallas.

There will be a few up and coming multigaming organisations that will see ET has a viable route to gaining exposure and its a very valid point, idle have done it, however more successfully, Dignitas did it. Dignitas and their manager Odee didn’t waste their early years picking up CounterStrike teams, but went for the best of the best in Battlefield and ET, with that they were able to gain status and accolades that helped them build as an organisation to later go for the games like CS and Quake, all be it that still their success is still routed in their support of less mainstream games. A possible example at the moment in ET, is zeroPoint who have built their success in Day of Defeat and have an extremely active site, they will be bidding for a similar story with ET as Dignitas and Idle have had.

However, those examples are few and far between. The majority of the ET community that want to be out there attending lans (and there are more coming) need to be thinking hard, now, about where they are going to find the resources to travel to the upcoming ET events, of which I'd go on record saying there are still more to come. But how do you go about doing that? Let me attempt to dispel a few ideas about how getting money works, and whilst I don’t have all the answers and there are exceptions to what I'm saying, there are some things you need to know.

Sponsorship - This word should instantly be taken out of your vocabulary, never ever approach someone with this word. If you asked me for sponsorship, it means something for nothing, and that doesn’t benefit anyone but the players. Amazingly whoever is eventually going to give you money, is going to want to believe they are getting something in return. Advertising is what you're really offering someone, and you need to adjust your whole mindset when approach companies, to the fact that you're offering advertising and that you want to be dealing in marketing terms. Intel, nvidia and ATi go around a sponsor people because its carefree advertising in one sense or another, they don’t do it because they are over joyed by the fact some kids are getting rich off their money.

With that in mind, you want to be thinking about what advertising you can offer someone. Simple things like an organised website are a good starting point, you dont need to go all warning-team on them and create a website that’s attempting to rule the galaxy with Spanish spam on phpnuke, but a clear design with the feel that there is activity on the site is as basic as you'd need to go, and of course with clear advertising space. Through in the usual crap about putting their name in your tag, irc topic and build it around what the wide ranging reach that a gaming team can have and actually you'd be surprised by what you exposure you can offer them.

Lets say, you're competing in a Crossfire event, that has qualifiers and that with your activity you're able to keep your team in the news at Crossfire, then you've an instant reach of your brand to an average of 12,000 unique IP's on each day you're featured. Lets say like the last Crossfire event, its covered by GotFrag and ESReality then you can instantly notch up exposure during the event to maybe 60,000 people. Now, whilst you cant plain lie and say, the word MadFragging.YOURCOMPANY will reach 60,000 people over the 3 days of the event, you do have space for creativity on how you can explain the wide reach of your brand.

There is even more you can do, everyone loves TV coverage, there were some seconds from the last Crossfire lan broadcast on Estonian TV. It was just a few seconds, but why not use this? You don’t have to mention to the insignificance of the time, or that it had nothing to do with the event, the very fact it was on TV is what marketing people are actually going to care about. Going to be playing on ETTV? Sure you are, instantly you can clock up maybe another 1,000 viewers of their brand. You want to be thinking about how many people you're likely to hit, and combine all of it into a nice package of the wide ranging reach you can offer.

How much can you expect to receive for such a proposal? Realistically, 300 euros if you're lucky, so you're going to have to replicate the formula several times over. Every electronic based organisation in the world, claims to be interested in gaming, but when it comes to stats, they extremely undervalue the demographics of gaming. For example, any technology giant (Intel for example), will spend an absolute fortune on advertising to the enthusiast market of gaming via TV, however they'd hit just as many enthusiasts by a wide spread campaign through gaming sites, and yet they wont spend the 6 or 7 figures they spend on TV, they know they can get away with just 4 and maybe 5 figure sum. That is an unfortunate reality, that internet advertising is extremely cheap, no matter which demographic you can offer to a potential company.

You've got to keep your goals extremely manageable. You're not attempting to attend Quakecon, which costs thousands to attend for just a few days. But you're attempting to travel to Poland, or to Holland for a few days, if your cost is 1000 euros, then you should be able to raise a large amount of that by simply growing out of the current gaming handout model and looking to the world of advertising, but also. If you think this is difficult, then you're just not trying hard enough, how many people have raised money to go and help save the rainforest in some country nobody has ever heard of? So why cant you raise money to go across the border?.

However, the most important fact that is applicable no matter whether you're in gaming or in any field of life is that its not what you know, but who you know. If you know someone who works somewhere and controls any form of budget, whether thats for a formal company, or whether he knows the marketing manager or knows anything, you've gotta use that contact. Contacts are what make the world go round, networking is the most valuable skill you'll ever realise you're doing. And if you know someone that has any form of influence anywhere, then you'd be criminal not to use it.

This guide wont make you millionaires, and infact it might not even apply to more than a couple hundred people that wanna play on lan, but hopefully its put you in the mindset to help people realise the opportunity that has presented itself like never before. If you need anymore motivation, the best I can suggest is that I hope to be travelling to be casting ET on LAN more than ever before, plans are in place I just hope some of them come off!