How is competitive CSGO organised?
CSGO teams are made up of an Org and a Roster. Orgs provide the funds and branding, rosters are groups of players. How tight the rosters are depends on individual teams. E.g. Astralis is the org where the roster holds the most power, mostly because the roster and org are one and the same.
Tournaments - These orgs compete at privately funded tournaments to win prize pools. E.g. WESG, FPL, ESL. The biggest tournaments are the majors. Majors are funded by the developer and as a result have the largest media reach and prize pools. Orgs also benefit from sticker capsules and merchandising. There are two majors every year, one in NA and one in the EU.
How is professional rugby organised?
Clubs and National sides – Club sides vary from nation to nation. In England and France the clubs are privately owned and run as businesses. In Ireland and Wales the clubs are made up of regions owned by the governing body. In Super Rugby the clubs are franchises owned by their respective unions. Each union, which has many teams under its wing, fields a national team with the best players under its wing.
What could each learn from the other?
The main problem with CSGO is the road to becoming a professional is unclear and reliant on luck and perseverance. This means that the players that come through have high mental fortitude but talent can end up falling by the wayside. Rugby Clubs struggle with money and debt (excluding the French clubs). Super Rugby and the Pro 14 are notorious for haemorrhaging talent into the Top 14 because they simply can’t pay their players enough and have to rely on the prestige of the national game.
Opinion time!
Opinions stated in this section are entirely my own and are completely open for interpretation.
I believe that Valve should remove the restriction of 5 men to a roster for a whole championship. Instead, allow for subbing in between matches. This will allow Orgs to experiment more with their rosters, and make founding an academy system (like those seen in Leinster or Super Rugby) make sense as they would actually be able to utilise that talent. This is a controversial change however, and could make richer, more established orgs much harder for upstarts to beat. If this system were implemented could the stories of ENCE or C9 happen? Ultimately however, the discovery and development of talented players would definitely help grow the scene.
Rugby’s improvements are much less cut and dry. It’s clear that Union owned teams are bad at generating revenue and better keeping talent around. However, privately owned teams are bad at generating new talent, to the point where a team made up of the scraps thrown aside by the French academies almost won the Top 14, winning the league and only losing in a playoff (La Rochelle, 2016-17 season).
James Bovaird
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