With the departure of @gocr4zy from NA Dota, EG remains the only NA team with an org, even SA teams have been able to hang onto their orgs

I think it is far too easy to blame betting as the reason for a lack of funding in NA - this is my perspective on why 1/21

North America is a rich demographic. NA viewers are well positioned to buy the products that come with healthy marketing budgets. There is a large world of sponsors out there looking to reach mid 20s- 30s gamers. They just aren't the giant free pay day of betting 2/

For example - If micro influencers get paid $200+/post on SoMe, many of these players have large enough following to pursue similar deals. Which means 3 of the players posting five times in five weeks is a $3000 injection of cash into the org. 3/

That's maybe 20 minutes of work total for the players
BUT probably ~10+ hours of work for the org's salesperson to get the deal and set it up.
Sales people make commission. They're only going to get ~$150-300 from the deal and only be $3000 closer to their sales quota 4/

This doesn't even touch the fact that players are notoriously difficult to get to use their social media, they are rarely seen as creative types who can write natural tweets, and they are unlikely to share analytics in a timely manner. 5/

But social media was just an example. In game naming for an online tournament so every highlight video on youtube, every stream viewer etc sees a product? That's a lot of eyeballs. (Say 5 bo3s and 5 50K HL videos and 10k ppl check out the stream = 350,000 ) 6/

That could easily be worth $5K or even $10K for just a group stage! Double that if they make it all the way to the finals.
But once again, a sales person has to find the sponsor w/the budget, do the legwork, sign the deals etc. All for a bonus of a few hundred? 7/

Now let's talk about betting. Landing a betting sponsor means tens and really hundreds of thousands of dollars. One contract, one deal, thousands in commissions and an easy sales goal met for a favorable end of the year review. Budgets handled, salaries paid, whew easy! 8/

It doesn't work like that in NA because it isn't easily legal. Which means a sales department has to pursue a series of smaller deals. They worry about diluting the brand with sponsored posts, they worry about if their assets (players) will even follow through 9/

And tbh, I don't think they look very hard. Other esports have ISPs and car companies. Small panel events have malware software and TV station deals. And hello - how about the concept of mobile games? I'd guess they have *more* marketing money than betting 10/

Dota is *harder* to sell. Orgs don't "bother" (I'm not attributing malicious attitudes here, just evaluating time usage) - selling CSGO and League is easier. Picking up a content creator who is used to promos is easier. NA Dota players as assets are more complicated 11/

Dota content dies on YT. It does. There are few channels (outside of highlights & guides) that do well. And their numbers haven fallen (see Dota cinema, Fwosh parodies, 3 things I dont understand about dota)

Orgs can't even create around their players to add extra assets 12/

So what are the solutions? Now that NA has literally almost no money?

Players = BUILD YOUR STUPID BRANDS. Tweet daily. Seriously. Set an alert for when big accounts tweet and always be there with a response. PROMOTE CONTENT both that you are in and other ppl in your region 13/

I *know* that orgs and sponsors look at the players they're going to sign and think a lot about how visible the players are, how much worth they have as an asset, and not necessarily how good they'll be

14/

Clean up your brand. You've got a lot of work to fix the racism and sexism associations of NA Dota, so start being visibly decent. Most of you are fine ppl, so just actually build THAT personality of Dota.
No running down mid
No Peru complaints
No more "simp" "cuck" nonsense 15/

It's not enough to just not do it either. Call out that behavior in a mature way. Just be present as being better. Show what normal rage is (f*ck this game vs saying something racist against SA players). PROVE that there is something worth sponsoring in NA
16/

Consider ignoring the concept of orgs for NA Dota. Instead? Find a talent agency. They handle high volume clients and deals and you get paid by the activations you do.

Heck find multiple talent agencies, don't sign exclusives with anyone, and get more deals coming to you
17/

Agents earn their cut, and give your manager a cut to handle it for you. They can even tweet for you!
And if you can't let your manager maybe possibly see your DMs?
Make a personal twitter account for that nonsense...
18/

Find an org (like c9) or larger sponsor (Redbull, betting, PC companies) to be a bootcamp sponsor when you need it. And heck, maybe if you actually BUILD YOUR BRANDS then orgs might be a viable option again eventually
19/

And for orgs out there? Look at your sales people. Look at other industries and deals. Look at what non endemics are involved and willing to pay right now. Restructure your incentives. Go after more small localized deals.
20/

I'm simplifying much of this BUT
Key takeaways
-Sales teams have no incentive to go after "small fish"
-Players are rarely easily sellable assets from org perspective
-NA Players need to build brands
-Agents rather than orgs fit better atm
Thanks for coming to my tweet chain /21