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I think the major factor here (atleast from my point of view) is: This information comes 15Nov22 - relatively late taking into consideration sign-ups to atleast quals opened day before, 14Nov22 - late also thinking about the start date of lite/pro quals If you know the topic is going ”bomb-drop”, drop the bomb wayyyyy earlier. Like I said before, I really understand you Kenu. But in hindsight, if you drop the bomb same week you have sign-ups, it’s late, big time. Personally, I really don`t care about the money factor, it doesn`t play any role for me. I say again, few beers cost. Especially when you opened up things and said lower divs fees doesn`t go to Elite`s prize pool. But in real life in this community, there are many players from different backrounds. Eg teen young guns with no income, raised by single parent without a job. Totally different story. For him/her 45€ can be impossible to collect with this time-line, for real. Had SportGamer put this info on August or September, there would have been debates and discussions also, but people had adapted, atleast I think so. And admins would had time to make possible changes in good time before sign-ups etc. When information comes waaaay late, explanation cannot be ”we were on hurry”. You didn`t say that, but the time-line shows you were.

Hey Gamers, It's been great to see the active discussion around the ECL, and that really goes to show that our community is passionate about this matter. We're thankful for all the feedback we've gotten through comments and private messages, and your feedback is truly appreciated. We have been running the ECL since December 2015. I’ve personally been involved with the NHL community since I was 12 years old, creating (popular & free) mods for the PC version of the game 2000-2009 and later moving on to creating leagues and tournaments. In other words, I’ve been heavily involved with the NHL series for 25 years now. As my wife would tell me “all I want in life from you is to pay as much attention to me as you do your community”. That perhaps says something about my devotion to the game and what we do (and that I should schedule more date nights). It’s understandable that players and teams have gotten used to a certain standard during the past few years and it is easy to take something for granted that you’ve “always” had access to. For years we’ve - together as a community - pushed through some of the naysayers regarding what can be achieved with the competitive scene in this game. “Nobody wants to play on a lower level” was said before the introduction of divisions in the ECL. “Nobody will ever make money playing this game” has been thrown around for as long as I can remember. Sure - not many can fully support themselves playing NHL, but our goal has always been to support that dream, as well as develop a friendly environment where players of all skill levels can join to hone their skills. Some will play just for fun and others will make it their goal to reach the highest trophies and rewards. We’ve come a long way to enable both professionals and amateurs to reach their goals. This remains our mission. As we've stated before, monetizing SportsGamer operations has been a long time coming already. With the increased workload and growing ambitions, running an operation with the only source of income being outside investment is not sustainable. Furthermore, while we would very much like for SportsGamer to be a profitable operation, the truth is that we have been losing money for a long while now. For many years we have compensated what the ECL loses by working on other projects - while sometimes criticized for not only focusing on the ECL - to generate enough money to cover the losses, while not pocketing any of the cash ourselves. As the league and our ambitions grow (not to mention our skillsets and families), so does the risk involved with taking on these projects. How many are prepared to risk 50k on a free tournament? As for some of the calculations surrounding the ECL ’23 Winter season that have been going around, they fail to take into account a few key factors. Firstly, we are expecting a lower team amount for ECL '23 Winter, mainly due to migration to next-generation consoles. Secondly, none of the costs related to website upkeep and development, admin work, writing, broadcasting or hosting live events have been included in the calculations. This makes the bottom line look drastically different from what we are seeing at the end of the ECL year. We want to be transparent with our plans to grow and develop the ECL both on the ultra-competitive side, and the hobbyist side. We are committed to using 100% of the license fees into the ECL, including but not limited to prize pools, operations, broadcasts, live productions and promoting the league. Out of respect for the privacy of our creators, and because of several business reasons, I won’t be sharing the numbers for each category, but I have listed some of the main categories of costs of running the ECL. There are many other costs in running a business, but below I’ve focused purely on the direct costs of the ECL. Website and data hosting Equipment Software licenses Broadcasts Art Social media & YouTube Administrative work Prize Pool Trophies Live finals Web development Taxes Advertising Based on your feedback, we have decided to take the following measures: Each team can name up to 3 backup players (outside of the primary 6) that can help the team out and play up to 10 games without having to own the player license. The ECL ‘23 Player License can be purchased during the season if a backup wants to play more games than expected. ECL Neo will remain free to play, with no player license required to compete, however To uphold the integrity of ECL Neo as the beginner level, we reserve the right to deny teams to participate in cases where they are clearly above the amateur level, as it could significantly impact the experience of what ECL Neo is intended for. The ECL ‘23 Player License can be purchased by an ECL Neo player if they want to participate in ECL 1v1, benefit from the additional advantages that come with the license (more on this later), or simply as a form of supporting the league. An additional tier of prizing has been added to the ECL Core division to extend the number of prize winning teams from 8 to 16. Wishes to add better content for the ECL Lite and Core divisions will be addressed by improving the quality of articles and coverage. We will be following all licensed divisions closely in our channels and sharing coverage on our social media. If you would like to contribute to creating content for these divisions, please contact @jahajaha93. We have heard your concerns regarding the response time and efficiency regarding support and League Administrative (LA) cases. Therefore we are committing to the following for all paid levels of ECL: 24 hour response time for general support items and added coverage during gamedays between 17-22 CET to help address quick questions in a more efficient way. LA cases are handled within 2 business days. The suspension and verdict policy has been reworked to make quick decisions and in the case of suspensions, we will be handing out shorter suspensions quicker and longer suspensions are reserved to repeat offenders, which also can be handled quickly through this new policy. Finally, a brief comment on any outstanding prize payments that were mentioned in the discussion: We’ve previously reached out to all recipients of price payments per email from [email protected], and anyone who has taken the actions requested in this email has been paid. Please check your spam folder if you haven’t seen our email. If you can’t find the email and there is still something unresolved, please reach out to me by private message here on the forums, or Discord (Kenu#0001). On behalf of SportsGamer, Kenneth “Kenu” Lehtinen

First of all, there are 16 teams in Elite, not 8. And yes, like I said in my message I do think it's fine because it's the only way to ensure the integrity of the competition. That, or expand the divisions. If we go down that road of logic, it's "unfair" that Lite has a prize pool at all considering we're talking about the 49th best team in Europe with the Lite winner. In what other esport is that possible? Elite has to remain the crown jewel that teams aspire to reach.

Surely people realize that if the prize pool in the lower divisions was higher, the top teams would just drop down in divisions? The player fees go into a general pool anyway to accommodate everything that SG is doing and are not marked to a specific division. At least that's how I see it. Would it be fine if we merged the Elite and Pro divisions to "justify" the prize pool in the highest league? The only way it would change things is (probably) that the Elite teams would still populate the finishing places with a prize pool. Before anyone chimes in saying I play in Elite and that somehow makes my points moot: we're not exactly favorites to touch the money at the moment. All in all I think it's a good thing to monetize what SG is doing to ensure the future of this operation that we've enjoyed for free for far too long. Sorry if someone quotes me and I don't reply, as I've tried to keep my mouth shut about this as debates devolve into playground insults in this community far too often. Mea culpa for that partially as well. Edit: I do understand the frustration for players in the lower divisions who play for fun, but the fees don't take that away from you. You can still play EASHL if you think the fee is too high. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. These (higher) fees have been mandatory for players in the higher divisions for some time.

Hi! Currently, it is really difficult to find sponsors in the Finnish e-sports scene. An example here is Kova esports, which went bankrupt just a moment ago. The NHL as an e-sports is also very small at the moment, so if we had to guess something, the companies will not necessarily dare to start supporting sportsgamer activities until we really get this activity to take off. the world finals is a good start, but if we players are not ready to support our company we want to play for, sportsgamer or NHL as e-sports will never grow. we have been playing practically for free for the last few years, but our company has not done things for us for free. it was the right time to raise the fees for us, okay ill agree that it was raised at one time maybe even a little too much, but I hope we all understand that our game will end if sportsgamer ceases operations, so I really hope that our player community will support this activity so that it does not end. ~Wade

For example, Lite has 64 teams and licences cost 12 800 € total and Lite still has only prize pool of 3 620 €. I also think that the prize pool don't even matter at this level for the most of the players (below pro). Elite teams pay 8 000€ and their prize pool is 13 000€. Sounds a little bit wrong, as Lite don't even have scheduled regular season games broadcasted as Elite has? What do we get more with this amount of money, as it surely ain't in the prize pool or directly serving our division. This frustration can be seen in many replies in this section and yet, this is your response and don't seem to get it, sportsgamer. I sure have started negotiating with RoKi about the payments but I still think that you got wrong strategy here, even if I wouldn't need to pay anything from my own pocket. It's understandable that there should be some payments for running the whole thing and that should be the player based license or team licenses are equal to the amount we are getting back. Some have stated that you can't have any hobby for free (hockey, football etc.) In those cases, you are paying directly to the factors that keep your hobby running. Referees get their payments, rents are fulfilled for the organizers and etc. But we do it even though there's no any prize pool as we know what we are getting and happy with that. We surely aren't paying with amateur leagues payments the costs of the Liiga or Mestis 🤭

"For the ECL '23 Season, ECL Lite Qualifiers will be expanded, whereas Core teams will no longer have spots in the ECL Pro Qualifiers from the ECL '23 Pro Spring Qualifiers onwards. These changes will better ensure that all teams will be playing at their correct level in the future." taken from the current news about ranking &eligibility.

If idea is to make everything more pro to get better sponsors etc, should allso change this you cam get from core to Pro. IS there Anu league anywhere in this planet on mans or women's sport where is possible to jump divisions like that. Its allso unfair to core teams that good players want to go play core becouse that IS easy way to get on Pro qualifiers. And good writing tulppu 👍

Should have senior series below neo, wifes dont give permission anywhere to go or Even If had permission alla money goes to children 😂

Im really looking forward for the official company-report of 2022. Now when the new income will be above 150.000 euros for 2 tournaments. So we know what we are paying for. Sportsgamer report of 2021 --- C u all in ECL!

In my opinion Elite, Pro, or even most Lite teams don't belong in Neo crushing teams, skewing the standings, stats and most importantly, ruining the experience of players who we want to give a pleasant entry into the ECL ecosystem. To clarify on the choice of the word try previously, it was indeed a vague choice of words. The try wording was used because previously we've made efforts to broadcast all finals and some of the teams haven't been able to adhere to the schedule that we were able to offer. What we can do better - if teams are dedicated to broadcasting - is to lock in and communicate the exact finals dates and requirements earlier.

"ECL Neo will remain free to play, with no player license required to compete, however To uphold the integrity of ECL Neo as the beginner level, we reserve the right to deny teams to participate in cases where they are clearly above the amateur level" So you make neo free, rest the same but now you restrict who can play there. Keep 8 as prize winning in core and lower the team fee instead or better yet remove it. Everything about broadcasts and live events are basically elite and maybe occasionally pro related. Lite core and neo wont get any of it, oh wait sry you are gonna try to broadcast finals. Im so pumped to pay for the elite teams 🥰

I think it’s good that the players in the lower divisions provide income for players in Elite who might not have jobs etc. to get consistent income otherwise.

The day Sportsgamer takes a fee from all players. Is the day when everybody in the community can demand that Sportsgamer also starts acting like a professional organization/company. Asking for 40€ á player is alot of money even tho most of us or all of us can afford it. Its absolutely madness that most of the money goes to the higher tier. When most of the money comes from lower Ts. An example of not acting like a professional organization is to drop this kind of info a week before signup ends. Also there should be other benefits like staff should add played games or build a better api. If you pay for a product it should work better. Support/LA cases should be investigsted and solved in a few hours not in days/weeks. Core, Lite, Pro and Elite should all have broadcasts and all what comes around when a team and all the players in the team pay to play. Just some examples.....

But is it really community dream? Or is it only the dream for the like top 5 elite teams who have the chance to get there. Feels like everyone else in elite, pro, lite, core and neo is paying unnecessarily much for making the «dream» of maybe the top 5 elite teams.