This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

　　

Tony the Fish

Tim Minchin, an Australian comedian, does this bit where he talks about how evolution is a beautiful concept. “This idea,” he says, “that an individual of a species can be born sort of mutated in a good way.”

　　He illustrates this by telling the story of Tony the Fish.

　　“Imagine you’re a fish, and you’re just swimming in the ocean with your school, and you’re just hanging out swimming, same as always - because you’re fish - and then suddenly, out of nowhere, Tony just goes ‘Um...I’m getting out.’”

　　Tim Minchin then turns to himself, his hands flapping beside him like little fins, with a bewildered look on his face.

　　He turns back again. “Yeah, I’m freezing.” He shivers.

　　“You’re a fish, Tony.”

　　“Yeah, but I’m a cold fish. I just want to pop out for a bit, you know, maybe lie on my towel. I’ll bring you an ice-cream?”

　　“Yeah, don’t bother, Tony, you’re a freak! Come on, school, let’s go. Let’s ostracise him for being different!”

　　“No, don’t ostracise me, I’m just a little bit different,” he mumbles sadly.

　　

Myth Mightier Than Reality

Clauf was almost big enough as a myth. A whole bunch of people descended upon Europe ages ago for this organization that no one knew anything about. Questions remained unanswered about what exactly Clauf was, and the jokes eventually began. The statement on their Twitter profile - “We expand the limits of electronic sports to ensure the growth of the esports industry as a whole” - and Clauf being the combination of “cloud” and “roof”, became the new social-media-joke meta game.

　　I, personally, used to equate them to the Illuminati or Scientology. I wanted someone to make a Tom Cruise-esque video about Clauf. I would’ve done it myself, but I am challenged and lazy. It would have been awesome, though.

　　So ESGN/ESGNTV was launched by Clauf on December 7th. ESGN ELO systems, a calendar, a commercial with women at a gym bouncing around yelling about Teemo and how "size doesn't mean everything", with just enough of a lack of enthusiasm to be creepy.

　　January 6th, they say, will be their official launch date, where they will begin broadcasting a daily half-hour news show and "fight nights".

　　It's worth mentioning, at the time of publication, January 6 on their calender is empty. And 'Hearthstone' is still spelled incorrectly in their ELO drop-down menu. It's the little things that irritate me. But I digress.

　　

The Half-Hour News Bulletin's Lament

　　In my real-life job, I work on half-hour news bulletins during the week, and on the weekends I specialize in live sport coverage. I've been doing it for five years. Finally, I can apply some of this knowledge to the great world of esports. Let's discuss some potential challenges ESGNTV could face, shall we?

　　Footage rights: In Australia, we have two major sports competitions - AFL football and cricket. The network I work for owns the rights to AFL and a rival network owns the rights to the cricket. There are deals in place between the two networks about how much footage they can use with audio, without audio, and under what circumstances, when they want to cover the opposite of what they have the rights to.

　　ESGN is partnered with GSL, ESL and Gamefy. We can assume that, due to those partnerships, ESGN has unlimited rights to use those tournaments' footage. However, it's who they're not partnered with that raises issues - Dreamhack and MLG.

　　The sheer balls is impressive. Have the CEO of Clauf do an "interview". w DH footage. They don't have rights to. http://t.co/Egu84WqIKu

　　— BossDH (@robertohlen) December 8, 2013

　　Things like this are not confidence inducing. We can give Clauf the benefit of the doubt and assume it was a mistake, I suppose. Except this, evidently, happened earlier.

　　Just 6-12 months ago Clauf sold their "product" using DH brand and logo. They removed it after we said "wut" Aaand they're back.

　　— BossDH (@robertohlen) December 8, 2013

　　So, you know.

　　It's time we all put our grown-up pants on and realize that just because it's on the internet, doesn't mean you can use it without asking. Especially if you're going to expand the limits of electronic sports to ensure the growth of the esports industry as a whole. Even if you're not partnered with a league or an organization, there are no excuses - you have to respect their rights to what they create and start a dialogue. Tell them you'll watermark their footage with their logo/sponsors, organize how much footage of theirs you can use and when. But don't do nothing. If you do nothing, tweets like the above will be the least of your worries.

　　Relevance (aka, "Throwing out the rundown."): When the tsunami hit Japan in 2011, it occurred in the middle of our 4pm news bulletin. Suddenly, everything we'd spent all day preparing meant nothing - this is what's happening right now, and we need information, footage, experts, now. We call this "throwing out the rundown". If we don't do it, people will watch someone who will.

　　esports is a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week industry. If something happens during the news, 10 minutes before it, half an hour before it, will there be systems in place to deal with that? If, hypothetically, it was announced Naniwa was kicked from Alliance, and it's 10 minutes before ESGNTV's half-hour bulletin goes to air, are there systems in place to have that covered properly?

　　If there isn't, people won't watch, or they'll be scouring Twitter and Reddit for the information they actually want while watching, and won't tune in again because the show isn't relevant.

　　The slow death of half-hour news bulletin: In my five years at my job, news content produced by the network has doubled. Don't let that statistic fool you. There are two reasons this has occurred. One is that the audience is becoming more fickle about when they get their news in the evening - we have a 4pm, 6pm and 7pm news to cater for that. The other reason is that television is dying. News is cheap to produce for networks, much cheaper than creating original content or buying the rights to an overseas television show.

　　American/European television is far, far ahead of us in that regard - 24-hour news channels so people can have their news whenever they want, pouring money into high-quality locally produced content that they provide not only on whatever network, but also for download via something like Netflix.

　　Hearthstone player Trump ft. ladies (Team Liquid)How is this relevant to esports? Half-hour news bulletins, as a concept, are dying because of the evolution of how/when people want information delivered. What will ESGNTV offer that consumers can't have anywhere else, in any other way, at the time they want it? What will be the draw card?

　　

Don't tell me it's Ladies

Morgan Stone, the Chief Production Officer at ESGN, spoke to Kim Rom about his goals for the show, and they're admirable - community-based, less about the actual game and more about the players. Having a correspondent at GOM to speak to the players every night is probably the most enticing piece of information gleaned from this interview. If it was well-produced, informative and entertaining, and was delivered in a timely manner, this could be something that would draw a reasonable audience each night. The Fight Night concept is also interesting - Hearthstone, Street Fighter and SC2 were the games mentioned to be involved. But again, there needs to be something different about it that draws people in.

　　

Back to Tony

It remains to be seen if ESGN/ESGNTV will be esports' fish that finally leaves the water and learns to walk, or if it dies a slow, sputtering death because it realizes it needs water to breathe. It's easy to sit back in our water - such fickle goldfish with our short-term memories - and take shots at an organisation trying something different, especially when it took them a staggering 270 days from being found out to announcing anything of substance.

　　esports lives in an innovative, fast-moving environment. Will taking a traditional approach to broadcast ideas be a good start for them, or will they fail to capture the imagination of the worldwide esports audience?

　　Time will tell on that.

　　I still don't know exactly what Clauf is.