Have you ever been wondering how it is to be an e-Sports team manager? People who are in the community and follow news from the worlds of their beloved games most likely have. Today, in order to to satisfy the curiosity, GosuGamers sat down with managers of the best StarCraft teams with a long and interesting history to present you their job, their duties and their experience. At some points, it is also a short journey through the StarCraft world that many of us still keep in minds after all those years.
GosuGamers interviewed Markus ‘MaX’ Kemper from mouz, Gonzalo 'SpaNiarD' Graña from Los Reyes del Mambo and Jimmie 'poGDI' Österberg from Brood War-, who are leading three very well-known teams for all StarCraft fans. In response to specific questions, they speak about their first steps as managers, the duties set for them in this role, their best and worst moments at work and their hopes for the future. The answers are interesting from the point of view of every casual observer but they also can be a very valuable guide for all those who dream of becoming a team manager in the future.
Markus ‘mouz.MaX’ Kemper
Gonzalo 'LRM)SpaNiarD' Graña
Jimmie 'BW-.poGDI' ÖsterbergI think I started to manage my team in 2004 in a small team named kolix. Then we moved to DkH with a few players and in the end of 2007, we became a part of MYM. In early 2008, the core-team with White-Ra, Strelok, etc. came together and today it’s basically still the same team although we changed the organization twice. I hope I’m not mistaken and the dates are fairly correct.
I got an offer from Los Reyes del Mambo in spring of 2009, but I finally agreed to join in August because I had more time and I wanted to do my best in the team. It was also my birthday and I wanted to give myself a present.
About three years ago, I was thinking of slowing down when I started to talk a lot to TuFFeR and the rest of the team BW and it ended with me joining them and that's the most fun I have had since I started with StarCraft a long time ago.
What are the duties of a team manager?
I think most people really underrate the work and efforts of team managers. It's a really time-consuming job if you want to do it right. A team won't work without an active, solid and reliable management, no matter how good the players are. The basic work consists of arranging and attending clan wars, helping players in tourneys and also to evolve and improve the team. In a sponsored team, you also have a lot of additional work to do. One guy won't be able to cover all duties in an ambitious team. So you always need good guys around you.
The main duties are to prepare your roster for every clan war. It's frequent to study your opponent in order to prepare the best match ups and try to guess which players they managers will include in the line up and which of them won't. Other thing a manager it's required to do is to find new players. The roster of a team is very dynamic and players change their team or become inactive. In those cases, me and the other managers start working out to find new players that can fit in our search.
I did a lot of things but mostly getting the players online for the clan wars and scouting new players for the team. We have always been open-minded to the team members to take an active part of inviting and accepting players to the team. We never wanted to invite people that our members didn't like or that they thought wasn't good enough. So the people that we ended up inviting usually stayed for a long time and the spirit in the team has always been great thanks to this.
Are there differences in managing a team now and back in the days when you took your position?
Yes, my first team was pretty new and we had a lot of changes before we found the perfect players for our team. So it was basically just about clan wars and to work on the composition of our team. Today, it's much more complicated and time-consuming. I can't go into details but besides the usually gaming-related work, we have to take care about a couple of management issues; it's not only about our players, it's also to satisfy sponsors and so on. So sponsored teams obviously have a bright side but it's also a lot more work…
Depends of the game. In Brood War, it's getting harder to find new members and prepare clan wars is becoming difficult because many players and teams went inactive or moved to StarCraft 2. About StarCraft 2, I think it's even easier than when I joined Brood War. Since it's a new game, many people are playing it so we have a big range of people to choose from. Also, I've got to remind you that it's still Beta, so the majority of the teams are making their roster as a tryout for definitive SC2. We are doing so.
For me, there are no differences at all, not in our team, at least. We are waiting for StarCraft II to be released to see if team BW will still live on, and if it will live on, I don't think there will be that much difference between managing a team in StarCraft II and in BW.
How much commitment does your position require?
As I said, working as a manager in a sponsored team is complex and you have to cover a couple of different fields. You need a good and structured team of admins to handle everything. A single person probably won't be able to fulfill all parts of the job. It's a matter of time and you need a lot time to do it right.
Back in days, we had a more active team manager so we could organize ourselves for coming or not some weeks. Now, I'm the only fully active person, so sometimes it takes a long time to do all those duties by myself. Eventually I can't enjoy some of my leisure time because of it.
At the moment, not that much but when we are active, there are at least 2-3 clan wars every weekend and then you have to test new players and start to plan for the weekends as far ahead as you can, to make sure everything is good when it's time.
Describe the best and the worst moment in your team manager career.
I don't remember any specific worst moment but it always felt bad to lose important clanwars, especially finals in the iCCup CL. You always tried prepare your team as best as possible and it felt awkward to see your team losing and you can't do anything to turn it around. The best moments were always the successes of the whole team or single player accomplishments. The amazing results in the grand finals of the World Cyber Games with White-Ra, Strelok and Kolll for example. But also when Dreiven won against Mondragon in the first TSL. Both of them played really great and I still have the games in mind. And teamwise, definitely the clanleague-triple with MYM.
I think the worst moment was when we didn't go back to WGTCL Div1 because of one point. I got really upset that day because I deserved so much to go back in there. And my best moment, I think I can't exactly answer that. When I joined the team, when we win a Clan War, when we get new members excited to be with us... There is a plenty of best moments in my career that I can't choose anyone.
The best is always when the team manages to win, not only clan wars but win leagues, we have been qualifying for the top division in many leagues for the past years and it's always an amazing feeling when the last game is over and you know that you are promoted to the next division. The only bad moments that I can think of are when a team mate and a good friend leave the team for another team, that usually bring a bad feeling even if I always wish them luck and happiness in their new environment. It's not like they won't play with us or hang out with us since they are changing team...
Have you ever thought about quitting?
Not really, I think we really became friends in the past years and that’s a big part of the job. The core team exists for more than 2 years now and everyone has a sort of obligation to stay and keep it together. So the team depends on a few guys and I doubt it would last much longer if one of them would quit. But sooner or later the time will come to quit.
Yes, once. After joining the team, I felt kind of useless because the other managers were doing all the work, especially Walen. Then, Walen went inactive so I had to do his job, then I understood that this was the reason why he brought me to LRM and then I became an important piece of this team. Also, I did really want to be LRM. That was one of my dreams since I was noob, and many of my friends still remind me what I used to say "Someday I will be LRM)SpaNiarD", so that was also a reason to keep being part of the team and waiting for my opportunity to be important in it.
All the time! No, but to be serious you always get in a mood when you don't think it's worth the time that you spend managing but you always come back, and that is because of the great team spirit that we have had in our team all the time. You have to make sure the gaming life won't take all your life, you have to do other things to stay happy and healthy.
What are your plans for the future as a team manager?
The goal is to prepare the team as best possible for StarCraft 2 and once it's released we would like to have the best and most successful SC II team in mousesports like we had it in the past years for SC:BW. I'm sure teams like MYM or SK will have their teams pretty soon and that's why we need to work even harder to achieve our goals. But I'm looking forward to have more potent competitors in the near future. The attention will grow with all the top teams involved and that would boost the whole scene: new tourneys, more prizemoney, more casts, more motivation for our players... So all of us would benefit.
For SC1, my plans are very ambitious. Since the strongest teams left, we have chances to win every league. So I'm trying to get the best players for LRM, the best team. I think we will only have to worry about fnatic, mTw and NrT. In SC2, I'm working on making a decent roster for the future. I'm not trying to make the best team, but to make a good team based on a combination of skills and loyalty, because a few weeks ago I had many top players like Suker, Chaipzor or Sung but they weren't loyal enough for staying with us, and I don't want that to happen again.
The plan at the moment is just to chill during the StarCraft 2 beta, to discuss in July with the rest of the team BW and see what their plans are. I hope we decide to play together even here but if it ends up in some other way, I might be looking for a new team. I will decide when it's time.
Shout out:
I would like to thank my whole team and all our fans for supporting us. Also, special thanks to mousesports and our sponsors for their support, especially HOH.de, GeIL, Intel, Razer & Dell. And I can announce that we'll release an amazing clanmovie pretty soon to end and summarize our time with StarCraft: BroodWar. Stay tuned and keep up the great work and support!
Thanks to GosuGamers for this interview and I hope e-sports get bigger and bigger in Europe for the next years.
