HUFS Lolympic

Brief Summary

HUFS Lolympic is A League of Legends tournament in May 2020 which targeted students of the HUFS global campus. As an executive manager, I led the whole process ('Planning - Implementing - Evaluating) of the event. I wouldn't say the event was just successful. I made a few mistakes as a leader in the process, and there is definitely a lot of room for improvement with which the event could have been better. Nevertheless, I am sure that I have improved through this experience. Implementing my plan helped me to broaden my perspective and made a sturdy foundation for me to manage bigger projects successfully based on lessons that I got from the experience. Not to forget this experience, I am writing this post. 

<The poster of the tournament>

* I especially want to thank you for all my 13 team members. I know it would have been impossible to hold such an event if the team had consisted of 13 other me. As each one's unique ability and effort were put in the event, HUFS Lolympic was able to exist. Thank you for investing your time and effort.

The Background of planning the event

In a situation where all events for students are canceled because of coronavirus, my team members and I thought E-sports could be a good source of their entertainment for them. So we carried out brief market research. Since League of Legends was found the most popular according to the research, we set out to plan the League of Legends tournament. Of course, we got a license from Riot Games in advance. 

<One of the emails that I exchanged with Riot Games>

Planning Phase

Through SWOT Analysis and Tows Matrix, We drew strategies out. Based on the established strategies we made up subordinate teams (formed an organizational chart) and set goals based on the S.M.A.R.T. method.

<SWOT Analysis>

<TOWS Matrix>

<Organizational Chart> 

<Goals of the event> 

I am sure the firm direction and strategies that we set in the 'planning' phase made us confident even when we faced unexpected happenings in the process of implementing. 

Implementing phase

1. Communication

- Sponsorship

At this part, we had to think about the sponsorship target first. We focused on local businesses around the university. We figured they would have needs to promote themselves to students including freshmen who didn't come to school often because of coronavirus-related online classes. It was obviously a good chance to help them, realizing sports marketing that we were studying. So, we decided to recruit sponsors with local businesses centered.

And then, we had to come up with an appropriate strategy to persuade local cusinesses to participate as sponsors. It was not an easy job to persuade them as they didn't have lots of available resources, unlike bigger corporations. And they had just a little understanding of marketing. Therefore, the idea we emphasized to encourage them to participate was Customer Life Time Value. Once, a consumer turns into a regular customer after the first experience. The value that a business can get from the relationship is much bigger than just face value. Visiting local businesses in person, I explained the idea(CLTV) carefully and tried to persuade them. As a result, we earned 8 sponsorship contracts, whose scale amounted to around \ 2,000,000.

Sponsorship Results

Cash: \1,000,000

Sponsored items(Specifically, coupons): worth almost \ 1,000,000

Total: worth almost \ 2,000,000

[As far as I am concerned, many sponsorships are focused on brand exposure. Brand exposure could be meaningful, but only when related efforts can consistently be made with brand leveraging strategies. When it comes to sponsorship for an amateur sports event like HUFS Lolympic, I think promoting only exposure effects is just a bluff. I didn't want to earn sponsors by telling them an illusion. So, we decided to make advertisements for our sponsors on our own, uploading on social media and using them as interstitial Ads during a live broadcast. (The Contents team made ads depending on the needs of each sponsor. By the bye, the contents team said they didn't expect it would be really difficult and time-consuming. I really appreciate the Contents team which invested precious time and effort for this. The ad below is my favorite.)

<This ad is so fun haha>

the ads got quite good responses on Instagram. The number of likes of each 'advertisment' we uploaded on Instagram is over 60 on average. (*The average number of likes per sponsor-related post is around 48)

<74 LIKES! :)>

When it came to businesses that wanted to participate in the event as a sponsor but didn't want ads, we didn't get cash from them. we only got sponsored coupons from them as we thought leveraging activities with the coupons could actually bring customers to the sponsors. I will talk more about it in the evaluating phase, but our sponsors were really satisfied with the results of their participation.]

- Publicity

I figured publicity could bring us two benefits. First, enhancing my major's prestige in public. I believe my major's curriculum is second to none in the sports management area. Promoting activities like this can be helpful to enhance my major's prestige. Second, WOM. If publicity is successful, It can make the Word Of Mouth effect. The WOM was obviously important for us to recruit participants. So we distributed a press release targeting sports-related reporters.

<The press release>

the press release got on to NAVER e-sports news, and it gained lots of clicks, being ranked in the first place in terms of clicks among all other news even though it was just for a short time.

Link: https://sports.news.naver.com/news.nhn?oid=144&aid=0000670809

<The news on NAVER!>

And it made some WOM on a school community as I expected. I think publicity was the most successful part of the event.

<A post about the news on a school community>

Publicity results

1. 5 articles were released.

2. got more than 12,500 clicks (NAVER esports news)

- Social Media

We used Instagram as our main communication channel. As people in their 20s use Instagram more than Facebook, we selected Instagram. We used Facebook as our subchannel since we decided to broadcast live on Facebook we were not able to just discard Facebook. I think choosing Instagram over Facebook was a good decision. Although we posted similar contents on both channels, responses on Instagram were better. If you want to explore the channel, here is the link. 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hufs_lolympic/?hl=en

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/%ED%95%9C%EA%B5%AD%EC%99%B8%EA%B5%AD%EC%96%B4%EB%8C%80%ED%95%99%EA%B5%90-Lolympic-114853196871164

Except for sponsored contents, when it came to tournament-related contents, our strategy was to personalize. For the team which advanced to a quarter-final, we received their personal information such as their Instagram ID(if they have), picture, and so on.

<Collecting participants information>

<We tagged participants on the posts concerning them like above>

In an amateur sports event, it is really hard to draw people's attention, let alone getting viewership. In this situation, we thought the only breakthrough for the event to get attention and viewership was to make personal connections with participants. As a result, our social media channels(Especially, Instagram) achieved quite moderate success compared to previous in-school events, and the market size which we predicted was from 400~800.

<The Market size we predicted>

(However, the truth is it didn't take off that much... I should say considering the time that the contents team invested I believe it is not enough. I think it could have been better if we collaborated with other organizations in school such as the student union. I should have tried harder as a leader...)

Results

The total number of followers of 2 channels: 416 (Currently, it has decreased)

The average number of likes per post on Instagram: around 40

* The average number of likes per sponsor-related post: around 48

2. Operation

- Event design (Policies, Qualifications, Rules and so on)

When we design the product, the tournament, there was no reference. There were some League of Legends tournament in the past, but those events were targeting small college units without important sponsors like us. We were the first one targetting the whole HUFS global campus. So it was really difficult to expect how many people would participate in the tournament. So we planned all the scenarios that could happen first. So we first set 32 teams as the best scenario and planned all the scenarios that could happen.

<Scenarios that we planned in advance>

In total, 22 teams applied for the tournament. As planned, we proceeded with 20 teams that applied first. It could be a little disappointing. In fact, however, the number of teams applied to the tournament was almost 32 teams. There is a lot to talk about here.

At first, we didn't impose any restrictions on participants in terms of their qualifications. If they were students of HUFS global, they were able to form a team and apply for the tournament whatever their tiers were. However, as you can see in the chart below, out of lots of users who play lol, only a few are good enough to participate in and win a competitive tournament. 

<LOL tier distribution chart>

Therefore, just 2 teams applied for the first 5 days after we had started to recruit teams. To make it worse, people found out a team made up of 1 challenger and 2 grandmasters were trying to participate in the tournament. The news spread fast on school communities and the atmosphere of giving up participating in the event formed on the communities. They thought there was no hope for other teams to win the tournament in that case. As a leader, I had to decide if we stick to the current qualification policy or change it. I thought targeting a bigger market was better. In the end, we changed the rule in a way that participants should form a team based on the chart below. we assigned points depending on their tiers. The total of 5 team members' points had to be lower than 22.

<The announcement about "tier limitation">

<Points assigned depending on the tiers>

After we had changed the rule, applicants literally surged in. But we faced another problem. In Korea, adolescents can not play games from midnight to 6 am because of the "Shut-down rule". To avoid the rule, adolescents sometimes(as I felt it is often) make their accounts with their parents' resident registration number. Even if they become adults, they don't change their accounts. Technically, they are going against the laws. To solve this problem, I even consulted with a judicial scrivener, but there was no way to have fairness if we allow them to participate in the tournament. Therefore, a user who didn't have an account in their name were able to participate in the tournament only when they create a new account in their name, which we counted 6 points that were equivalent to the points of a platinum 1~2 user's account(6 points). Because of this issue, we lost lots of potential participants (as we counted only based on inquiries that we received, it was over 29 users. we guess there were more users who were not able to apply for the tournament because of this issue.) I cannot deny I was a little disappointed with this result, but I also learned a lot from the experience at the same time! What I need to carefully consider when I plan and implement a project is not only consumers but also environments represented by PESTLE. I studied this knowledge through books and classes before, and I surely felt the importance of it through the experience.

<Quite lots of people were not able to apply ㅠㅠ>

Results

The number of participants: 100

Revenue from participants: \ 400,000 [\20,000 per team, we set the price referring to other amateur events. a little lower than them]

The total revenue: \ 1,400,000

Running and operating the tournament itself was not that difficult thanks to my team members' efforts. Based on lots of rehearsals, we got it done with only trivial issues such as a little delay of few matches.

<Organizational Until Semi-final>

<We made manuals and were well-informed with them>

<Schedules were met without big problems>

- Broadcast

We broadcasted matches from the semi-finals to the final live.

Results

The total number of clicks: around 4,500 (The total of 3 broadcasts)

The total number of meaningful clicks (over 1 minute): around 1,500 (The total of 3 broadcasts)

The maximum number of viewers: 86 (The final)

It could be seen as successful since we got the results without any influencers. We got the results only with marketing strategies. But if I am just satisfied, there is no improvement. what I want to say here is that 'the result could have been better for sure'. As a broadcasting channel, we chose Facebook over Youtube. According to the broadcast team's report at the planning phase, Youtube was not an available option. And Facebook was the most positive option out of all the channels.

<the broadcast team's report #1>

<the broadcast team's report #2>

Unfortunately, I just accepted the information without double-checking. So we went with Facebook only. It was just a while ago that I realized the information was wrong. According to them, to do live streaming, we needed a Youtube account with over 1,000 subscribers. However, it was not true. The policy only corresponded to live streaming on Android. On a computer, we were able to broadcast live even without 1,000 subscribers.

<The live streaming policy on Android>

<The live streaming policy on a computer>

<The rate of using video contents in 2018>

Facebook is not comparable to Youtube in terms of the number of users. Moreover, Facebook is not comparable to Youtube and in terms of accessibility since not many people have the app on their phones. For these reasons, I believe the result must have been better if we broadcasted the tournament live on the two apps simultaneously (or just only on Youtube).

However, I don't want to blame the broadcast team. After all, we were able to broadcast the tournament with no accident thanks to the broadcast team. I know how hard they worked for the whole team. Besides, there is also my fault too. As a leader, if the decision had been important enough to affect the whole results, I should have double-checked it. I think my fault is bigger than theirs. We are not perfect. As a human, we sometimes make mistakes. By making a habit of double-checking information, we need to reduce the number of making a mistake to almost zero at least when it comes to really important matters. I won't forget this precious lesson. I am sure this lesson would be good nourishment for my potential careers in the future.

As I talked about bad things about the broadcasting results above. Let's talk about good things about the results. How were we able to get the results which are quite good Even if we only use Facebook? Do you remember coupons we got from sponsors? We used the coupons as a lure. Actually getting spectatorship in amateur sports is really difficult. Not only aren't they famous, but also their skills are not good enough to entertain viewers. It is usually possible only when influencers on social media are involved with the event. However, there was no influencer in our event. Thus, we used coupons to attract people to watch the broadcasts.

<The poster to promote the broadcasts>

<An in-game event during a live broadcast>

And the results of user communications on the live broadcasts below shows it worked.

Results

The total number of comments: 1100 (the total of all the 3 broadcasts)

Unlike on Yoututbe, contacting users is much easier on Facebook. Since we can send them a message. Therefore, we were able to distribute coupons efficiently with less efforts. Also, we were able to carry out survey to those who got coupons from the event so that we can measure the effectiveness of the sponsorships. I think this is one of the good things of us using Facebook.

For me, the experience of broadcasting the event is unforgettable. I want to say thank you to all my team members including people who voluntarily helped us.

<The organizational chart for broadcating>

Evaluating Phase

We evaluated our event based on the goals that we set in advance. Some goals needed to be measured with questionnaires. So, we created survey questions on the basis of survey methodolgy.

<A sample of our questionnaires>

I personally believe the 'evaluating' phase is the most important as it could be a good nourishment for the other future projects. We carried out surveys to participants, spectators who got coupons from the in-game events of the broadcasts, and sponsors.

<The results of the survey for the spectators>

<The results of the survey for the participants>

Overall, the results were great. But What made me happy the most was the responses of the sponsors. 

<One of the responses of the sponsors>

The satisfaction rate of sponsors amounted to 95%, and 100% of the sponsors answered to participate again as a sponsor if these kinds of events are held in the future. It was the moment when our efforts to promote them such as making ad contents, disticuting coupons through in-game events apart from just exposing their logos finally paid off. If someone asks me what I am proud of the most among all the results, I will surely choose this one! :) Of course, There is lessons here, let talk about them below.

<The event evaluation chart based on the goals set in advance>

The chart above is the results of all the event evaluation. In my opinion, we should have set higher goals. Out abilities were capable of achieving them. Since we didn't have experience of holding an event, we had no idea about how the event would go, and we were afraid of failing to achieve the goals we set. As a result, it looks like we overachieved our goals even though the truth is we just got moderate success. I think it is a matter of experience. I am confident that if my team members or I face a situation where we should set goals of a project. We will be able to set better goals, which is not impossible to achieve and help stay motivated.

What we failed to achieved among all the goals was the goal related to Youtube. Unfortunately, this stemd from my poor decision. When it comes to leading a channel to success, timing of uploading appropriate contents is the most important. Looking back, we should have uploaded highlights of the tournaments as fast as we could to promote inflow of viewers. However, my decision at the time was different. I thought the convenience of participants was the most important. So during the tournament period, I asked the tournament teams to upload full-time match videos so that participants can make use of them as a reference to prepare a next round. The responses of the participants who benefited from it was great, but the upload of the game highlights got postponed until after the end of the final because of this. People's attention to the event faded fast after the final. (Moreover, I gave the contents team a vacation(?) for about a week. (they had other team projects) Therefore, it was after about a week that we uploaded the first highlight.) As a result we failed to achieve the goal. Sometimes, it is impossible to get two birds with one stone. Therefore, you need to have an ability to figure out what is more important and choose one between them. That is what I learned from this.

Conclusion

Every project goes through the ‘planning – implementing – Evaluating’ process, but my team projects in classes and works for competitions used to finish at the ‘planning’ stage. Therefore, a vague fear of implementing my plan existed deep in my mind for a long time. Fortunately, I was able to get a chance to hold 'HUFS Lolympic'. As a result, I was able to eliminate the fear which stuck deep in my mind. Of course, it would be a lie if I only say the event was just successful and satisfactory. Obviously, there was also a lot of room for improvement. Embracing all the lessons that I learned from the experience, I will try to improve myself continuously. Again, I want to say thank you for all my team members who believed in me as a leader. If it had not been for them, I would have never even dreamed of holding the event.