There are 22 combined Majors and Minors for the Dota Pro Circuit. Twelve of those are Minor Championships and the rest are Majors. On paper, the difference between both of those are as transparent as a clear window. The gap of money and qualifying points at stake between Minors and Majors are massive. In reality, fans and talents don’t feel any difference between the two of them, except for what’s at stake.
Majors don’t feel like the massive events they’re supposed to be. In fact, minors feel more satisfying than most majors. Why is this happening? Here are couple of reasons why.
Bigger Events = Higher Expectations
This one is self explanatory, in my opinion. A major tournament is expected to be a massive event with lots of people watching with a rabid crowd. The stakes are high, and the talents involved must also be top tier. But what happened was a disappointment in term of crowd size and tournament feel.
Meanwhile, the minors feel more massive than they should be. A good example is the difference between PGL Bucharest Major’s and GESC Jakarta Minor’s crowd. The GESC Jakarta’s crowd is rabid and making all teams feel loved and entertained. The talents also feel they are welcomed with excellent services from the organizers. The Bucharest Major’s crowd isn’t as hyped as the GESC’s one, and the services provided is sub par. This is a problem that must be addressed by future event organizers to meet people’s expectations.
High Cost of Massive Tournaments
A tournament or event costs some money to produce. The bigger the tournament, the higher the cost. The risk of doing larger tournaments of course is higher in terms of ticket or merchandise sales. Even though you have a lot of sponsors from other events, this doesn’t change the fact that they can also lose money if they failed to live up to the expectations. So far, almost all major and minor tournaments are handled by the same organizers. The amount of effort difference to make each tournament feel special isn’t there. I did not say that they must lower their treatment for minors, but not going 110% for majors is a massive let down. Maybe organizers feel that with an unstable market of Dota Pro Circuit, they must play safer. But the safer they play, the lower they resonate with the community.
What do you think of the treatment of Minors and Majors? Do you feel the differences between them?
