I was inspired by Cook's offer to help out some new/low Open teams with league fees for S18.

I am offering an incentive for teams to give Open a try this season.

I will put up $200 in prize money for the top finishing current/former UGC teams that play in ESEA Open TF2 S18. Prize distribution will be $100 for the top team in S18 Open standings, $60 for the runner-up and $40 for the second-runner-up among teams that apply and are accepted into this challenge.

There's only a little time left before S18 closes, so if your team is considering giving Open a shot, let this be an incentive to move on over.

A few rules (that may be tweaked as we get feedback):
1. To apply, PM me on TFTV (or have your team leader add me on steam) with your team's ESEA roster link and your UGC team profile link. You may do this up through the second week of seasonal play to apply.

2. Your roster must contain of at least 3 paid players who have at least two seasons of UGC together on the same roster (note: can be 6s or HL) and no complete season history in ESEA or CEVO (partials are OK within reason).
3. Your roster must contain no paid players at any point in the season who have ever been on an ESEA IM, Main, Invite or CEVO-P roster in any season.
4. I reserve the right to disqualify any team suspected of using players on alt accounts that would otherwise not qualify.
5. Completely new teams that are joining S18 may apply but will be up to my discretion to accept them into the challenge - in general I will accept any team of completely new to ESEA players but will be more open with largely intact current/former UGC teams.
6. After season's end, winning teams will be announced in this thread and the the team leader will receive the funds through PayPal (or we can work out another method later).

If you aren't eligible but want to contribute, I would be happy to join up with other donators to increase the pool or add more prizes, or get help spreading the word to potential teams.
I will cross-post this later today to reddit and UGC (assuming they're OK with this on their site).

Edit Jan.29 - OK! Submissions are closed!

I am gonna be tracking the teams in this here doc. 14 teams entered, only one is dead so far, leaving 13 contenders! I am going to check rosters periodically for sandbaggers, so just because you're in right now doesn't guarantee anything!

I'm trying to decide between sponsoring some low teams like this or just offering a cash prize to the top teams of new players/that make the jump from UGC/somesuch in Open.

Any suggestions/ideas?

If you're serious about getting everyone signed up early, maybe try offering something to the teams that get signed up/paid early, because it seems that threatening the season/not extending hasn't worked well in the past.

Say every roster with 6 paid a week early could get some 1 week premium codes or let them get a backup "paid" for free, or just a lower rate - that might a bunch of folks to actually sign up before the last minute.

As it is, there's no incentive to not wait for the last minute.

Has a thing for baby seals.

Otherwise a good guy to have around.

Confirmed

I think those agitating for a new free league have a good idea in their hearts, but it would absolutely be much more likely that we could successfully grow NA 6v6 TF2 by working to improve/develop UGC than by attempting to take a flyer on creating an alternative that's more likely to fail than succeed.

Yes, please.

I am not so sure about this given the number of unusuals, killstreak and australium items floating around the community, not to mention how many gift wraps have been sold so that top players can sign stuff for people. I am guessing the average 6s player has a much larger than average investment in TF2 than the typical pubber, we just make up a relatively small % of the customers.

Came from TheVille. They're fairly anti-comp so it took me forever to get around to 6s.

Holy shit, mach4 sighting.

This is an important point.
Typically, elite sports leagues have salary/roster churn built in that forces teams to keep developing and taking risks.
No one's going to pay up big money to create a dream team to beat Froyo, or for some folks to defect from Froyo and play for other teams with LAN drams.
Age/injury in physical team sports mean the very best players decline and make opportunities for new talent to rise to the top. It's going to be many years before age takes a toll on anyone's skill in TF2. So, it's basically up to them losing interest in playing as much or in playing together for them to decline, making it really hard to exceed them for any teams that aren't there yet.

With no payoff besides the acclaim of this community and pleasing yourselves, why not just cycle out through teams in high open/IM with your friends and have a good time?

Something is needed, to be sure. I don't see how CEVO or ESEA would cater to this if they wanted to, though. It's hard enough to fill in the paid teams now, imagine if there was a non-shit free option for teams.

Boston would be great. Would love to go if logistics/dates permit.

Anything with toast in it is definitely the worst.

Been following it loosely. I travel to Hong Kong occasionally and it's certainly changed over the 10 years I've been going there.

Given there's a lot of perception that it's mainly/partly fueled by resentment of mainlanders - it makes it difficult for them to win a lot of sympathy from mainlanders which would probably be the best way to get Beijing to loosen the grip a bit.
I am not sure how much they can win or what they should do, but I hope they're successful.

Coolest dudes. They will be p. good, too.

Bump.

Had some tryouts, not sure if any will work out but glad to take more in the meantime.