The draft from CGS UK. Sujoy's London Mint on the right side. (thecgs.com)

What could prove a stumbling block in DirecTV's quest for world domination (or at least European acceptance of the concept) is the complexity of the situation in Europe.

While USA is basically the same country throughout all 50 states, Europe is a different story. The decentralization of the region is prominent and inherits from its chaotic past. This is no history assignment, so I will spare you of reading about the two world wars and make haste towards the current situation.

The CGS will need to battle out competitors such as ESL, NGL, GIGA and ClanBase to grab a hold of the online AND offline audience. It is here that they lack one thing; the superstars.

In America, the CGS struck a deal with two of the most influential and established organizations, namely compLexity and Team 3D. In South America they have signed Made in Brazil and in Asia, wNv has already made the transfer to CS:Source. This is yet to happen in Europe and it doesn't seems like it is going to any time soon.

Most of the major organizations earn more money on advertising than they could potentially earn in the CGS. Even more, the CGS demands that the players that are drafted in the European draft must be transfered for free. They can't be contracted because CGS won't buy out contracts. This is also a problem considering that all the best CS 1.6 teams in Europe are contracted, since they are the core of the organization and the core of the European superstars.

CGS needs the Superstars

Much like NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL, CGS is trying to create a channel by which advertisers can reach their audience through. That channel will be useless if the audience isn't there or if the audience is too little. Why? Because the money that DirecTV can earn on a large audience is huge. While the audience might raise the number of people who are subscribing to DirecTV or their partners, it isn't where the real money is earned.

"Commercial" is the key word here. Take NFL as an example. Why will companies pay billions of dollars for the rights to show NFL on TV? I'll tell you: There are one billion reasons. 1.000.000.000. That is the number of people being exposed to Superbowl in one way or another. And NFL is the channel that is used to get a hold of those people.

So then we are back at the start. How will CGS get an audience? They need the superstars of Europe. They need the superstars of CounterStrike 1.6 and FIFA 2007. They need those players who have been exposed in the media; SK-Gaming, hero and Styla of SK (the FIFA twins), fnatic, Pentagram – they need the players and teams which already have an established fan base.

They [CGS] will have a hard time if they think they can build up a huge fan base from a scratch – without even looking at the teams and organizations that have been consolidating their firm grab of the European audience for years.

General Managers of Europe – who are the picks?

Sujoy and ODEE go head to head before the UK FINAL (thecgs.com)

The picks of the European GM's isn't convincing either. While HeatoN is a good name to have on board, he lacks a lot when it comes to working behind the scenes.

Even more, BSL as German GM screams out that they couldn't find a suited German GM. My bet is that both bds of SK, django of Mousesports, guddo of NoA and many others, have received offers to be General Managers. And I am quite sure that they have turned those offers down, as they want to focus on their primary business.

The UK GM's is definitely better chosen, as Sujoy Roy might be the only Euro GM to be overqualified. He is a former pro gamer that has built his own business for years and runs the E-sport site esreality.com as his hobby.

His closest rival will be ODEE of Dignitas, who has created an English powerhouse in disciplines such as FIFA, CoD and Unreal Tournament. Both Sujoy and ODEE will be good for the CGS to have on board as their background knowledge is worth more than a hundred HeatoNs.

To CGS or not to CGS – that IS the question

The Danish prince was right. Things can be summed down to this simple (and rewritten) question. "To CGS or not to CGS?". With the amount of money DirecTV has put into the project, it needs to have instant success if they want to continue supporting it. CGS will need to outrun its rival, European competitors, to grab a hold of the Euro audience.

While CGS has been a success in both Northern and Southern America I think it will fail in Europe and the reasons are simple.

• Reason 1: Europe is divided in many different countries and communities. There are no similarities in culture or language that can unite the gamers.
• Reason 2: The divided gaming communities in Europe are not very keen on changes. Look at a game like Quake. While we are now at the 4th edition, we still have quite large amount of people who play both Quake World, Q2 and Q3. Even more, the CounterStrike 1.6 community is almost intact, only very few top players and teams have switched to CS:Source.
• Reason 3: It has not yet been announced how the Europeans outside of the United Kingdom will be able to watch CGS. It's great that Sky will transmit it, but 90% of the inhabitants in Europe live outside UK.