MLG pro Tsquared featured in ESPN the Magazine

Last week we covered the news that Tom “TSquared” Taylor, MLG Halo 3 pro, had inked a deal with Dr. Pepper. The aforementioned deal has nothing to do with the one where Dr. Pepper owes all of us free soda, no sir. He gets his mug plastered all over bottles of Dr. Pepper in a true-blue endorsement deal. After tackling the crazy world of endorsements, he did what any professional athlete would do: he tells the world how to become just like him via a popular sports magazine. Now, said article reads more like an “Everyone can do it! Yes, even you!” inspirational piece, but he does bring up some of the finer points of it, including just what sponsorship entails.

Read on for an excerpt from ESPN the Magazine’s article.

3. PRACTICE? YEAH, A BIT. “My teammates live all over the country, so sometimes we fly to meet up. We practice by scrimmaging against other teams on Xbox Live anywhere from eight to 16 hours a day. But we’ve played together so much, we know how to win. It’s mostly a matter of outsmarting the other guys.”

4. PRO GAMING IS FLUSH. “Str8 Rippin is sponsored by Dr Pepper, and I’m sponsored by Panasonic. In addition to the money, they fulfill our needs for stuff like new equipment and hotel suites. But that’s icing on the cake, considering the travel stipends MLG gives the pro teams and the money we make from tournaments. First prize at the national championships in Vegas will be $100,000. If you’re good, you can easily make six figures.”

See kids? It’s just like normal sports! If you’re good at it, you make money, get endorsement deals, and have big companies pay for hotel suites. What he doesn’t tell you about is the laughter that ensues after a humiliating defeat on stage. He also neglects to mention how awesome knowing you just flew across the country to get your ass handed to you feels. Don’t believe me? Youtube my name. See how happy I am? That’s what you get if you ARE NOT good. Or if you just drop the ball that day, whichever you use to console yourself that night.

In all seriousness though, he brings up some good points, even if the list isn’t so much a how-to as a how-it-is. With all the massive changes in the pro-gaming landscape lately (the demise of two organizations comes to mind), one can only wonder at the future of e-sports. If anything, it seems to be moving more towards the grassroots days of old, where gamers crowded into arcades for impromptu Street Fighter 2 tournaments. Our venues have changed from arcades to the internet more often than not, but the feel of it all remains the same. The only thing up in the air is accessibility of it all. Will there be a rush by the major corporations to sponsor players, now that the sticky situation that was the CGS tying up exclusivity is out of the way? Or will they back off, the still-fresh sting of losing two major leagues effectively killing corporate interest?

I don’t know about you, but rather than wait for the answer, I’m going to bust open a case of Dr. Pepper and watch a movie on my new Panasonic HDTV…

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