wow Method and the Future of the World First Race Coverage

[Starym 3,800]

 

In a very frank tweet today, Method GM Sco addressed plans for their Mythic progress stream coverage of the Eternal Palace raid and, more interestingly, talked about what happened between Method and Red Bull and how the latter might be trying to hijack the community-focused race.

First things first, it's possible that we'll be getting a much bigger event for the Azshara race this time around, as Method might be involving multiple guilds in their stream coverage:

Quote

Method is in the early stages of communicating with other top guilds on a collective agreement that will have the Race to World First remain in the hands of the community. An agreement that will prevent exploitation of the guilds.

Early stages seems to imply the agreements may not be ready for this raid, but the fact Sco is talking about it now might also mean we're getting something really special when Mythic opens.

The future of the Race to World First and why Method is not working /w Red Bull

Read: https://t.co/ySObKKKfgg

— Scott McMillan (@Methodsco) July 6, 2019

Now, the other interesting part of the tweet talks about Red Bull and how they tried to take over the race coverage completely in Battle of Dazar'alor (by having it hosted on their own twitch channel and more) and once that failed are now going to be hosting their own event, possibly with Limit and Pieces.

Quote

Nothing materialized after BoD. Instead, Red Bull continued to pursue the route of trying to take ownership of the Race to World First events. It was very disappointing for us at Method as I think anyone who tuned into the last 2 RWF events at this point can appreciate how much value Red Bull has gained from their involvement, as The Esports Observer put it “The stream featured a constant presence from Red Bull, giving the brand access to millions of hours of viewership".

While dialogue remained open it was leaked to us that Red Bull reached out to Limit and Pieces to plan an event called “Red Bull’s World First” (https://i.imgur.com/6UahKQF.jpg). Red Bull had gone behind our back, and after seeing their presentation to Limit and Pieces it was apparent that they had taken a lot of our ideas and concepts for expanding the RWF.

Red Bull will therefore likely be putting on their own event for 8.2 The Eternal Palace with Limit and Pieces this time around, but Method will have no involvement with the event.

The tweet itself has a lot more details both on the Red Bull matter and Method's stance, involvement and plans for the World First race, so if you're even marginally interested in the subject, it's a very interesting read.

In any case this next raid was always going to be an interesting and intense one on the playing field, with the penultimate raid of an expansion usually being both very well made and a tight race (Throne of Thunder, Blackrock Foundry, etc), it seems it will now also be much more interesting for us viewers as well!

[Starym 3,800]

Full disclosure, I also work for Method on the site part of the WF race coverage, but have little to no involvement with the stream event itself.

[Kuarinofu 78]

These guys actually look younger than I thought. I pictured WoW veterans who are still really into the game in 2019 looking at least 35+ y.o.

[jinsu2301 273]

Any word yet in regards to Azshara's Palace coverage? Will it be just individual player streams, or will there be a commentary/analysis stream as well?

[Amateurpeeweeeeh 37]

2 hours ago, Starym said:

Full disclosure, I also work for Method on the site part of the WF race coverage, but have little to no involvement with the stream event itself.

Weird flex but okay.

[Amateurpeeweeeeh 37]

1 hour ago, Kuarinofu said:

These guys actually look younger than I thought. I pictured WoW veterans who are still really into the game in 2019 looking at least 35+ y.o.

Holy *filtered* this methodjosh guy:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Method+Josh&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiSlfPosaHjAhUvw8QBHVmBCN4Q_AUIECgB&biw=1920&bih=1057

He could be around 20. He looks like he never went outside. Bone and face structure of a teen. Somehow disturbing. But if he is having fun I guess thats fine.

[Starym 3,800]

1 hour ago, Amateurpeeweeeeh said:

Weird flex but okay.

Dunno, just felt it was proper to mention it since there's accusations in the article etc, I doubt any bias is in there, but always better to disclose that kinda stuff.

[Rekkid 1]

2 hours ago, Amateurpeeweeeeh said:

Weird flex but okay.

Not at all, it's called transparency and is expected of journalists.

[Quiz 10]

Looking forward to watching the Redbull World First show!

[Badadada 184]

Totally understand Method's stand on this one. I first-handedly experienced the rise of energy drink companies in motorsport myself, and they do not operate like traditional sponsors. So their business model is not like "show sugary coffeinated drink advertisemenets -> profit from selling them", but "appear in the show -> become one with the show -> own the show". Everyone can have their opinion about this, but no wonder Red Bull owns a bunch of sport teams and events, they really want a bit more control than traditional sponsors, which may not be for everyone.

[Starym 3,800]

4 hours ago, Quiz said:

Looking forward to watching the Redbull World First show!

Generally speaking, the more options the better for us viewers, but I'm not a big fan of this development, could have been handled much better. But hey, some people really don't like the Method commentators so this will definitely be useful to them.

At least for me this adds a whole new layer of competition between Limit, Pieces and Method, which is great for the race itself (which is really the only thing I'm actually invested/interested in).