SEO Young-nam

　　SEO Young-nam

　　Doctoral student at Kyung-hee University, School of Journalism & Communications

　　Education Background：

　　2004-2006, Master degree in Journalism at Kyung-hee University, School of Journalism & Communications

　　2006 – ，Enrolled in doctoral course at Kyung-hee University, School of Journalism & Communications

　　Main Publications：Violence in TV programs for children in Korea: A content analysis,

　　Korean Journal of Broadcasting and Telecommunication Studies, 21(1)

　　A framing analysis on HIV/AIDS reports in Korean newspapers

　　Peeking the future Olympic:

　　A descriptive study of the WCG and its sponsorship

　　SEO Young-nam

　　As the motto, “Beyond the Game” indicates, the WCG (World Cyber Games), which is the very first world-wide E-sports event, is no longer just a ‘game’. Considering its overall scale (cf. budget, participants, economic consequences and so on), it seems to gain an undeniable position of main sports event. However, hardly did single academic research try to examine the characteristics of this brand-new sports event, even its importance is growing bigger at amazing rate and its growth is not over yet.

　　The purpose of this study was twofold; 1) to outline the WCG, which was considered as the new prototype of future global sports events, 2) to compare its sponsorship execution status and process with those of existing off-line sports events such as the Olympic. To accomplish these goals, various analysis techniques including SNA (Social Network Analysis) were used.

　　Using data from ICM, which was the hosting company of the WCG, a diachronic analysis was performed focusing on its participating countries, official games, and other features. Concerning its sponsorship, a comparison between the WCG and the Olympic was conducted via multiple analyses as well. The purpose of this contrast was to identify the difference in sponsorship programs of those two contradistinctive events.

　　The result reconfirmed that the WCG indeed is getting more powerful: the increment in participants reached over 77% and the number of attending countries were increased 17 to 70, for example. Also it is found that, comparing to the Olympic, sponsor corporations in WCG were more unified and showed a definite centralization tendency in IT industry.

　　Based on these results, this study suggested the ways to enhance the effectiveness of E-sports sponsorship by identifying the features peculiar to the Cyber Olympic. Theoretically and practically, this article could be expected to function as a useful guideline for future researchers and practitioners.