Snow Sweet Snow tournament, in which there are many big teams including the Turkish team Sangal Esports might not get a Turkish language broadcast.
Turkish casters root & vlad did broadcast the event till the play-off stage. Now, however, they announced that the Turkish broadcasting rights of the tournament were given to another channel.
Berke ‘Vlad‘ Kantürk’s Statement
On January 21st 2021 during the regional stages, I contacted the Relog Media for “non-exclusive rights” of Sangal matches in Snow Sweet Snow Tournament. This meant that I could stream the tournament on my personal Twitch channel without expecting any income as long as I complied with broadcasting terms and met their requests.
You know what happened after that. Me and Özgür “root” streamed every match of Sangal till the play-off stage. Together with the Sangal Esports viewers and fans, we provided a viewership experience (and statistics) well above the average.
A week ago I learned that the organization wanted to see the same statistics for their own official streams. Relog Media and GRID made a joint decision and decided to open a Turkish channel. I got aware of this situation as a result of pure coincidence. After I contacted the proper channels they just said that “they indeed hand such plans”.
On 5th of February, They stated that “the broadcasts of the tournament will go through only one channel and they will not work with me for the remainder of the tournament.”
The only thing I want to say is that they really made a disrespectful move. We put such hard work for our broadcasts and we got informed just 3 days prior to play-off phase. I at least wanted to have some prior knowledge regarding this arrangement. I won’t be broadcasting the rest of the tournament, and I wish good luck to Sangal for the rest of the tournament.
Berke ‘Vlad’ Kantürk
Özgür ‘root‘ Alagül’s twitter Statement
Hi everyone, as you know me and Berke (vlad) have spent a lot of time presenting the season 1 matches of the Snow Sweet tournament since the regional qualifiers. We hosted the two weeks of swiss group matches, and then (Sangal Esports) got qualified for the play-offs.
The organization did not give us any money and we were not under any contract. We broadcasted the games using non-exclusive rights. This Friday, the organization told us that we could no longer broadcast the tournament. They have sold the rights to somebody else. They did not talk to us beforehand in any capacity. I think this is a disrespectful move. Our broadcasts had good energy. They could have at least talked to us and maybe we could have made a deal. They told us that “You gathered a lot of crowds and showed us the potential, we saw that the Turkish viewership numbers are great so we sold the rights to somebody else. Make a higher bid for the rights and you are welcome to continue your broadcasts.”
For this reason, we won’t be able to broadcast this tournament. Furthermore, at this point, I will not cast the tournament even if they give us the rights. I wish good luck to Sangal for the rest of the tournament.
Özgür ‘root’ Alagül
Özgür ‘root‘ Alagül also stated that the play-off broadcasting rights were given to a channel named “TEBtr“. We don’t have a proper conformation, however, it is highly likely that this is the channel in question.
Aytaç ‘JaqaRaCs‘ Karateke’s Statement
Furthermore, Aytaç ‘JaqaRaCs‘ Karateke said that the manager of Snow Sweet Snow tournament contacted him and offered him the broadcasting rights. Here is his statement:
Hi, this is jaqara. For those who don’t know my name is Aytaç. I mostly broadcast matches that are not casted by other people. Most of you don’t like my casting because I am not as good compared to other big names in the scene. This is really apparent from the statistics. The head admin of Snow Sweet Snow contacted me, and asked me to create a channel named teb_tr and broadcast the matches in Turkish. I did not contact them, they did. I refused to have the rights for this season, and told them that I would be interested for future seasons.Some of you privately insulted me regarding this situation. I talked with Berke “Vlad” Kantürk. They are older and more experienced when it comes to these things. I respect them, and want them to respect me. It would have been a huge disrespect to them if I casted the Turkish games on teb_tr channel. They might not like me, however, I respect them because of their age. The love might not be mutual however the respect is. Thanks.
Aytaç ‘JaqaRaCs‘ Karateke
I think that the organization disrespected vlad & root. They are two highly valuable members of Turkish Counter-Strike community. They make the matches more engaging and enjoyable. This types of situations happen from time to time. I hope that they get the respect they deserve.
