Interview with Frodan: "Canada Showed Up."

Dan 'Frodan' Chou is a StarCraft II caster for NASL. Their latest season, season 3 was the most successful NASL ever, with a lot of subscriptions and viewers. It hosts a unique format in the form of nightly broadcasts in a league style, until the finals. The finals were held in Canada, and was one of the largest eSports events in the history of Canada.

With NASL S4 qualifiers already underway and prepartions for season 4 we recently caught up with Dan in the small break between the seasons.

Hey Frodan, how are you today?

Frodan: Hey Nos :) I'm doing great! Kind of tired from the NASL weekend, but already back at the studio and ready to go for the next season!

Awesome! If you had to sum up the NASL finals in a sentence what would that sentence be?

Frodan: Canada showed up.

So NASL was your first major tournament you casted on main stage, how was it for you?

Frodan: It was unreal! I mean everyone was so nice there and the crowd's excitement was tangible. There were kids as young as 7-8 years old and they were screaming just as loud as some 40 year old fathers who were with them. Almost every person I met were tournament virgins and they definitely made the best of it. When the Canadian crowd is that amped up and compliant, casting for them is so easy because they put in lots of the excitement for me.

Where you ever nervous at all or did it all seem to slide into place?

Frodan: Haha of course man. No caster was ever not nervous. Once upon a time, MrBitter and Rotterdam used to be intimidated and scared to get on stage. Even Day9 talked about how he used to have crazy nerve issues. It's not easy putting yourself up there...I got super nervous on the first cast and stated some things that I didn't mean. Mistakes are okay though as long as you correct yourself, but Gretorp was so quick to follow up that I didn't get the chance to and I kinda had to keep going. That's just the nature of the beast though...and as soon as the rest of the event unraveled, I got into a nice comfort zone :)

How do you think NASL compares to other tournaments in terms of viewership and success so far this year?

Frodan: Well, we did better Season 3 than Season 2 on pretty much every front: viewership, subscription, attendance, etc. The only thing is that better is not good enough. For Season 4, we want to hit a nice level where 10-15k a night is normal. 5-10k is great, but we know we can do better and we hope our production value and hard work will pay off with loyal viewers. It's naive to think that we have maxed out our reach to the demographic especially with MLG releasing information that eSports hits a stronger percentage of the coveted 18-34 year old population. We have lots of cool plans in motion and we hope people will try to tune in as much as possible!

Does NASL have any plans to help improve these numbers or are they relying on growth?

Frodan: That was what partnering with Gamestop and CBS was for -- to increase our viewership base with stronger promotion. I don't know if that's impacted our numbers directly, but we also won't just passively sit around and hope people notice us. For Season 3, we focused on completely renovating and refining our existing product so that Season 4 we can focus on heavy marketing.

We weren't sure how Season 3 would pan out and so making giant pushes and investments would seem silly because everything was untested: our fresh EP from Hollywood, bringing out 3 new casters, etc. MrBitter, Rotti, and I sit around often to simply think of ideas that would reach out to a broader audience and put out better content without sacrificing the quality of games. Some of the ideas are still kinda in the infant stage, but they are absolutely WILD and if we ever get to pull it off, it'll be some of the coolest things pulled off in esports history.

(Frodan chilling during a break at the NASL S3 Finals.)

What was the biggest upset in your eyes at the S3 Finals?

Frodan: I think the biggest upset was Ret over Puzzle. I don't mean that in any disrespect, but Puzzle is absolutely NASTY at PvZ and PvP. I felt like the tournament would have been his if the map pool was readjusted slightly and it would've been him vs Stephano. It's no secret that Ret practiced a ton and he played incredibly that series. I just felt that Puzzle didn't show his best. In fact, most of the games didn't pan out the way I thought they would.

Didn't think Puma would go down 0-3. I knew Alicia's PvP was sick good, but Huk has awesome PvP as well and he practiced so much for both events. Even Stephano over Hero was a bit of an upset. Hero just beat DRG at IPL Fight Club HIN and Stephano told me/MrBitter the night before that he doesn't expect to beat Hero first round. Overall, the tournament saw lots of upsets, but the ending result was picture perfect.

Do you think having only 8 people single elim helped build hype or caused issues, as some people wanted to see players play more then just one series?

Frodan: It goes both ways. 8 players means stronger hype and stronger focus. One of the drawbacks of the hugeeeeee tournaments like IPL, MLG, etc. is that there are SO many players that storylines are hard to follow unless you are part of pool play. Even then, your games aren't all casted. Less players and single elimination means stronger concentration on every single game which matters. At the same time, it means more variation and less stability.

At the same time, single elimination means more variation and less stability. I feel like MC and Puzzle would've come stronger from the Losers Bracket and could've won. Who knows? Maybe Huk would've come back and really gathered himself for an epic run. Regardless, we are looking seriously at the format and are evaluating it thoroughly. Was 8 players better than 16? Should we have done pools or groups? All these things we discuss and debate. I don't think there's a perfect format yet in SC2 tournaments because there are pros and cons to each. Soe has a very eloquent explanation on why she hates group and pool play if you ever get the chance to talk to her!

 Have you spoken to other leagues about casting with them or are you still happy remaining NASL only at the moment?

Frodan: The cool thing is that NASL is perfectly fine letting me go to other events if they would have me! Bitterdam travel to do other things like MLG, WCS, and Homestory and I would love to be able to travel and cast wherever people would want me. I think I proved that NASL that I can work with lots of different people and I love crowd interaction/hype. I prepared an insane amount for the NASL finals studying and compiling notes on each player for 5-6 hours a day inbetween ladder sessions. I want any organization that I work with to know I put in the time to justify my presence at the event :)

(Peace Out!)

You stated before you where taking a break from college to focus on NASL, is this still the plan - will you ever return to college?

Frodan: Ahhhh I want to...and I really should. But like I said last time, this opportunity is way too good to pass up. My friends with whom I should've graduated this year with still don't have jobs -- let alone have jobs in their dream industries. I am just lucky and humbled to even be here and free to pursue this career. I will return one day, but only when the ship has properly sailed. Sometimes you just gotta go for something you believe in and, as cheesy as it sounds, I truly believe that what we're doing here at NASL will last for a long time.

Well thanks for your time Frodan, any shoutouts?

Frodan: Yeah of course! Shoutout to all the people who showed up at the NASL finals because you guys made the event what it is. Thanks to Bitterdam and Gretorp who shower me with encouragement and honest feedback nonstop. Thanks to Morgan for an awesome season of NASL. Last thanks to DiggitySC, Cable, Xeris, and Russ who got me here at NASL. Oh, and Clutch/Day9 for casting with me at the finals too! Was loads of fun and NASL S3 finals was simply the best weekend of my life.

 

Be sure to check myself out on twitter @dignitasnos and Frodan @Frodan