Two weekends ago there was the first paper Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour in four years.

In the time between them there has been upheaval, excitement, hope, but ultimately a big letdown as a huge push for MTG Arena to become an esport and the Magic Pro League to take off never came to fruition, leaving the state of organized play and serious tournament Magic in great jeopardy. Wizards of the Coast has since made the excellent choice to hire Hall of Famer and Pro Tour stalwart William Jensen to lead the organized play department, while also returning to the paper Pro Tour of the old system that has served Magic well for 20 years.

This reset to the classic Pro Tour structure came to life two weeks ago, honestly to great success, which I wrote about last week.

As a competitor who has played in a bunch of Pro Tours over the last two decades, the event was everything you could want from a professional level Magic event. It felt meaningful, the prize structure was well managed, and it retained the special feeling of being in a room full of Magic players from all over the world competing to be the best. Are there things that could be improved? Sure, but it was a phenomenal start.

From a spectator's point of view, the feedback I've heard was almost universally positive. The coverage itself was being praised over and over again for the amazing amount of gametime that timeshifting everything achieved, the commentary and desk teams are great, and all and all it was just a very smooth and enjoyable broadcast. It was great to hear cards flicking and table talk again!

So, what's the issue?

While Wizards of the Coast has done a great job both bringing the Pro Tour back, as well as providing an excellent broadcast product, they are not doing the legwork necessary to make it succeed.

In the weeks leading up to the Pro Tour, as well as following it, I did a lot of content based around the event. This was well received, with a lot of excitement about the Pro Tour returning and seeing how it would go, and then a lot of positive words about the event after it was done.

However, one common thread was that there were an almost unbelievable amount of people who had no idea the Pro Tour even existed anymore, let alone was happening. And we're not talking about random people off the street, we're talking about Magic players who are invested in the game enough to be watching Magic content on YouTube or Twitch. I had to answer questions about the Pro Tour so often on stream that I made a command explaining the event and when it was happening.

This is a huge issue in and of itself, but doubly so for the literal return of the Pro Tour after a number of rough years that definitely lost people's interest. This is completely unacceptable if Wizards of the Coast has any interest at all in the Pro Tour succeeding well enough to justify the budget and excellent work that many folks are putting into it. Not every Magic player has to be interested in the Pro Tour, but there's a reason that Jon Finkel, Luis Scott-Vargas, and Reid Duke are household names for a lot of Magic players, and you can say things like "the Lightning Helix" or "the Cruel Ultimatum" and people instantly light up.

It's important to note that the Pro Tour is not as big of a part of the overall Magic: The Gathering business model now, with the popularity of Commander and big time collector products like Secret Lairs, but it is still an extremely important part of the game that brings legitimacy and value to the game as a whole, and if Wizards of the Coast is going to put in the money and effort to bring it back it doesn't make sense to not properly advertise and set it up for success.

So, today I'm going to do Wizards of the Coast a solid and lay out some things they should be doing to bring people's eyes back to the Pro Tour and help regain the trust and audience they once had (and hopefully pick up a new audience of MTG Arena era players with the high-quality coverage they've put out).

Start Advertising Sooner And Better

If a large part of your base doesn't know that your big event is happening, and they would be in the potential audience for that event, you're doing something very wrong. The Pro Tour is a huge production, which makes skimping on informing the community and creating excitement a major blunder.

So, what to do? Utilize the avenues you already have!

MTG Arena & Magic Online

The fact that there wasn't a slide on the main MTG Arena home screen during the event letting players know they could tune in with a single click is a tragedy, as is not having promotional materials in the rotator in the weeks leading up to the event. If you can get even a tiny portion of the overall MTG Arena audience to tune in over the weekend while they're playing your game, that's a major win, and you can further incentivize them directly in game - more on that a bit later. The same is of course true for Magic Online, although on a much lesser scale.

Local Game Stores

Local game stores are the lifeblood of paper tournament Magic and "the Gathering," so make sure to provide them with the materials needed to promote the event. Signage is the simplest option, but even something like a promo foil or token with the event's info on it could work.

Content Creators

I'm obviously a little biased on this one, but there's a super unique opportunity to work directly with content creators to promote the Pro Tour, especially ones that are also qualified for the event and have large fanbases that are personally invested in seeing their favorite streamer compete. The target audience here is obvious, as these are people who are already trained to consume Magic content on either YouTube or Twitch. Make sure they all know where they can watch your premier broadcast!

There are obviously many more potential paths here, but there's an even more important factor at play:

Give People A Reason To Watch

Let's face it, the last few years have been rough and Wizards of the Coast has lost a lot of its potential audience for pro level Magic due to confusion and apathy over the systems in place and a complete lack of continuity. You need to lure these people back, as well as entice the new audience, and also reintroduce the habit of "watching the Pro Tour every few months." The SCG Tour made an entire brand out of this, because most weekends you knew you could tune in to Cedric Phillips and Patrick Sullivan commentating on a well-produced broadcast, and it becomes a part of people's routines.

How to do that?

Proper Spectator Areas At Events

Both Magic 30 events in Las Vegas and Philadelphia were, for the most part, great successes. They expanded on the old Grand Prix or CommandFest models and turned them into something bigger and more exciting, much more like a large Con than just a tournament. Las Vegas was host to The World Championship, while Philadelphia was host to the Pro Tour, but you probably wouldn't have even noticed either if you were there.

Worlds was tucked away in the far corner in Las Vegas and the spectator area was literally just two TVs facing outward from the coverage stage with no chairs. They brought in about 100 chairs for Sunday's Top 8, but I'd venture that a large part of the convention had no idea they were even there. For the Pro Tour in Philadelphia, the actual Pro Tour itself was in its own hall far away from the main areas, and while I believe they did show some of the Top 8 on the main event stage in the main hall, it was a small portion after the fact and interrupted with a product announcement.

Pro Tour Honolulu 2006 was my first Pro Tour and I watched the legendary Lightning Helix topdeck live as it happened in the spectator area. Let me tell you, people went NUTS. There was a large screen showing the coverage and a bunch of chairs and seating and it was incredible just taking it all in with a bunch of other highly invested Magic players.

I understand that Game Knights live is probably going to draw a bigger crowd, but there's no reason that we can't have this again. There's an element here of "if you build it, they will come" as people are at a Con to see a spectacle. Provide some sort of awesome viewing area, with maybe some sort of bonus for being there or some cool guests. Hell, get a dozen large TVs and just spread them around the hall and play areas showing the coverage muted with closed captioning on. There was talk of a lot of players in the hall having coverage up on their phones while playing their Commander games or side events to watch the finals and Reid win the Pro Tour - skip this step and give them TVs to watch. More importantly, show this to the people who may have not considered watching on their phones and reintroduce to them the concept of watching coverage. Make it part of the routine of the convention.

They've done a great job with the coverage, now show it off to your customers!

Local Game Store Watch Party Events

Likewise, not everyone can be at the event, so why not get local game stores in on the action? Host watch party event packages for local stores to get, where they run some sort of fun sealed, Modern, or Commander event at the local store while also having the coverage on a TV at the store. Provide special promos for the store for the event and good prize support to entice people to come out and encourage the community aspect of the game. We go to bars with our friends to watch sports all the time, help to normalize watching Magic in the places where people are most likely to play and buy Magic.

Pick Your Champion

While this only works super well for smaller field events like Worlds, they did an amazing promotion for Worlds a few years back where you could pick your champion for the event and tie your MTG Arena account to it, and if they did well you got free stuff in game.

Introducing Find Your Champion! Get to know our 16 Worlds competitors, #FindYourChampion, watch them win #MTGWorlds, and get some FREE rewards on MTG Arena.

Sign up now at: https://t.co/l9pGNtj8jz pic.twitter.com/fuW177WzF2

— PlayMTG (@PlayMTG) January 22, 2020

It's hard to overstate how powerful something like this is. Even if you're a MTG Arena player (of which there are a huge amount) who's never even heard of Seth Manfield or Reid Duke, you do want free stuff for your account so you just pick someone... and now you're invested and have a rooting interest. I don't really care about the Kansas City Chiefs, but if Patrick Mahomes is my quarterback in Fantasy Football then all the sudden I'm a lot more interested in those Kansas City Chiefs games.

Give people a reason to root for someone, especially if they don't have one yet.

Twitch Drops

This one is tried and proven in esports and frankly is embarrassing that it hasn't been done before.

Twitch has all sorts of integrations which allow you to link up other accounts with your Twitch account, which means that you can get bonuses for watching directly in game. The specifics would obviously need to be hashed out, but you can bet if there was an ad directly in the MTG Arena client that said "watch the Pro Tour for an hour and get a free pack or two" that there would be a ton of folks tuning in who might not have in the first place.

You don't need to give out tons of free stuff, but a booster pack or two or some cool sleeves for watching would go a long way.

Crowdfund The Prize Pool

This one may not be necessary, but it is another potential avenue that is common in esports.

Imagine a special event or Pro Tour themed Secret Lair, where a portion of the sales goes to fund the prize pool for the Pro Tour or Worlds? Not only does this provide an awareness and advertising avenue, as well as the usual profit avenue that Secret Lairs provide, but also helping to self-fund Professional Magic if budgeting is an issue.

Tie In MTG Arena Weekly Events

This has been done before I believe, but there are always weekly one-of-fun-of events happening on MTG Arena, and the week following a pro level event is a phenomenal time to showcase that event! Have a phantom event that gives you one of the well performing decks from the recent event and lets you play it for the event without owning the cards, and then most importantly have a little bit about the player who played it and the event so it's clear where it came from and who played it.

Somebody Stop Me

I could go on and on here but due to word limit, as well as the fact that I don't have all the answers, I'm going to stop myself.

There are reasons some of these ideas aren't feasible, and there are also definitely ideas that would be effective that I have not considered here, but the main point is that there are professional level Magic events happening again, tied to the deep and rich history of over 20+ years of professional play, and many Magic players who would or could be interested aren't even aware that they are happening. This is not good.

I love professional, high-level Magic. Whether you're someone who aspires to compete at that level one day, or just someone who loves the game and wants to spectate and appreciate what the best in the game are capable of, I want high-level Magic to be something that continues to exist and thrive. However, to do so, it needs to be properly nurtured and cultivated. I want the younger and aspiring players to have a Pro Tour to aspire to and to be able to have all the awesome experiences I had traveling the world playing Magic.

I'm very excited the Pro Tour is back, but there's a lot more to be done.