Without people like Rick Thiher, eSports tournaments would be chaos. Major events require hundreds of man-hours, months of planning, and the ability to manage dozens of moving parts deftly. Thiher runs Combo Breaker, one of the largest tournaments for fighting games throughout the year, and as attendees and players tell it, it’s a well oiled machine.

Thiher had a drive to compete as a player when he discovered fighting games with Street Fighter IV in 2009, but was often more excited about running tournaments than about playing in them. “I impact more people that way, which is fulfilling to me,” Thiher says. He helped put together Ultimate Fighting Game Tournament 9 as assistant director, then eventually ran its successor, Combo Breaker. We spoke to Thiher to get a sense of what it’s like to plan, build, and run a tournament, how to deal with players, and the long-term prospects of organizers like him.

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Running On Tournament Time

Combo Breaker is unique among fighting game tournaments in at least one way: it heavily prioritizes scheduling. When I ask Thiher about why so many tournaments run behind, he points to a few factors. For one, many of the people working the events are either volunteers or underpaid for their work. Thiher admits even Combo Breaker’s judges receive only “a little bit of cash and a t-shirt.” Some events don’t pay their judges at all. “That leads to people who aren’t necessarily always quick to run a bracket as it’s designed to run,” Thiher says. Without judges to properly direct them to their next match, players can get lost about where and when to play next.

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Dealing With Players


Others instead asked for preferential treatment when it comes to the tournament itself. Many fighting game tournaments are seeded, which means strong players are moved away from each other to avoid scenarios where, say, four of the best players are all in the same eight-person bracket at the start of the tournament. Though skill is a factor in seeding, it’s often done without player input, relying instead on nationally-trusted seeding staff. However, some players will ask to be moved. “[They’ll say] ‘I don’t want to play that guy, seed me away [from him],’” Thiher says.

Others still will ask to be “floated,” which is essentially a way of asking for a free win. “Let’s say 13 people showed up to play in a tournament,” Thiher explains. “Somebody’s going to have a bye in round one. Floating is when you don’t have to give a bye in round on, but you’re still moving someone further ahead in the bracket to increase their chances of being in [the] top eight.”

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Growing The Scene


That growth is a sticking point in fighting game communities, many of which are weary of calling themselves “eSports” in the first place for fear of being exploited by investors. Instead, Thiher wants to take the long view. “Growing sustainably without just jumping into a bubble is going to be slow,” Thiher says. “But [eventually] expectations get higher, ticket fees go up, sponsorships begin to include more than a plane ticket and a jersey.”

Key to the scene’s growth, per Thiher, is finding a wider breadth of sponsors. “You see ads for fightsticks, HyperX memory cards. You don’t see an ad for Cheez-Its,” he says. Those kinds of sponsors are rare; in 2015, frozen pizza maker Totino’s sponsored the Street Fighter tournament Capcom Cup, though the current list of the event's sponsors no longer includes the company.

Once sponsors like that start taking an interest, Thiher could possibly make a living from putting together the kinds of events that make fighting games so fun to watch. Until then, he can only dream of having the kinds of sponsors that could make his event better. “If I could just walk around a room and bum Red Vines off of people, that’s an exciting prospect for my sweet tooth,” he says.

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BiggNife said:

Yeah, people really underestimate how hard being a TO is. I've heard absolutely nothing but good things about how Rick has handled Combo Breaker. LI Joe and SweetJohnnyCage also do a great job with easy coast throwdown each year.

Just running a 20 person tournament at my college a few years ago was one of the more stressful days I can remember.

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Professor Beef said:

Flash Metroid ain't SHIT. Do yourselves a favor and read up on how he acted like a child at UFGT.

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Tripon said:

Yet you claimed that Marn was a worse person!

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