ok... first off, whoever said pro teams aren't a whole lot of work is dead wrong... a pro team involves a lot of responsibilities... you have the order of events wrong...
it's not pro team then sponsorships... it's sponsorships, then pro team a pro team is pretty expensive, it's something that no one person should have to pay out of pocket, remember, XG doesn't make any profit... it's a hell of a lot of work dealing with potential sponsors... because when we went through this the last time, we prolly dealt with 500 potential sponsors to only get two or three that eventually put some money where their mouth is...
also getting a pro team that ur happy with is easier said that done... how do you chose the 1 team that will represent you... how do you ensure that everyone will agree that this is the best team for the job... when you have finally chose a pro team, you will have many more people unhappy with that pro team than you will satisfied... we try to make decisions that make our entire community happy, so this does not make our job easy...
once you have your pro team then ur only getting your feet wet with the amount of drama you are about to endure... first, pro teams know they are good, so you have to deal with egos, not only the team as a whole, but within the team... teams often break up because of this, then you are left with harder decisions about who should stay and who should go, also you have to question if the new team is as good as the former one...
if your team is good enough, then other organizations that have a lot of cash to waste try to steal ur team (has happened to us well more times than i wish to say)... when your team is at an event you have to have someone there to monitor everything, because once again egos can get out of hand and situations can come up with other organizations...
i can go into MUCH more detail, but i just want everyone to realize that the pro team is WAY too much drama and responsibility for us right now... we will pursue it in the future, but we want to be completely prepared for a pro team, and honestly right now we aren't... we don't have someone picked out to head up the pro team, and we don't even know what gaming league/tournament we want to stick with...
as far as an AM team is concerned... those don't really help out... there's no need for one at this level... maybe when we have a pro team, and there are enough aspiring pros out there to really give our pro team a run for their money, but right now, no... not to mention halo is getting kinda old... i realize it is still played in the tournaments, but within a year halo 3 will be launching, not to mention all of the other great titles already out for 360 and the other titles coming out...