Video games have long been a hobby and a way of killing time. But recently, they have become much more than that. They have started to move towards becoming an actual sport.
Competitive video gaming has become a major event as of late and the biggest example of that is the announcement that ESPN2 will air the grand finals of the collegiate tournament for Heroes of the Storm, a multiplayer online arena battler. The two remaining teams in the “Heroes of the Dorm” will compete against each other on Sunday at 6:30PM ET for the grand prize.
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Heroes of the Storm is just one of the games that has been able to attract a huge number of spectators and many believe that this trend will increase as analysts believe that the pro-gaming industry, also known as eSports, will make around $465 million by 2017.
Heroes of the Dorm’s “heroic four” has two matchups which are Arizona State against Boston College, and Illinois Urbana-Champaign against Cal. Both of these matchups will be aired of ESPN3.com, which is the network’s only online channel.
While ESPN3.com had previously streamed a tournament called The International Dota 2 last year, this will be the first times that an E-Sport match will be aired on mainstream cable, and it should allow people to get a glimpse at something that has truly become a growing phenomenon around the world.
ESPN has always been an innovative network when it comes to trying out new things and pushing the envelope within sports broadcasting. While their support of e-sports is new, they could be on to something as millions of people around the world regularly watch live streams of e-sport matches. Despite the fact that the president of ESPN has said that he doesn’t believe e-sports are sports, they clearly see some potential in broadcasting a tournament from a business perspective and could look to become one of the major outlets to watch e-sports content.
After all, ESPN is the network that has aired cup stacking, scrabble, spelling bees, fishing, classic car auctions, and hot dog eating, so this experiment may not come as a surprise but it is definitely going to be interesting to see what the reception is and if this could be another big step for the e-sports world.