Blizzard announced that the Grand Finals of it’s Heroes of the Storm tournament, for North America and Canada, will be shown live on ESPN2 this Sunday at 6.30pm Pacific (9.30pm Eastern). The tournament is called Heroes of the Dorm and has been open to college teams from all over the States and Canada with a very cool prize pool, all the members of the winning team will get $25,000 towards their college fees per year for the rest of their college careers. With Heroes of the Storm fresh in the MOBA environment, Blizzard is hoping to boost awareness for the title as well as push e-sports further into the limelight.
The action kicks off on ESPN3, the network’s online only channel, with Arizona State against Boston College at 2.30pm Pacific and Illinois Urbana-Champaign facing Cal at 4:30pm. After those matches ESPN2 picks up the coverage for the finale. It’s’ a fantastic oppurtunity to see a really high level of competitive gaming so be sure to tune in.
This isn’t the first time professional gaming has made it’s way to TV, League of Legends has had televised tournaments and Call of Duty has also been featured as well as DOTA 2 getting it’s share of coverage. But it does show a willingness from network chiefs to acknowledge the legitimacy of professional gaming and the potential it has in terms of viewing figures.
With the success Twitch has achieved over the past few years and the amount of revenue earned by gamers on video platforms such as YouTube its hardly surprising that we’re seeing more awareness being raised about gaming, but is it a good thing? Is it creating a platform for a new breed of sports star or is it simply giving advertisers more people to exploit? If you’ve got any thoughts I’d love to hear them in the comments below!