Next year video game tournaments will air on TBS, and it's about time

[dkpope]

Ladies and gentlemen, grab your controllers. Or at least a comfortable spot on the couch. A new video game league is in the works and will be broadcasted on primetime television in 2016, the Wall Street Journal reports. The two companies bringing the league to TBS are Turner Broadcasting System and WME/IMG.

Each tournament will last 20 weeks and the first season will pit competitors against each other while playing Vlave's Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

While some media outlets are acting like this is a big surprise, we know better. Last year 11,000 jammed into Madison Square Garden to watch a “League of Legends” championship and ESPN had their “Heroes of the Dorm” video game tournament, not to mention the massive popularity of Twitch and video game YouTube channels. This new development just makes sense because the e-sports audience continues to grow.

To further prove this, remember that last year Amazon bought Twitch -- the online video channel to watch gamers in action -- for $970 million, and the fantasy sports site DraftKings has plans to add a feature where people can draft video game players in the same manner as drafting a fantasy football team. Most recently, YouTube Gaming was launched in a bid to compete with Twitch.

Fortune reports that a research firm estimates that the U.S. e-sports audience is currently 32 million people, and that number is expected to leap to 50 million in 2017. Not surprisingly, the firm estimates that the worldwide online gaming audience is 200 million strong.

So mock all you want, watching people play video games as a form of entertainment is here to stay.

Image credit: Flickr, Artubr

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https://www.techspot.com/news/62228-next-year-video-game-tournaments-air-tbs-about.html

 

[cliffordcooley]

OMG; I'd rather watch a musical, and I hate musicals. I'll never understand. But if this is your thing, have fun.

 

[Uncle Al]

Watch others play video games? Seriously?? Are there really THAT many lame people in the world? Geezzeeee .... go out and cut the grass or something! LOL

 

[skyczy]

Amazing news, and its FOR CSGO? AWESOME!!!!!
GO team 3d! lol

 

[insect]

I foresee that eSports will be more popular than traditional sports in about a decade. Everyone can play video games, join online teams from anywhere (with internet), it's international and, with practice, compete at high levels. Traditional sports have a much more limited audience for many reasons.

 

[davislane1]

I foresee that eSports will be more popular than traditional sports in about a decade. Everyone can play video games, join online teams from anywhere (with internet), it's international and, with practice, compete at high levels. Traditional sports have a much more limited audience for many reasons.

Rise of the couch potato. This I will not dispute.

 

[EClyde]

Snoooooze. I would rather watch people play poker on TV and I won't do that under penalty of fenstration. What next? The knitting channel

 

[dividebyzero]

I foresee that eSports will be more popular than traditional sports in about a decade.

All new Olympic Games categories:
10 metre freestyle waddle to the refrigerator
Rhythmic Gymnastics (Disciplines include: Untangling headphone cable to CoD soundtrack)
Gamer Weightlifting: Feats of strength involving 40 oz bottles of carbonated beverages (Various weight divisions from chronically overweight to morbidly obese)
100 Expletive Dash : Trash talk other gamers until they give up in disgust.
Marathon : 24 hours of MMORPG grinding.
Freestyle wrestling: Maintain game playing whilst still superficially maintaining a presence in real life activity

 

[Unkn0wNx]

Video game tournaments have been airing since 2005 like CPL that I know of.
The International 2015 a Dota 2 tournament had a prize pool of over 18 Million USD.
They are fun to watch, if people can watch football and cricket why not a game. It is entertainment after all. After all no one cares what people would rather do, everyone has different interests.

 

[Nobina]

Esports people don't even want games to be shown on TV. People who want to watch it already do on the internet and people who watch sports on TV aren't interested in games and will just cry about it like some people here in comments.

 

[DDG4005]

I won't be watching any gaming tournaments since I don't have television service but even if I did I wouldn't watch it. This will contribute to the ever-expanding waistlines of many people.

 

[j05hh]

Waste of airtime imo, but I don't pay for TV service anymore so....

 

[Axiarus]

Watch others play video games? Seriously?? Are there really THAT many lame people in the world? Geezzeeee .... go out and cut the grass or something! LOL

They aren't just regular players, they are pros. People say this is a waste of time, then watch people play sports. To each their own.

 

[cliffordcooley]

If I personally know people playing or I'm actually competing against them, I will and only then be interest in watching sports, esports, or otherwise.

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

Meh.... no thanks. I don't really like watching real sports either. I'd much rather play a game than watch one.

 

[northof60]

Snoooooze. I would rather watch people play poker on TV and I won't do that under penalty of fenstration. What next? The knitting channel

Well after all golf and baseball are taken