Time Warner Planning to Bring eSports to
Primetime Television in 2016
Could this be the next season of professional gaming’s social popularity growth, and professional acceptance into the realm of much more highly sought-after sports such as american football?
It was announced today that Turner Broadcasting, along with talent agencies William Morris Endeavor and its subsidiary IMG, are in the early stages of creating their own season-based, televised version of an eSports league to be broadcast on Turner’s own TBS cable television station sometime next year. The still yet unnamed series will run 20-episode long seasons that incorporate two 10-week tournaments of regular season play, playoffs, and a championship match; with prize money included. Being so early into the creation process, a dollar amount for the championship prizes have not been announced yet.
What is confirmed is that Valve has signed on to allow for their games to be included in the first season of the show. Namely, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has been the first confirmed game to be featured in the series that televises teams of five competing against each other Friday nights. Whether or not the aired matches will be live or not is something else that also has not been disclosed at the moment -albeit, leading up to the Friday night matches, qualifying matches will be broadcast live online throughout the week.
Turner, along with WME/IMG have stated that more information of the program will be released later this year.
I know I’m looking forward to seeing some competitive gaming on TV (would love to see it live) considering I still watch TV, but I know many of you out there in the gaming community, and most people not living off 401K plans, do not and may see this whole thing as irrelevant to the whole interested audience at large. If you do, or don’t, or just don’t care, let us know all the same.
For current updates and news on this and similar stories, keep your eyes peeled to the Mouse N Joypad website, and, as always, if you’ve got any queries, comments, concerns, leave them down in the ‘comments’ section.