Starcraft II on ESPN 2? - Page 34

On October 02 2011 02:52 nerdoplex wrote:
No, ESPN is made for real sports, not eSports. I love them both but keep eSports online and off American TV.

On October 02 2011 03:31 Corrik wrote:
No offense but MLG tried television before. It was a disaster.

It's really hard to broadcast a tournament with such a small time slot. I assume they would just be broadcasting the finals of the tournament if they did do it.

On October 02 2011 03:26 Bortlett wrote:


Because Scrabble, poker, and darts are real sports, unlike Starcraft.

As others have said, there's zero downside. This probably won't even cost that much for ESPN, and Starcraft caters to the valuable 18-35 male demographic. It's not like MLG is broadcasting on ESPN instead of streams.

On October 02 2011 03:35 Joey Wheeler wrote:


MLG lacked popularity back then. Do you think TV execs would be willing to try again if they weren't confident in this?

On October 02 2011 06:10 Jonoman92 wrote:
Couldn't they just put a commercial in and jump right back in where the game was. I don't see why that's such a technical impossibility. Just don't do it mid-battle.

On October 02 2011 06:10 Jonoman92 wrote:
Couldn't they just put a commercial in and jump right back in where the game was. I don't see why that's such a technical impossibility. Just don't do it mid-battle.

On October 02 2011 06:08 Zooper31 wrote:
Any update from Sundance? It's been way more than an hour and I doubt he's still in this meeting.

@MLGSundance Sundance DiGiovanni
Thank you Reddit and Twitter for answering the call. Front-page of reddit and well over a thousand replies and retweets. Made an impression.
19 hours ago

On October 01 2011 19:34 j0ker wrote:
You have to take a step back and look at this objectively. This isn't a new league or tournament that is relying on TV viewership to sustain itself. This is MLG, currently a staple of foreign sc2 and a very successful, sustainable business model that is potentially offering programming to Espn. The only risk here is that Espn wouldn't bother itself with SC2 again, which would be fine if this turned out to be unsuccessful.

Loving the armchair TV execs discussing programming length and commercial timing. Lets be realistic, this isn't going to get a primetime slot. Espn2 has a long history of covering niche "sports", and even has a history with Mlg. They also have a history of poker, which EXPLODED in popularity and spread like wildfire across the television medium and all over the internet. Poker coverage started on espn(2) as niche programming to fill in slots that were taken up by the 80th rerun of sportscenter.

From espn's perspective, they are looking at a game/"esport" that is currently experiencing pretty incredible growth in the U.S.(and to a slightly lesser extent in Europe), and has a decade-long history of extreme popularity in South Korea. They are also very reminiscent of the explosion of poker, of which they were a very big helping hand. They see this as an opportunity to grab Starcraft 2 first, and to nurture it and help it explode like they did with poker.

From the perspective of a Starcraft 2 fan, this has to be viewed as nothing other than a huge opportunity. I think we all agree that SC2 doesn't NEED to be shown on TV, the internet is the ideal medium and currently works best. But one has to realize that, despite programming becoming more and more popular online, there are ALWAYS going to be people that want to lay down on their couch and flip channels. And there are a lot more of those people than internet streamers like ourselves. A LOT more. Furthermore, ESPN leveraging their gigantic viewership and powerful advertising and self-promotion infrastructure on a game we all love is nothing but a good thing. We all know how addicting this game is to watch and we all know or know of dozens of people who have played little more than 5 games in bronze yet set their alarms to 2:10 AM to watch tastosis cover the GSL. It is naive to think that this addictive game isn't going to gain a pretty significant bump with exposure to MILLIONS of new sets of eyes.

Logistically, SC2 tourneys are not ideal for programming and SC2 games are not ideal for commerical timings. Concessions can be made though, from both sides. Initially this is almost certainly going to be a late night time slot, therefore not live considering MLG is the tournament being discussed. I know we all prefer our sc2 as live as can be, but remember that this isn't necessarily targeted at you specifically, but targeted at your classmate who doesn't know he likes SC2 yet(although you bet your ass you will end up tuning in as well). An edited 2-3 hour program could cover the late bracket stages of an MLG with minimal downtime between games. TV likes its commercials short and frequent, but sports on TV are given flexibility in this regard. Soccer is a nightmare for commercials but is shown on TV. Keep in mind that most SC2 games average around 15 minutes or shorter. The format would probably look quite a bit like it does for baseball.

(3 hour MLG final day condensed):

Intro/casters/bracket rundown
Commercial
Game 1
Commercial after each game
Double commercial after each match, with commentary and bracket stuff filled in

Pretty doable to be honest. Any nightmare 45 minute+ games would be an issue, but these are quite rare and a quick commercial could even be added in if the coverage was not live. Live coverage would be a good deal more difficult logistically, but realistically the overall popularity would be so high at that point that they could work things out without much legitimate whining from the community.

In closing, this would be an amazing opportunity for SC2 to grow and best of luck to Sundance and his staff.

On October 02 2011 06:29 Primadog wrote:


This post should be quoted on the topic to get people to stop talking nonsense. While it may still be premature for StarCraft, Sundance is creating a huge opportunity for our sport, so let's support him.