However, ESL has denied this claim. ESL Director Michal Blicharz (Carmac) said that the French organizations are free to stream WCS Europe, as long as it through WCS stream partner Twitch. "It is not true that OgamingTV, Millenium or Team aAa were barred from broadcasting WCS Europe. OgamingTV is free to broadcast WCS Europe on Twitch, the broadcasting partner of WCS Europe, next Tuesday." posted Carmac in reply to the claims from the French organizations.
As of February 18th, the opening night of WCS Europe's Premier League, there is no official French stream. German, Russian, Polish, Italian, and Spanish streams are being provided by ESL partners.
The dispute appears to center around a conflict between preferred streaming platforms: DailyMotion for French organizations, and Twitch, the official streaming partner of WCS. Carmac alluded to this problem, saying "The conversations about the conditions which OgamingTV would want to stream WCS Europe under (including broadcasting on platforms other than Twitch) were ongoing in good faith and we hope those will continue."
The three organizations O'Gaming, Millenium, and aAa had been involved in WCS 2013 in varying degrees, sometimes providing dual streams on both the DailyMotion and Twitch platforms. Notably, the three organizations partnered up to provide a French language stream for the WCS Season 3 Finals, streamed on both Twitch and DailyMotion.
In the 2014 season, Millenium TV had already streamed portions of the 2014 WCS Challenger League Qualifiers.
During the 2014 Challenger League for WCS Europe, German, Polish, and Russian language streams were provided by ESL partners in addition to the official English stream.
Original TL Posts
Kerri of O'Gaming
On February 15 2014 04:54 SC2Kerri wrote:
Dear Starcraft II community,
My name is Sebastien « Kerri », I am the Starcraft II Tournament Director at O’Gaming TV.
France has one of the biggest community in Europe and is very structured thanks to two very professional TVs: O’Gaming TV & Millenium TV. You probably know us and you already followed our different products: Dailymotion Cup , NationWars, MSI Pro Cup, Numericable M-House Cup, Iron Squid I & II. We made the best players come in our country, we gave to the Starcraft II fans the best shows and gathered the French-speaking countries on high-quality streams.
O’Gaming, aAa – which was in charge of casting WCS in 2013 - and Millenium have recently wanted to build a partnership and to work together to apply for casting in French WCS Europe. This Partnership is for us the best way to enable all our fans meet the biggest SC2 competition with all the best French casters.
Today, ESL Decision was given to us: Access to the WCS is forbidden to French organizations.
We love Starcraft II. We love E-Sport. We love WCS. If you support our work, I kindly invite you to share this post !
Original Facebook post
Dear Starcraft II community,
My name is Sebastien « Kerri », I am the Starcraft II Tournament Director at O’Gaming TV.
France has one of the biggest community in Europe and is very structured thanks to two very professional TVs: O’Gaming TV & Millenium TV. You probably know us and you already followed our different products: Dailymotion Cup , NationWars, MSI Pro Cup, Numericable M-House Cup, Iron Squid I & II. We made the best players come in our country, we gave to the Starcraft II fans the best shows and gathered the French-speaking countries on high-quality streams.
O’Gaming, aAa – which was in charge of casting WCS in 2013 - and Millenium have recently wanted to build a partnership and to work together to apply for casting in French WCS Europe. This Partnership is for us the best way to enable all our fans meet the biggest SC2 competition with all the best French casters.
Today, ESL Decision was given to us: Access to the WCS is forbidden to French organizations.
We love Starcraft II. We love E-Sport. We love WCS. If you support our work, I kindly invite you to share this post !
Original Facebook post
Carmac of ESL
On February 15 2014 07:44 Carmac wrote:
It is not true that OgamingTV, Millenium or Team aAa were barred from broadcasting WCS Europe. OgamingTV is free to broadcast WCS Europe on Twitch, the broadcasting partner of WCS Europe, next Tuesday.
Obtaining broadcasting rights for WCS Europe was not something that we made difficult and the fact that the league has been broadcasted in five different languages is evidence of that.
The ESL and Blizzard have nothing against OgamingTV broadcasting the StarCraft II World Championship Series in French. We have the highest regard and admiration for the quality of their work and see them as a valued supporter of the StarCraft II community.
The conversations about the conditions which OgamingTV would want to stream WCS Europe under (including broadcasting on platforms other than Twitch) were ongoing in good faith and we hope those will continue.
Michal Blicharz
Managing Director Pro Gaming, ESL
It is not true that OgamingTV, Millenium or Team aAa were barred from broadcasting WCS Europe. OgamingTV is free to broadcast WCS Europe on Twitch, the broadcasting partner of WCS Europe, next Tuesday.
Obtaining broadcasting rights for WCS Europe was not something that we made difficult and the fact that the league has been broadcasted in five different languages is evidence of that.
The ESL and Blizzard have nothing against OgamingTV broadcasting the StarCraft II World Championship Series in French. We have the highest regard and admiration for the quality of their work and see them as a valued supporter of the StarCraft II community.
The conversations about the conditions which OgamingTV would want to stream WCS Europe under (including broadcasting on platforms other than Twitch) were ongoing in good faith and we hope those will continue.
Michal Blicharz
Managing Director Pro Gaming, ESL