Turner and WME|IMG’s new gaming league ELeague, which began showing “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” competitions via online video streaming service Twitch, will now debut the winning teams this Friday at 10 p.m. on national cable TV channel TBS. This is the latest attempt to bring eSports to TV, including one by DirecTV, which failed to gain traction. The trick to make it succeed is to translate eSports “online sensibility” to television, bringing some of its 214 million 18-to-25 year old viewers along for the ride. Continue reading ELeague Broadcasts Gaming Competitions on TBS and Twitch

YouTube-centric Machinima, which has focused on gamers and fan culture for a decade, just launched MACH-1, an in-house eSports consulting unit that will offer research and analytics, strategic planning and campaign execution. Machinima recently hosted an eSports panel of industry executives at its NewFronts event. Turner and WME-IMG are also about to begin broadcasting scheduled video games on TV in the U.S. ESports have a massive global audience but opportunities to monetize the sector haven’t yet been fully leveraged. Continue reading Machinima and Turner Plan to Leverage Popularity of eSports

Esports Championship Series, a professional league just formed by Twitch and competitive-gaming platform startup FaceIt, is offering teams an ownership stake, the first such video-game league to do so, say its founders. “ECS – Counter-Strike,” offers a prize pool of $3.5 million for players competing in Valve’s “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” first-person shooter game. The new league enters a crowded field that currently includes Activision Blizzard’s Major League Gaming and Electronic Sports League (ESL). Continue reading New eSports League to Provide Stake to Players and Teams

During the “Storytellers of eSports” panel at this week’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, creative execs and journalists for Twitch, Yahoo Sports, Team Liquid and 1UP Studios discussed how they cover eSports, and how their approaches differ from coverage of traditional sports. The challenge for writers is to bring life to a sport in which the players barely move, but their hand and body twitches translate into incredible feats within the game. The stories are more about eSports personalities, and less about the actual gameplay, than traditional sports. Continue reading GDC 2016: Reporters Face Unique Challenges Covering eSports

While the future of Yahoo’s media operations remains in flux, the company continues to invest in key vertical segments, the latest of which is an eSports gaming news and video site. Yahoo Esports initially plans to cover “League of Legends” (Riot Games), “Heroes of the Storm” (Blizzard Entertainment), “Street Fighter V” (Capcom), and “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” and “Dota 2” (Valve). With the growing success of eSports, media companies such as ESPN and Turner Broadcasting are also entering the market. Continue reading Yahoo Targets Growing eSports Audience with New Video Site

The eSports category, competitive gaming, is poised to skyrocket in popularity in the U.S., says a Frank N. Magid Associates report. Long popular in Asia, eSports has grown 100 percent in the last two years in the U.S. Of the 70 percent of Americans, aged 8 to 64 years old who play some kind of game, nine percent watched or attended an eSports event in 2013, a figure now grown to 18 percent. Games that fill arenas with fans include “League of Legends,” “Dota 2,” “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” and “Hearthstone.” Continue reading Investors Are Drawn to eSports as Popularity Doubles in U.S.

ESPN launched a new vertical on its website to cover all things related to competitive gaming, including news articles, event coverage, profiles of prominent eSports figures, and analysis. The network started broadcasting professional video game tournaments in 2014 and released a special edition of ESPN The Magazine focusing on eSports in 2015. The success of those projects helped spur the launch of the new vertical, which currently covers popular games such as “League of Legends.” Continue reading ESPN.com Debuts eSports Vertical Dedicated to Video Gaming

The NBA manned point on Thursday at the CES Sports Business Forum with assists from NextVR and Intel. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and NBA great Shaquille O’Neal were on hand to share their perspectives on tech investing in sports and more. Sessions featured NextVR’s Brad Allen, Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadive, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, and others. Sensors, sports betting, and the future of VR broadcasting were among the most popular topics. The event was hosted by Turner Sports and served as a lead-in to their eSports Showcase. Continue reading Sports Business Forum: Panelists Talk eSports, VR, Sensors

Under the theme “Experiences Reimagined,” Intel CEO Brian Krzanich kicked off CES 2016 with a keynote presentation packed with product announcements, collaborations and live demonstrations. Today’s products are designed and defined by experiences, said Krzanich, experiences enabled by technology. With a flair of showmanship, the keynote opened with fireworks, presented not with explosives but a record-setting fleet of illuminated drones, and closed with music played with motion sensors, all of which served to illustrate what Krzanich called “the sensification of computing.” Continue reading CES: Intel Reimagines Experiences with Sensified Computing

The increasing interest in virtual reality and rise of the app stores are expected to help make gaming a hot topic at January’s CES. Coming off its crowd-pleasing debut at the show last year, and with its consumer launch only months away, expect Oculus to monopolize the floor. And with it comes an array of manufacturers hoping to add a new dimension to the immersive gameplay experience with new peripherals. Meanwhile, the widespread adoption of game systems as entertainment hubs has created a new pipeline for indie developers to reach consumers. And let’s not forget the rise of eSports. Turner Broadcasting certainly hasn’t, and will be bringing its largest-ever showcase to prove it. Continue reading CES 2016: VR, Game Platforms, eSports Coming to Las Vegas

AltspaceVR, a virtual reality communications platform backed by Google Ventures, enables multiple users from anywhere in the world to gather and share a virtual space. Unlike the text-based chat rooms of the 1990s, AltspaceVR uses computer cameras and Leap Motion trackers to translate users’ movements, mannerisms and gestures into the virtual world. It has been described as “Second Life for the first person.” AltspaceVR, now open to the public, was founded in 2013 and is led by Eric Romo, a former SpaceX propulsion lead analyst. Continue reading Venture-Backed AltspaceVR Creates Virtual Reality Chat Room

YouTube is looking to take on game-streaming services such as Amazon’s Twitch by allowing live video streams that run at 60 frames per second (double its previous limit). Higher frame rates are vital for fast-moving games including racers and first-person shooters, and attracting gamers will be important if YouTube hopes to remain competitive in the growing eSports market. To address growing interest in gamers sharing their sessions, YouTube has been upgrading playback quality, adding support for HD, 4K, and most recently, browsers that use HTML5. Continue reading YouTube Supports Live Streams at 60fps and HTML5 Playback

HBO recently announced it plans to stream the second season premiere of “Silicon Valley” on Twitch, Amazon’s streaming service for game enthusiasts. The episode will stream free of charge starting next Wednesday, April 8. Cast members are expected to participate in a live stream discussion, which will be made available on Twitch before the episode begins streaming. The partnership not only helps Twitch expand its content offerings, but also allows HBO to reach a wider, younger audience.  Continue reading ‘Silicon Valley’ Season 2 Premiere to Stream for Free on Twitch

A private university in Chicago is leveraging the growing popularity of eSports to become the first U.S. school to formally recognize electronic gaming as a form of collegiate athletics. Starting this fall, Robert Morris University-Illinois will consider “League of Legends” a competitive varsity sport, and will offer athletic scholarships to star players valued up to 50 percent the cost of tuition and room and board. The university is currently recruiting student gamers for the first year of competition. Continue reading University is First to Recognize Video Gaming as Varsity Sport

Last year, more than 71 million people worldwide watched other people play computer games, according to a report from games research company SuperData. More than half of those people were in the United States and one in five American gamers either watch or participate in eSports, or organized video game competitions. At the League of Legends Season 3 World Championship last year, 32 million people watched the professional gamers battle it out. Continue reading In 2013, 71 Million People Watched Online Computer Gameplay