Founded in 2002 by Sundance DiGiovanni and Mike Speso MLG is a professional eSports organization that will soon be taking the world by storm. In 2002 eSports was in its infancy with only a very few organized leagues and tournaments for pro-gamers around the world and mainly in South Korea where gaming is big business. Speso and DiGicanni saw an opportunity to fill a wide gap in the gaming community and it looks like it might be on the verge of paying off.
Last weekend 16 teams from across Europe
met to duke it out with one another in the Call
of Duty European gaming championships in Cologne, Germany. Two of those
teams were from our own very shores (England and Ireland) and met in a rather
well spirited final where the Irish boys took home the trophy. Thopug it wasn’t
just bragging rights the players were fighting over, the tournament ended with
1st to 8th place qualifying for the World Championships
over in American where the winners take home a massive $1M in prize money; and
with it rumored that well over 5 million viewers logged on to watch the final
live with many more picking up the highlights package that is still available
to watch at the MLG website the eSports arena has the opportunity to really
explode over the next few years.
Watching as I did last weekend this was the
first time that I had experienced professional gaming and was intrigued by all
the coverage that I’d heard about it from sources as wide as The Metro on the underground to Tweets talking up the teams heading to
the tournament. Then it hit me; this is getting huge – I needed to see it for
myself.
So as I was sitting down to watch my first
ever MLG matchup and thinking about this article that I wanted to write, I
wondered who else would be logging on to watch two groups of twenty something’s
play war? (For free I might add, take note other sporting franchises) It struck
me as the competitors sat in front of monitors to begin that they were just as
normal as you or I. These eAthletes were attainable figures, they weren’t the
hulking, steroid riddled football players or the impossibly toned swimmers or
long distance runners. These were just other human beings who had happened to
be quite good at playing something that we all were able to pick up and enjoy
to some level with little or no effort.
With a tiny amount of imagination we all
could picture ourselves sitting at that screen in a European Championship vying
for a chance to win $1M; not too long before I logged on to watch the event I
had the sticks in my hand doing exactly what the two teams were about to do.
When sitting to watch the Superbowl or 100M final at the Olympics not many of
us can ever dream of having that same feeling of winning or losing in that
situation. The athletes we see on that screen are unattainable figures that we
are supposed to aspire to be but most of us will never be able to. These
however are eAthletes I can see myself being able to do that and am able to
identify every emotion that they are about to go through with ease drawing the
reluctant me further into the world of competitive gaming.
After the tournament had finished I went
deeper online to see what I could find out about MLG and what the future might
hold for the development of the …sport (there I said it). DiGiovanni and Sepso
see that there is a shift towards non-traditional stick and ball sports across
the board in the “sporting” world, with broadcasters and marketing companies
trying to look at ways to reach new audiences by supporting sports like NASCAR,
motocross and BMX they thought that gaming could receive similar attention.
Major League Gaming is something to look
out for in the future as a legitimate eSport. I don’t think that it’ll be long
before we see it creep onto the television with fans of teams – merchandise and
maybe even paid players on full time contracts rather than just individuals
looking for prize money. Though the main thing that MLG gives us all is a great
excuse for the argument that playing videogames is just wasting your life. You’re not anymore – you’re trying to
win $1M!!
Check out the Major League Gaming website here: http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/
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