Imagine waking up on a crisp autumn morning, the smell of the chill fall air coming through the window hits your nose and you know what the day entail, its Sunday. You get out of bed and throw your favorite fan memorabilia to support your favorite team. You walk out to the kitchen, grab a beer and sit down in front of the TV flipping through channels in sheer excitement for the game to begin. The time arrives and with excitement you turn the pregame on and you see the pregame announcers. They are going through who they are picking on this epic match up on national television. Now this sounds familiar to millions of people around the world and specifically right here in the United States. However I'm not talking about the NFL, easily the most popular sport in the country. No, I'm not even talking about the MLB, NBA, or even the NFL. Welcome to E-Sports, the future of competitive gaming .
Now when referencing E-sports I'm not talking about games that might come to mind linking those other sports to video games, such as EA's Madden Franchise and so on or so forth. I'm talking about Starcraft, more specifically Starcraft 2. This game is setting the bar for what a competitive video game consists of when most people would scoff at the idea of someone sitting in front of a computer with headphones jamming on an expensive keyboard. No this is the real deal, and in some ways it's much more competitive than any other sport in the world, sporting perfect balance. When you have perfect balance in a game, it creates a fan base very quickly for the sheer fact that anyone can become a pro with some hard work and dedication to the game.
As an avid NFL fan, I follow the intricacies of the details and effort that goes into creating an NFL team, playing the game on Sunday, and preparing for your opponents. The players on these teams have been playing football as long as they can remember, put in vast amounts of dedication and preparation to potentially become a superstar celebrity, and are overall live and breathe the game. This is also true of the superstars of E-Sports. Now these individuals don't sport muscles, high speed cars( well maybe some of them), or have media conferences weekly on ESPN. If I were to mention names such as: Day9, SlayersBoxer, Liquidret, Destiny, Catz, Huskystarcraft and so on, these names are as common place to E-sports fans, as common sports fans talking about how Brett Favre couldn't decide when to retire, how Gretzky is the "great one" or even the talking about Tiger Woods and the infamous fall from greatness.
Starcraft is wildly popular around the globe, and is even the self-proclaimed national sport of South Korea. The game is popular enough to have TV shows dedicated to show matches and tournaments, bars (barcraft) and cafes dedicated to just showing Starcraft. The most successful teams and their members are even considered celebrities around the country. Yes, I said teams; extremely successful at playing the game, players form teams to compete with others. Now these teams do differ in the fact the team themselves don't actually compete. However, the teams train together in what is referred to as training "houses", get paid from sponsors (sound familiar), and compete in tournaments around the world for thousands of dollars, money that would be laughed at as joke to professional gamers just ten years ago. The E-Sports movement started over in Asia, most specifically South Korea, but the trend is crossing the pacific ocean, taking a firm grip on players across the nation, as well as Europe.
Korea already boasts two dedicated cable channels to Starcraft, dating back further than the recent release of Starcraft 2. Barcrafts are springing up in major cities on the coastlines, especially true in California where bars have even had fights break out over the content the bar owner was displaying. The owners are easily influenced to change a channel when you have 50 people asking to watch Liquidsheth vs EGIdra, rather than allow two jocks complain about how the 49ers play the Seahawks and complain how they just aren't the same since Jerry Rice retired. The demographic is changing, and the movement is gaining momentum.
This has all taken place in little over year since Starcraft 2 was released. Imagine three of four years down the line, a dedicated channel for just Starcraft 2 may not be so far fetched given how wildly popular it has proven to be in Asia as well as Europe. I may even be able to have to make a decision on if I want to watch the Green Bay Packers beat the crap out of the Bears, or watch my favorite Starcraft players duke it out on national television.
Subject: Top Reasons E-Sports Will Make Their Way into Your House in the Near Future 
Sat Oct 08, 2011 8:45 pm