by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

When Heroes of the Dorm was announced at PAX East, I not only thought the name was corny but that it wouldn’t be all that big of an ordeal even with the ESPN thing. I figured it would be interesting to some but for the most part people wouldn’t really care. Those who would want to watch it would watch it regardless of what it was on and that they might as well have streamed it on Twitch since that’s where most of the audience would be at anyway. I thought in the end it would be a small footnote of history that would consist of people patting their own backs for bringing eSports to TV and “We did it eSports!” while the rest of the world doesn’t even bat an eye.

Boy was I wrong.

Instead, eSports history was made last night and people took notice. Social media absolutely blew up as everyone was talking about what was on ESPN 2. Sports fans couldn’t believe a video game tournament was being while others in the sports journalism world became engaged and were impressed with the casters of the event.

I’m being dead ass serious, these announcers are very impressive. I don’t know what they’re talking about but they are very good on the call

— KFC, Kevin Clancy (@KFCBarstool) April 27, 2015

These announcers are unbelievably good at their jobs. — Pablo S. Torre (@PabloTorre) April 27, 2015

@PabloTorre Normal two person teams step all over each other during slower broadcasts. These dudes are flawless.

— Jordan R. Bass (@JordanRBass) April 27, 2015

No joke, these announcers are killing it. I don’t have a damn clue what I’m watching, but they won’t let me leave. — Michelle Beadle (@MichelleDBeadle) April 27, 2015

Heroes of the Dorm – I have never been so proud. Go Pac12, no truck stops here. Just reporting the facts

— Bill Walton (@BillWalton) April 27, 2015

I haven’t seen the numbers yet on how many people were watching the broadcast, but based on what we’ve been seeing on social media I would expect this far exceeded what they were expecting. This could mean that ESPN and Blizzard (and possibly other gaming companies) might start working together more to bring eSports to the national spotlight in the west. Not only that but the entire show was like a 2 hour long commercial for Blizzard Entertainment and other companies are going to want a piece of that pie. Like I said, eSports history was made last night.

Not Made for eSports Fans

Some of my major complaints for this tournament was the fact that they ditched the mini-map in the observer UI. Yeah, they sort of brought it back but it wasn’t used when it needed to be, making it completely useless in my opinion. Also, people who don’t have cable couldn’t watch this event online. Most eSports fans are used to having their events live streamed over the internet for free so to not have that option really alienated your own fans.

However, after watching the events unfold last night, it became very obvious that this event wasn’t made for the eSports fan, this event was made for the exposure to a wider audience. They didn’t need a mini map, all they needed was an energetic live audience and the best announcers in the business to keep people engaged. The fact that this was also college oriented brought along a storyline that people could relate to. Oh, Arizona State is playing Cal Berkley in the finals of this game? These are names people recognize because of how prevalent college sports is in our culture.

I mean, let’s pretend we saw Evil Geniuses take on Team Liquid on the broadcast last night. Would those tuning in really have cared about these teams? Probably not, they would have found the names weird and also to be frank, quite meaningless. Instead, you have 2 colleges which everyone knows and those tuning in would be familiar with. People could associate the fact that Arizona State and Cal are in the PAC 12 conference and immediately recognize a rivalry between these two schools and based on that be able to choose one to cheer on. The fact that the games were close, back and forth, and had exciting announcers made this event something that anyone could sit down and become invested in immediately.

We can’t wait until our defensive line goes HAM on the Core.

— St. Louis Rams (@STLouisRams) April 27, 2015

Conclusion

Heroes of the Dorm had issues with it’s tournament. There is no question about that. The beginning of the tournament was unorganized and they delayed the first part a week back (to Easter weekend when a lot of college kids would be out of town) after things went south and they had some teams waiting around for 8+ hours to play. They had similar issues with their Hearthstone tournament last year as well. That kind of stuff from a logistical standpoint needs to be fixed immediately.

However, the grand finals and how they represented eSports on cable television last night were top notch. People aren’t going to read in the paper today about the problems they had up front. Instead, they’re going to read about the exciting grand finals, the excited announcers, and Arizona State going HAM on the core. I think we’re going to see more eSports tournaments like this hitting ESPN and I think Blizzard working with TeSPA to make it a college level thing is the right idea to make eSports grow.

Remember, eSports isn’t going to grow within a community that already loves it, it only grows by bringing in people who aren’t already aware of it. This was a pretty huge step for eSports and it looks like it’s going to be the first of many.