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Joystiq

ESPN and Major League Gaming team up

by Christopher Grant on Jan 14th 2008 10:45PM

The good folks at ESPN identified a huge, glaring hole in their programming lineup – namely that gamers are too busy playing games – and have made moves to fill it, announcing a "content agreement" with Major League Gaming. The following marketing dream scenario describes our general lack of appreciation for major league gaming, in all its forms: when you're not playing games, what better way to spend your time than watching other people play them?

With ESPN's marketing muscle and proven sports coverage formula, maybe MLG has a chance to appeal to a larger audience and, in turn, reel those advertisers in. If you're not sure this is something you'd be interested in, check out ESPN's newly launched MLG portal (with additional content from 1UP.com) by clicking on that "Read: link. If you think it sounds like a product in search of an audience, that makes all of us.

Source

Tags: ESPN, MLG

Reader Comments (23)

again, the PC is ignored.

MLG is garbage, alot of better leagues like CEVO and CAL/CPL.

MLG broadcast by ESPN 8 ("The Ocho")
"If it's almost a sport, we've got it!"

lol +1 for the Dodgeball reference. hilarious movie.

I could not agree more with the parent. CPL by far is the worst league out there.

Dammit!
MLG is the worst league!
CPL and CAL are great!

just reading the words "major league gaming" makes me cringe. It makes it sound like the participants are actually doing something athletic and meaningful.

i guess it fits well if they air it on espn 2, since that's basically the channel to go to for hobbies-that-are-mistakingly-called-sports like nascar, poker, and hunting >.

I was just going to say, this will be great in between my marathon sessions of Poker with the Stars and the Cuyahoga County Spelling Bee.

Isn't "athletic and meaningful" an oxymoron?

HAH! I was right!

That stupid "Whatsthesecondsport.com" thing had that "guess what you think it is" and I put "Major league gaming"... I feel smart, yet strangely nerdy.

you're not that smart, the second sport was competitive double stuff oreo cookie eating...i saw the commercial today

Wasn't there some MLG broadcast of a Halo 2 tournament on cable TV a few years ago?

Anyway, I'd watch MLG on TV if they had funny/interesting commentators and it wasn't just HALOHALOHALO.

I feel pro-gaming has a lot of potential if only it doesn't turn out to be one giant commercial (I'm looking at you, Spike VGA's) and they played something besides Halo (COD4 FTW!).

Now all Atari needs to do is dump their last bit of money into MLG!!! Two birds with one stone!

Sports games and Halo. fun.

wow... videogame tournament broadcasting in korea is quite common...

I used to watch them about a year or so ago for StarCraft...

You are even more pathetic then I thought.

I'm glad I was able to surpass your expectations sir, I ll take it as a complement since its coming from you :]

I agree that it was a compliment.

Hmm how do I go to the article man? Hmm I wonder if I click the picture or the READ link I can go there. Nah I'll just make a horrible attempt at a joke at the writer for not clearly labeling where to go for further information.

as long as they dont show a whole bunch of Madden i would probably watch this. hell im always watching ESPN anyway and i love gaming. i used to love watching Cinema Tech on TechTV back in the day and i would love when they did intense frag matches with voice chat. i mean i dont even like Halo but i wouldnt mind watching it played if they do it in an entertaining fashion. there is no denying that Halo has a colorful cast of characters playing lol.

i used to study pro football players in high school to make myself better (i made All-State too) so this could also be the same way. its different playing against someone good in a game than it is seeing the same game from their perspective. so the prospect that it could possibly make me better in gaming (assuming these guys are as good as advertised) is also a plus.

i say bring it on ESPN. you have at least one viewer.

go to their website, all the games are FPS's....ugh, what happened to the good old CS, SC, AoE, WC3, Fifa (I still think Winning Eleven is better)

All of those games are older games. A large part of this deal is marketing - getting people who watch ESPN to buy games so of course ESPN is only going to have newer games on their network, even if those games aren't as competitive.

As for me, I don't watch ESPN (or any TV for that matter - just DL Heroes when its released), but this is good news - a small step in the right direction.

Kind of strange how Joystiq makes the same comments anytime something about eSports happens. Pro gaming is getting larger and larger... maybe it's because of it's image in the US?

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ESPN and Major League Gaming team up

Reader Comments (23)

Posted: Jan 14th 2008 10:53PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 14th 2008 10:59PM kerbero9 said

Posted: Jan 15th 2008 1:17AM SoCoolCurt said

Posted: Jan 15th 2008 6:26AM Neebs said

Posted: Jan 15th 2008 6:26AM Neebs said

Posted: Jan 14th 2008 11:05PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 15th 2008 10:20AM heypaul said

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Posted: Jan 14th 2008 11:06PM Dragod said

Posted: Jan 14th 2008 11:23PM Endless Ike said

Posted: Jan 14th 2008 11:09PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 14th 2008 11:39PM markhill66 said

Posted: Jan 14th 2008 11:21PM The Wicker Man said

Posted: Jan 14th 2008 11:40PM mmxzer0 said

Posted: Jan 14th 2008 11:45PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 15th 2008 12:04AM R V said

Posted: Jan 15th 2008 12:10AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 15th 2008 12:43AM hvnlysoldr said

Posted: Jan 15th 2008 12:45AM hvnlysoldr said

Posted: Jan 15th 2008 1:29AM SoCoolCurt said

Posted: Jan 15th 2008 1:42AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 15th 2008 6:33AM blash said

Posted: Jan 15th 2008 7:03AM (Unverified) said

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