Is There A Need For Another Professional Video Gaming Channel?

By John Lewis, Co-Founder Delta Beta Lambda Fraternity Inc
Answer: Yes. But consolidation is the key.
Facts and Statistics: Competitive video-game leagues have contracts with ESPN, MTV, and DirecTV, draw as many as 80,000 paying fans to arena events, and boast dozens of formal teams that pay salaries of up to $90,000 a year, putting video-gaming on the cusp of mainstream competition.
The rise of professional players is proof that the $32 billion a year video-game industry has come of age as a sport as well as a business, says Amy Lee, director of Career Services at Art Institute of Las Vegas Game Art and Design.
One problem that may currently be holding back professional gaming from its ascent is that there is no standard. There are multiple professional organizations, including Major League Gaming, the Championship Gaming Series, and the global World Cyber Games, not to mention many more leagues in Europe and Asia. So one thing that would help, the panelists agreed, would be some consolidation.
XLeague.TV, the first British TV channel dedicated to competitive gaming, will be launched tomorrow, May 16, on Sky channel 291. XLeague will show both live and recorded matches with commentary and analysis, and feature league and tournament play. It will also screen gaming news, reviews and magazine shows.

Although eSports competition is traditionally PC-focused, XLeague.TV will feature prominent console titles across all multiplayer genres, including Resistance: Fall of Man, Pro Evolution Soccer and Project Gotham Racing.
After making a ton of money in the advertising business, Michael Sepso and Sundance DiGiovanni decided six years ago that it was time to goof off. How did these two guys, then in their late 20s, pass the time? They played a lot of "Halo."
Then they had an idea: Why not start a professional video-game league?
Don't laugh. The former ad men raised $35 million from private-equity investors, rounded up some skilled gamers and launched Major League Gaming in 2003. Today, the predominantly web-based league has five million monthly unique users, most of them young men whose average age is 19. They flocked to MLGpro.com to watch star gamers like FearitSelf and ThuggishKilla blast each other to smithereens in shooter games like "Halo 3" and "Gears of War." In June, the league hosted nearly 600,000 amateur matches on its GameBattles Web site.
Now all Major League Gaming has to worry about is not being blown to smithereens by Champion Gaming Series, a competing professional league that made its debut last year and is backed by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (NWS, Fortune 500).
Major League Gaming's founders say they aren't afraid of their well-financed rival. "I mean, we're two really competitive guys," says Sepso. "When you do something like this, you want the big guy to fight you. We want to beat News Corporation. Our attitude is, 'Holy s--t! This is cool!'"
Perhaps the biggest reason for Major League Gaming's success is that allows its fans to become its stars. Amateurs who score the highest on GameBattles can join teams that compete in tournaments with as much as $100,000 in prize money. Major League Gaming's July tournament in Orlando, Fla. drew 12,000 people - 20% more than a similar event only a month before in San Diego. Another 365,000 fans watched it on MLGpro.com.
On top of its GameBattles site, Major League Gaming also has a PC-gaming site and another one dedicated to "World of Warcraft." All of them are ad-supported, and have have attracted such blue-chip sponsors like HBO (TWX, Fortune 500), Procter & Gamble's (PG, Fortune 500) Old Spice, Dr. Pepper and Stride Gum.
Championship Gaming Series, on the other hand, has a minimal Web presence and is pouring most of its resources into television instead. The new league is directly bankrolled by three of News Corp.'s satellite television providers: DirecTV, BSkyB and Star. That means it has a potential audience of 450 million viewers worldwide.
"We're creating something that's powerful," Andy Reif, then-CEO of Championship Gaming Series, said in an interview earlier this month before he left the company. "Not just in the U.S., but really big globally." Its sponsors include PepsiCo's (PEP, Fortune 500) Mountain Dew and Dell (DELL, Fortune 500).
Championship Gaming Series started its first season by televising its draft from the Playboy Mansion. Huge Hefner was away, but some of his centerfold models were on hand to make the event more appealing to young male viewers. The league says 2 million viewers watched its second season this year on DirecTV. The champs, England's Birmingham Salvos, walked away with $500,000 in prize money. That's five times more than Major League Gaming's championship "Halo" team can expect.
However, Sepso and DiGiovanni argue that television isn't the best way for either league to attract fans. They should know. Early on, Major League Gaming hired an Emmy-winning producer of more than 30 figure-skating events and spent $6 million on two seasons of shows - one for USA Network and the other for Comcast's (CMST) G4, a cable network that covers video gaming. The former ad guys learned that sponsors didn't want to buy television ads to reach young men. They thought Web ads were a better way to get their attention.
So Major League Gaming pulled the plug on its television shows. Now the award-winning producer handles Major League Gaming's Internet programs. The league says it has more sponsors than ever and expects to be profitable in the fourth quarter. "We can give you five times the number of young men on our Web sites than any television network," Sepso boasted.
It's too early to declare a winner in this smackdown. "I think that, right now, Major League Gaming has more traction than Championship Gaming Series," said Billy Pidgeon, a gaming industry analyst at IDC. Still, he's doubtful that professional video gaming will ever be as popular as other major league sports. "How many people are actually going to watch it?" Pidgeon asked. "I've always thought watching gamers on TV is a waste of valuable gaming time."
Even so, the battle between the leagues should be interesting to watch. In late August, Championship Gaming Series replaced Reif with Dale Hopkins, the former chief operating officer at G4. Unlike Reif, a former executive at pro volleyball league who didn't play video games, Hopkins is comfortable with a controller in her hands. She has a PS3, an Xbox and a Wii at home. She plays "Madden NFL" with her son.
Sepso and DiGiovanni had better look out. It looks like it's finally game on between Major League Gaming and Championship Gaming Series.
DIRECTV, the nation’s leading satellite television service provider, is making sports history once again with the exclusive live broadcast of the inaugural Championship Gaming Series (CGS) World Final. The competition will take place December 6-14 at the Sony Studios in Los Angeles where more than 100 of the world’s top professional gamers will compete for the league’s first-ever World Champion title and a share of the $1,000,000 prize purse. All the action will be captured live and in HD on DIRECTV’s original entertainment channel, The 101, starting December 6 at 10pm ET.
“This is the Super Bowl 1 of professional video gaming,” said Eric Shanks, executive vice president, DIRECTV Entertainment. “We couldn’t be more pleased with year one of the league and the excitement that it has created worldwide.”
The CGS World Final will be the first-ever international gaming event to present all the action live, as it happens, allowing fans at home to experience the match-ups like any other sport. The groundbreaking coverage will commence with the start of CGS World Final on December 6 and broadcast three hours of single elimination competitions each night leading up to the championship game on December 14.
The playoffs will feature the top CGS teams from around the world as they compete in PC and console based games. Valve’s Counter-Strike®: Source® and EA’s FIFA 2007 are the official PC games for CGS while Tecmo’s® Dead or Alive® 4 (DOA4) and Project Gotham Racing® 3 (PGR3) from Microsoft Game Studios will be played on Xbox 360. Each round of the World Final is single elimination and the last team standing will receive the coveted Dew Trophy as well as $500,000 in prize money.
In addition to the team playoffs, the World Final will also feature a special “battle of the sexes” DOA4 match-up where Vanessa Arteaga and Ryan “OffBeatNinja” Ward, the top female and male DOA players in the world, will battle it out for supremacy. The contest, dubbed the “Itagaki Challenge,” is the brainchild of DOA creator Tomonobu Itagaki, who will preside over the face-off and present the winner with the ultimate DOA prize package, including a ceremonial Japanese Katana sword and a trip to Tokyo. The individual competition will air live on The 101 December 13 at 11:30pm ET.
“We’re honored that DOA game creator and international superstar Tomonobu Itagaki recognizes the CGS as the world’s leading professional video gaming league in the world,” said Andy Reif, CGS commissioner and CEO. “We’ve set our stake in the ground and proved ourselves as a legitimate sport and look forward to growing the league and esports in the years to come.”
In what will become an annual platform for the world’s best gamers to compete professionally, the inaugural CGS World Final will be broadcast on television to more than 350 million viewers worldwide by DIRECTV’s The 101 in the U.S., BSkyB’s Sky One, Sky Two and Sky HD in the UK, ESPN STAR Sports in Asia, SKY in Mexico and Brazil, DIRECTV throughout the rest of Latin America, and across mainland Europe via additional soon-to-be confirmed broadcast partners.
The Cyberathlete Professional League, the most popular North American professional game organization, this week received a $45 million commitment from private investors, as well as very public support from Intel, which will provide hardware and marketing support for the next year. This happened on 5-25-02.
The money will help the league host more high-stakes tournaments, which would help it grow beyond its hard-core base.
"We've generated some profits, but we want to expand this concept worldwide," said Angel Munoz, president of the CPL.
After five years of struggling, the league's fortunes need to change -- and by next year, Munoz said. If it can't expand beyond the hard-core gamers, it will be in serious trouble.
Whether the league survives or not, Munoz said professional gaming is here to stay, if for no other reason than the fact that video games generated $9.6 billion last year. With so many consumers paying and playing, companies are falling all over themselves to get involved.
"I love interactive entertainment," Munoz said. "I realized when I launched the CPL that this was historical, whether we failed or succeeded as a business. Now, the trend has been established. Games are going to be a spectator sport."
Currently, the CPL operates very much like professional tennis, hosting invitational tournaments around the world. Last December's (2001) five-man Swedish Counter-Strike team walked away with $50,000 after winning the annual tournament.
The big tournaments can attract several thousand spectators. While it sounds impressive, it's actually an indication that the league doesn't draw beyond its base of hard-core players.
Gamers between 18 and 35 have always made up the bulk of the audience, really limiting the growth of the game culture. Now, a new generation of kids who have never known a day without games is coming of age.
"What really bodes well for the industry's future is the fact that the generation behind (the 18- to 35-year-old demographic), the 6- to 17-year olds, are the first interactive generation in history," said Douglas Lowenstein, Interactive Ditgital Software Association president. "They are the first to grow up not only with technology, but with interactivity at the center of their lives."
The hard-core audience is rubbing shoulders with newbies as well. The CPL has been holding hard-core tournaments since 1997, but league commissioner Frank Nuccio recently launched its amateur leagues online, allowing the casual players to compete. Winners don't receive any money, but they do get a chance to pick up tips by watching the tournaments.
The money and support being thrown at the CPL is paltry in comparison with popular professional sports leagues, but the infusion of cash will allow Munoz to raise its visibility. It's a small step, but it comes at a time when video games have captured the public's fancy.
Despite the popularity of gaming, particularly on the small screen, Munoz said he plans to eschew traditional television coverage. Instead, the league will stream its competitions over the Internet. So far, that has proven to be a rousing success.
Last December, the CPL broadcast its winter tournament, attracting 24,000 users to the site to watch teams battle for supremacy in the Counter-Strike, a war simulation where players hunt down and destroy their opponents, using a variety of weapons.