ESPN will broadcast Street Fighter 5 championship from this year's EVO tournament
Hado... Ken, Ryu, and the rest of the SF5 cast join Heroes of the Storm on ESPN's roster of eSports broadcast on television.
The annual Evolution Champion Series (EVO) will host the Street Fighter 5 world championship, and ESPN will broadcast every dragon punch and corner trap (via GameSpot).
ESPN's announcement came via Twitter. Matches will be broadcast on ESPN2 and the network's WatchESPN streaming service. EVO emanates from Las Vegas between July 15-17 this year, and live coverage of the SF5 championship will kick off at 10p Eastern on Sunday, July 17, according to ESPN's statement.
"The Street Fighter V World Championship will be one of the must-see competitions from the Evo finals," said John Lasker, vice president of programming and acquisitions, ESPN Digital Media. "We are always exploring ways to serve the growing and passionate audience of competitive gaming, and we look forward to delivering this event to fans."
Airing SF5 matches represents the latest step in ESPN's effort to get more involved in the world of eSports. The network opened an eSports website earlier this year, and broadcast Blizzard's Heroes of the Dorm college tourney earlier this spring.
ESPN chose a great year to help fans unable to attend EVO follow SF5's championship action from afar. According to the network and representatives from EVO, this year's tournament has "seen unprecedented interest and popularity, breaking Evo's previous record for most entrants in a single game after just four days of registration."
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replyDavid Craddock posted a new article, ESPN will broadcast Street Fighter 5 championship from this year's EVO tournament
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I would love to have heard Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick call the highlights for this.
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That's cool so long as it isn't an exclusive
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I can't help but feel this is coming about 15 years too late. With broadband being what it is now, the need to have video games broadcast on TV is not what it once was. I can watch on twitch at source quality while any commercials (which will only come at lulls in the action instead of at required intervals) will directly support the content creators rather than the network.
Feels like ESPN is trying to catch up with the times at this point.-
I think it is a step up in the quality of the broadcasts though. As we learned from the Shanghai shitshow in DOTA this year, production value matters and ESPN brings/requires better stuff.
Plus, I was actually able to get some friends to play DOTA 2 after they watched TI3 on ESPN.
There might be hope of it having that effect for SFV.-
Yeah, production quality ++ and increasing market beyond video game nerds. If people want esports to be a real thing, it's going to have to become popular outside of the communities of people who already play the game.
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breen and jvg
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I think Ultradavid will get pulled into MKX. He's good on the call there, too.
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No way Zhi is going to get on and drop some racist remarks lmao. "His health is low, this could be the match!" Zhi "It's low, but thats Balrog and he's brown and they make over all less money!"
"And he takes the round with the super!" Zhi "It's like he is used to beating women into walls and throwing them on a bang bus!"
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Yeah, as long as its a couple of the guys who usually do Evo, then I'm cool. If the try to get more polished, TV friendly announcers then I'll be a little pissed.
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Absolutely has to be James Chen and Seth Killian. Chen's been the guy for years and Seth understands all the ins and outs of the games, the psychology, and the tournament rules. They were a perfect duo at last year's Evo.
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So cringeworthy, I had to to turn it off when I watched live.
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Mike Ross didn't start commentating until the last year or so did he? I can't seem to remember him ever commentating anything serious during SFIV.
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Why, I'm glad you mentioned that, because this was just posted today.
https://esports.yahoo.com/mike-ross-fgc-media-no-172544958.html
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hahaha. I'd love to see him go in cold and try.
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deep combo! in the left corner! WE WILL SEE YOU... next match
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Before joining Shadaloo and moving his way up in the ranks to become one of M. Bison’s highest ranking officers, he was one of the greatest boxing champions of his time. His style of boxing, which uses illegal techniques such as head-butting, eventually got him banned from competing due to causing extreme harm to his opponents. In short, Balrog will do whatever it takes to win a fight and with the end goal always being to obtain more wealth.
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