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Members of OG celebrate their win at The International at Rogers Arena in Vancouver after defeating PSG-LGD three games to two in a best-of-five grand final. (Dota 2 / Twitch)

OG, a European-based professional Dota 2 team, has won The International and with it the winner’s share of a more than $33 million prize pool, the biggest in the history of esports.

“It’s real. I feel so blessed.” said team captain Johan ‘n0tail’ Sundstein, a Danish pro marking his first win at the big-money tournament, which lasted six days at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena.

The Team defeated Chinese-based squad PSG-LGD by three games to two in the grand final of The International (TI) held at Rogers Arena on Saturday.

“What?,” said Topias ‘Topson’ Taavitsainen, a Finnish member of OG, moments after winning the deciding match.

Evil Geniuses captain Andreas ‘Cr1t-‘ Nielsen holds his head following a team defeat at The International. (Valve / Flickr)

Teams were playing Dota 2, a fantasy battle game played by two teams of five on PC computers. The game has more than 10 million active players across the globe.

The International pitted 18 of the best teams world-wide against each other in Vancouver, the first time the championships had been held outside Seattle in six years.

The best 16 teams made it to the main event at Rogers Arena, which saw teams square off against each other in glass booths positioned in the centre of the arena before thousands of fans.

Members of OG will split the winner’s cut of the prize pool, just over $14.5 million.

Vancouver-raised Artour ‘Arteezy’ Babaev,  and his team, Evil Geniuses, made it to the final day of competition but lost two straight in a best-of-three series Saturday morning to finalist PSG-LGD.

Members of Evil Geniuses, including Vacouver’s Artour Babaev, shake hands as they walk off the stage at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena. (Valve / Flickr)

Switching to Shanghai

Fans at Saturday’s grand final generally agreed Vancouver did a good job as event host, but added that The International is best seen in its traditional Seattle home, or moved around to different cities, somewhat like the Super Bowl.

“There are some parts that aren’t as good,” said Dota fan Vivian Chung The International in Vancouver. A veteran of three TIs, she says Seattle’s Key Arena, home to the event for six of its first seven years, featured an outdoor viewing area and  a better spectating experience.

“I think most people miss Key Arena,” she said.

Fans packed Rogers Arena for six days for The International. (Valve / Flickr)

Shortly before the final day’s play got underway, game developer Valve announced via video message that the 2019 International would be held in Shanghai.

“China has a large population playing Dota … so I think it’s a good chance for Valve, and Chinese players to enjoy this event,” said Jensen Zao, a Dota 2 fan from Toronto.

Six of the 18 teams invited to this year’s The International had rosters with a majority of players from China, including PSG-LGD.

“When it comes to Chinese team versus a western team, there’s always a lot of hype,” said Ronnie Qin.

Dates for the 2019 tournament have yet to be confirmed.

The tournament started in Germany in 2011 before moving to Seattle and then onto Vancouver.

Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/theinternational2018-wrap-1.4799379

• Popularity of eSports is growing so fast around the world that some experts have predicted it could overtake traditional sports in the next 10 years
• Here in Canada, stadiums have already been selling out as gamers battle each other for cash prizes of up to $25 million.

On this week’s episode of the Global News original podcast This is Why, host Niki Reitmayer sits down with ESPN eSports writer Tyler Erzberger, former professional gamer Chris ‘HuK’ Loranger and Global News reporter Jill Bennett, as they discuss how eSports is revolutionizing sports as we know it.

The popularity of eSports is growing so fast around the world that some experts have predicted it could overtake traditional sports in the next 10 years.

And here in Canada, stadiums have already been selling out as gamers battle each other for cash prizes of up to $25 million.

But what are eSports and how did they get so popular?

In its simplest definition, eSports are organized gaming tournaments in which professional gamers battle it out in popular video games. Fans can generally watch these competitions take place in large arenas or through popular streaming sites.

Source: https://globalnews.ca/news/4403488/this-is-why-esports-could-become-more-popular-than-hockey/

• “Look, esports is not a fad,” Pitaro said to reporters in response to a question at ESPN Media Day last week in Bristol, Conn. “It’s not going anywhere. We believe it is ascending, and in the spirit of us attracting a younger audience, esports has got to be a priority of ours.”

New York Excelsior (L) play the Shanghai Dragons during the inaugural season of Overwatch League at Blizzard Arena on May 4, 2018 in Burbank, Calif. (David McNew/AFP/Getty Images)

In July, Disney signed a deal with Activision Blizzard to broadcast the Overwatch League Grand Finals on its ESPN channels. The first round of the finals aired at 7 p.m. on Friday, July 27, on ESPN — yes, primetime on the main ESPN channel. It was the first time competitive video gaming (or “esports”) aired on ESPN.

The ratings were tiny. Friday night’s first round on ESPN rated a 0.18 (and reached 215,000 households), or 20% lower than a Golden Boy Boxing lightweight bout on ESPN on the previous Friday night, and well below a typical MLS game on ESPN. Saturday night on ESPN2 rated a 0.05.

Nonetheless, ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro says ESPN is doubling down on esports.

“Look, esports is not a fad,” Pitaro said to reporters in response to a question at ESPN Media Day last week in Bristol, Conn. “It’s not going anywhere. We believe it is ascending, and in the spirit of us attracting a younger audience, esports has got to be a priority of ours.”

Indeed, broadcasting the Overwatch finals was not ESPN’s first foray into esports. In 2014, ESPN entered an agreement with esports tournament organizer Riot Games to show the League of Legends World Championship on its ESPN3 streaming network; in 2014 and 2015 ESPN3 showed the International Dota 2 Championships, plus a preview show on ESPN2; and in 2016 and 2017 ESPN2 aired the Street Fighter V World Championship, to name just a few instances.

While esports may still look niche, it has grown rapidly. In 2015, a League of Legends tournament sold out Madison Square Garden. The esports industry is expected to hit $905 million in revenue this year, a 38% increase from 2017’s $655 million, according to market research firm Newzoo.

And according to a Citi research note, total prize money for all esports events held in 2017 topped $100 million for the first time. The 2017 International eSports tournament had a total prize pool of $24.7 million, which Citi points out was twice as big as the total purse for golf’s 2017 Masters.

Pitaro also quibbled with the common definition of esports. “I think it’s helpful to look at esports as just a category within games,” he said. “My 15-year-old son spends a ton of time watching Ninja play Fortnite on Twitch. That’s not esports. People say it’s esports, but that’s not. That is a gaming influencer demonstrating his performance within a specific game. All of that is interesting to us. We’re not looking solely through the lens of esports. We’re looking through the games lens as an opportunity for us to do something that is relevant to a sports audience on ESPN.”

Source: https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/espn-says-esports-not-fad-124537864.html

• There’s more than $24 million waiting to be won in a tournament that holds the largest prize pool of any eSports championship — and it’s on Canadian soil for the first time.
• “This is kind of like the Super Bowl,” said Peter Anders, referring to The International Dota 2 Championships tournament that kicks off at Rogers Arena on Wednesday.

In this July 27, 2018 photo, fans fill the arena as the stage is set for the Overwatch League Grand Finals’ first night of competition, at the Barclays Center in the Brooklyn borough of New York. Terrin Waack / AP

There’s more than $24 million waiting to be won in a tournament that holds the largest prize pool of any eSports championship — and it’s on Canadian soil for the first time.

“This is kind of like the Super Bowl,” said Peter Anders, referring to The International Dota 2 Championships tournament that kicks off at Rogers Arena on Wednesday.

“You get these absolute diehard fans that are running around with their countries’ flag, or have the T-shirts of the different players and scream for them when the players walk on the stage,” said Anders, who belongs to the UBC eSports Association.

The game Dota 2 is a mixture of chess and capture the flag, where teams of five are pitted against each other to defend their base and destroy that of their opposition. It’s a game that requires high strategy and foresight, explained Anders, making for an ever-increasing high-stakes championship, and an enthusiasm from the crowd that is comparable to that of any other major sporting event.

With 18 teams at play, the tournament goes through a round robin before entering the double elimination stage. Each game usually lasts between 15 minutes to more than an hour.

Tourism Vancouver, which hopes to pursue more eSports tournaments in the future, said the estimated economic impact of this event will be more than $7.8 million in direct visitor spending.

Technical crew for The International Dota 2 Championship set up the show at Rogers Arena in Vancouver,

BC., August 14, 2018. Nick Procaylo / PNG

While Anders and others from UBC’s eSports club will be attending as spectators, they are among the best collegiate teams in North America, winning two consecutive titles in a different tournament.

Vivian Chung, also part of the UBC team, has attended the event for the past two years in Seattle, and was excited to see it come to Vancouver.

“In my first experience, I remember thinking it’s hard to imagine that something that you just play on the computer has such an amazing large-scale event,” Chung said.

While some of the best international players are from China and Europe, Canada has a handful of names on that list as well.

“There’s only about three to five players that are top competitive (Canadian) players, but some of the most popular players are Canadian actually,” Chung said.

Team “Fnatic” for example not only features famed Canadian player Jacky Mao, but is also coached by Kurtis Ling, a former UBC student who won $6.6 million in the 2016 championships.

“Fnatic is my favourite team,” said Anders. “The fact that their coach went to my school makes me even more passionate about the team.”

he historic decision in July by the game developer, Valve Corporation, to move the tournament from Seattle to Vancouver for this year was based on the fact that Vancouver is an up and coming powerhouse in the industry.

Earlier this month, it was also announced that Canada’s first eSports stadium would be built in Richmond, and is scheduled to open in 2019.

“It’s a big deal to have this come to Vancouver,” said Dal Yong Jin, a professor at Simon Fraser University with an expertise in eSports. “The video game industry is getting bigger than the film industry in terms of both the production and consumption.”

Jin also pointed to the fact that organizers of the 2024 Olympics in Paris are in talks to include eSports in the games. The 2018 Asian Games is Indonesia happening this weekend will also feature eSports for the first time, as a demonstrated sport.

“Vancouver and Canada as a whole should prepare for it coming into the Olympic field,” Jin said. “In four years it will be considered a regular game, and we cannot ignore that.”

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Source: https://vancouversun.com/technology/gaming/thousands-of-worldwide-gamers-flock-to-vancouver-for-massive-esports-tournament