Instead of World Series Poker, and PBA Bowling, ESPN 2 chose to cover a Heroes of the Storm tournament on Sunday night, pitting it against ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball, and the exhilarating NBA playoffs. The program showed off a 2-hour tournament of college students going head to head, all fighting for enough money to pay off their college tuitions.
It’s normal for longtime viewers of the sports network to be a little surprised by the showing, even some of ESPN’s own anchors were caught off guard. Robert Flores tweeted:
On another note, what is on espn2?!? How am I just finding out about this???
— Robert Flores (@RoFloESPN) April 27, 2015
How would I do hilites of this? #HeroesOfTheDorm
— Robert Flores (@RoFloESPN) April 27, 2015
And some viewers enjoyed the new form of sports brought to them:
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
But with video games unexpectedly being shown on a sports network, it’s safe to say that there were many that bashed the coverage, and ESPN’s own Colin Cowherd is one of those people.
Recently on his show, Cowherd ripped the so-called “nerds” apart, telling their mothers to lock them back in the basement, and saying that he would rather shoot himself than ever cover eSports.
Although this sort of sport is much more different from those being normally shown on ESPN, was it fair for Cowherd to be so critical of the unique coverage? Recent statistics have shown increasing interest for eSports, and with the recent partnership of ESPN and Blizzard, eSports proves to be a big business with the likes of big time networks wanting a cut.
For now, the world of eSports still seems like an unknown commodity for the rest of the world, especially the older generation who usually discredit any sort of competition surrounding video games. With that said, it’s an exciting time to be an eSports fan. With an increasing amount of fans, even huge sports networks like ESPN want to be a part of the growth. It is only a matter of assimilating into modern sports culture now.
