We’re just over a week away from The International and while professional Dota 2 teams are busy practicing, fans are impatiently waiting for the world’s biggest single-game tournament to begin. Swedish television station TV6 and DreamHack are just as excited, having struck a deal to broadcast the tournament online and on television.
The International is scheduled to begin on August 7th and lasts until the 11th. TV6 will be streaming the first two days of the tournament online and bringing the last two days to broadcast television for the final matches.
Partin “Soxter” Edsman and Kim “Drayich” Larsson will be hosting the broadcast, with Christian “Hellspawn” Lord reporting on-site in Seattle.
DreamHack CEO Rober Ohlen and Head of Digital MTG TV, parent company to TV6, Jessice Grunewald are moving forward with eSports broadcasts with TV6 as the channel continues to invest in the field. Grunewald was quoted as saying:
For us eSports is like any other sports. To broadcast the World Championships in Dota2 and our lovely eSports bloggers is a start on TV6 big eSports investment. MTG has always been the best at sports so that’s why we are very proud to welcome eSports to TV6
This isn’t the first time Dota 2 has made an appearance on television recently, with the Chinese national station Xinwen Lianbo announcing the nation’s eSports team tournament with the game at the head just last month.
The International prize pool just passed $2.7 million just yesterday, solidifying the tournament’s record as having the highest prize pool in eSports history. With just eight more days to go, can Compendium sales hit the $3.2 million mark to reach the last goal? We’ll just have to wait and see, but it may be possible considering the game having sold over $100,000 in Compendiums over just the past two days. Grow, you glorious bastard!
