Over the weekend, ESPN 2 aired the championship round of Blizzard’s “Heroes of the Dorm,” a competition between university campuses playing Heroes of The Storm. As it turns out, competitive gaming and sports fans are not quite ready to mix yet.
The show made waves, but for the wrong reasons. Being put on prime time, competing with the NBA Playoffs and a MLB game, there was never really a chance for the show to survive. The program was showing the finals of the tournament, Arizona State University vs University of California- Berkeley, battling it out in Heroes of The Storm for tuition money.
While some praised ESPN for airing a competitive gaming event, most rejected it. Looking over to video game news website Gamespot and sports news website BleacherReport, they have both compiled numerous tweets from enthusiast, of both sides, giving their opinion on the matter.
After seeing the reactions, they are not completely misplaced. It is a wonder as to why ESPN would put this programming on with the competition of the NBA playoffs and the MLB, and why they had Heroes of The Storm be the competitive game they showed. While Heroes of The Storm has a good following, it’s still not the biggest competitive game out there, why not air a League of Legends competition? Or air a competition of a popular game, such as Call of Duty or Battlefield? Why not choose a sports game competition!? I’m sure everyone would be happier if they were to show a competition of Madden NFL.
I guess we will have to wait a little longer for sports and video games to unite.
Source: Gamespot, BleacherReport
