ESL and DreamHack Team Up with Blake Broadcasting
Do you love esports, but sometimes want to watch on TV instead of sitting at your desk? For residents of the United States, Canada and Asia (except China), a deal is coming to bring esports to non-streaming services! Blake Broadcasting is bringing that to life with a TV deal with ESL and DreamHack that begins in March 2020.
ESL Pro Tour, Dota 2 competitions and more are coming with this deal. It runs from March 2020 to July 2023, so there’s going to be no shortage of esports to watch.
Where and How to Watch
During this time frame, CBNN, the over-the-top streaming service will be the exclusive satellite home for the ESL Pro Tour and Dota 2 competitive matches. It looks like there will be more than just satellite viewing, though.
The esports offered includes events across the Intel Extreme Masters, ESL One and ESL Pro League. DreamHack Masters and DreamHack Open tournaments will also be seen here, so I do wonder if it will be more than just Dota 2.
The idea is to bring esports to millions of homes across these regions with live coverage. It includes studio broadcasts featuring highlights, news and interviews.
Blake Broadcasting (BBN) and ESL will bring this to life with the regional distribution. This includes cable, free-to-air satellite and OTT streaming.
Though I don’t have satellite, if this truly includes cable TV (digital cable), I’m curious to see details on this deal. I want to know exactly what channels this is going to be available on, and in which regions.
Bob Blake, CEO of Blake Broadcasting, did speak of this deal in a press release:
“Our channels are dedicated to providing only the highest quality esports, news, sports, and entertainment content for our viewers, and this groundbreaking deal will make CBNN the largest television broadcaster of esports outside of China. We could not find a better partner to provide premium esports content than ESL and DreamHack. Combined with our support from SES and MX1 and our other major content providers and partners, we will be delivering the best in premium esports programming, which will be the priority anchor for our sports initiatives going forward.”
On paper, this is a cool idea. We don’t know what kind of reach it will have and how easily it will be to access. But, it’s the start of cable/satellite channels accepting esports into their lives.
Sure, we see ESPN occasionally show fighting games, Magic the Gathering and other non-traditional sports, but this is the start of something interesting in the world of viewing esports.
ESL and DreamHack Both Seem Excited
Blake Broadcasting delivers over 1,500 news stories across sports, fashion, entertainment, music, film and more each month. They recently inked a deal to have SES be their exclusive broadcast satellite network provider for CNBB networks in Europe, Asia and North America.
We will probably see a partnership between them, ESL and DreamHack. Anytime we have greater viewing potential for esports outside of live streams, that’s a good thing. Streams are all well and good. It’s great to chat with thousands of people at once about the matches.
But those stream chats go way too fast, and it’s virtually always a toxic field of awful commentary. I think people would probably be happier to watch with their friends in the living room on TV. You’re talking with people that are just as hyped as you are, instead of seeing racial slurs and Twitch Emotes spammed. You can keep group chat on your phone or laptop I guess, if you wanted.
Thomas Schmidt, CCO of ESL, commented on this deal also:
“ESL and DreamHack are extremely focused on improving the coverage and reach of our events, and with this partnership, our tournaments and other content will be available to hundreds of millions of satellite- and cable-equipped homes. Our agreement with BBN is in line with our ambition to expand our programming to mainstream audiences without compromising our world-class digital coverage for the esports community that we’re committed to serve.”
The partnership could be the start of something major in the world of esports. If other cable or satellite networks start snatching up major tournaments or corporations, who knows what the future holds?
Maybe Alex Jebailey has something in the pipeline to bring his CEO tournaments to a global airwave. If not, maybe a major network will see value in what he or other esports tournament organizers do.
After all, having more eyes on your product and channel isn’t a bad thing. That way, maybe those viewers stick around for the rest of your programming. We haven’t seen a successful deal like this yet. However, these combined efforts might be just what we need. I look forward to more information about this TV deal between DreamHack, ESL, and Blake Broadcasting.
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