OT: Big Ten esports
http://www.espn.com/esports/story/_/id/18508637/the-big-ten-network-rio…
Big Ten Network and game publisher Riot Games will announce a partnership on Thursday, where 12 of 14 schools in the conference will compete in a season-long League of Legends championship. The league will start Jan. 30 and will be broadcast on BTN2Go and watch.lolesports.com, with the finals televised on March 27 by the Big Ten Network
So if you're bored with the basketball and hockey teams, there might be something new for some of you to check out. Looks like everyone in the B10 other than PSU and Nebraska will be taking part. I'm think Michigan has a pretty good team.
As a background, League of Legends is the most popular video game in the world, with over 100 million people playing every month. Recently some professional sports teams have begun investing into esports. Miami Heat and Milwaukee Bucks both own professional LOL teams. Former NBA player Rick Fox owns a team as well and is very personally involved in roster management. Shaq and A-Rod have also invested in teams. This is something you will be hearing more and more of in the future.
Here is Michigan playing against OSU recently (Best of 5 series. You can find the rest of the games easily enough if you're interested):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoDZkFKj7cU#t=12m54s
January 20th, 2017 at 11:50 AM ^
January 20th, 2017 at 11:53 AM ^
January 20th, 2017 at 12:09 PM ^
If Valve gets in, I would expect it to be Counterstrike before Dota. Competitive counterstrike is already televised.
January 20th, 2017 at 12:39 PM ^
January 20th, 2017 at 1:02 PM ^
I like watching the people that are watching people play video games.
January 20th, 2017 at 1:10 PM ^
Agree. Sport or not, I have no interest in watching. If I want to live vicariously through others, I'm at least going to make it something interesting. To each his own though.
Playing video games-fun. Watching others play video games-no thanks
January 20th, 2017 at 12:58 PM ^
I was hoping that the title was just written in Spanglish and that this thread was not going to be about video games.
January 20th, 2017 at 5:58 PM ^
January 20th, 2017 at 1:37 PM ^
Neither have I until someone posted the thread about it yesterday. I then YouTube'd the game and realized there is a reason I have never heard of - that being because it's some stupid fantasy game. I prefer, for the most part, realistic games, like Call of Duty (though that franchise has sucked balls the past three or four games), Battlefield, Assassin's Creed, and some others.
January 20th, 2017 at 1:34 PM ^
So many Get Off My Lawners here.
January 20th, 2017 at 1:38 PM ^
They should be called "Get On My Lawners" instead since playing inside is apparently frowned upon. We should go outside to their lawns and kick a stupid ball around....because that is supposed to be fun, I guess.
January 20th, 2017 at 1:51 PM ^
Let's just call it eCompetitions and move on (or eComps for short)
January 20th, 2017 at 1:53 PM ^
This will devolve into a semantical debate over "sport" and "athlete".
I consider something a sport if it is an event/game that involves dexterous skill, is competitive in nature, and "hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard".
Cheerleading can be a sport. Bowling can be a sport. Slamball was a sport.
Playing a computer game at that high of a level requires a lot of ability. That ability may not translate well to other "sports", that ability may not be one you place a lot of value onto or would care to have for yourself, but it is ability nonetheless.
The important difference is that players that engage in e-sports are not athletes in the conventional sense; their skill doesn't translate to many other sports and fails to involve strength, endurance, flexibility, explosiveness, etc. While a cheerleader has a lot of physical gifts that correspond to dance and gymnastics, a video game player can't say the same.
All athletes engage in sports. Not all sports involve athleticism. A mental Venn diagram would do us all a lot of good, here.
January 20th, 2017 at 2:00 PM ^
I can tell you're an athlete <ERRRRRR> gamer by looking at your avatar.
By the way, I watch The Walking Dead, but am ready for it to end. Negan is great, though. I also played the Telltale TWD game and it did not entertain me as much as the Game of Thrones one, but that is likely because 1) I am getting bored with TWD show and 2) Game of Thrones is my favorite show by a kilometer. I see they made a sequel to TWD by Telltale and also the Batman game, which I have some interest in. I hope they make another Game of Thrones game. I love how the story of the GoT game is happening basically off screen from the events of the show. That was great.
January 20th, 2017 at 3:02 PM ^
I'm both.
I've played every sport reasonably well except for baseball and hockey. I still play basketball four times a week and I believe I'm a better player at thirty than I was at twenty. To go further into my credentials or measurables or pad level would be Uncle Ricoesque.
It's a major turnoff how this blog can shit on things that a) they don't enjoy, or b) they don't understand. The NBA haters. The Twitter haters. and now the e-Sports pedants.
It's not a bother to the "e-thletes" whether any pseudonymic Michigan posters think their sport is worthy of the title, or think video games are a nerdy waste of time, or don't plan on tuning into the BTN when this League of Legends deal airs. They have a job to do, they have to practice, they have sponsorships to satisfy and acquire, and odds are they enjoy how they make a living!
I'm not a serious gamer at all, I only play Starcraft II and TWD. I haven't had a new console system since the XBox and I only played NCAA 2005 for a summer on that. There are levels of devoted nerdiness I'll never achieve; you won't see me cosplaying or playing Dungeons and Dragons or sitting at a table with a deck of Pokemon cards in front of me, but more power to the people that do.
The Telltale games are amazing. I started playing the first season on my phone and I couldn't believe how far technology has come. The first christmas present I can remember was a Sega Genesis with Sonic the Hedgehog, and here I am a couple decades later playing a 3-D interactive choose-your-own-adventure zombie game while I poop. It's just incredible.
Whether people spend two hours a day reading the news, watching Netflix, or playing a video game shouldn't be a concern to anybody else.
January 20th, 2017 at 5:24 PM ^
"It's a major turnoff how this blog can shit on things that a) they don't enjoy, or b) they don't understand."
Agreed. Kind of sad the way this thread torpedoed into insults :(
January 20th, 2017 at 2:39 PM ^
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January 20th, 2017 at 4:01 PM ^
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January 20th, 2017 at 2:41 PM ^
This doesn't offend me but I just wanted to drop in and say what I said.
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