MLG's Spring Championship - an eSports Benchmark

Major League Gaming's Spring Championship took place this past weekend in Anaheim, California and it is being seen as a major benchmark in the eSports world. eSports like Starcraft II are well known for being extremely popular in the east (specifically South Korea) but is being more recognized in the west, with the MLG Spring Championship being a big step in that process. With millions of viewers showing up and tuning in (MLG shows 4.7 million unique online viewers with a peak of 437,000 concurrent views, 20,000 live spectators, and a total of 5.4 million hours of video watched.) even well-established Korean Broodwar players like Flash and JaeDong have stated that this event is more than what they are used to.

"I got to talk to Stork, Flash, JaeDong, SoulKey, Bisu among others and unanimously everyone has said that the hype here at MLG and in America surpasses what they see in Korea... When I asked them to compare this to them playing in Korea in front of their stadiums, in front of the air hanger, on the beach when there were like 10,000 players there... because they were all Broodwar players and are so used to those large crowds... they still say that the crowds at MLG and in Anaheim have blown them away compared to what they have experienced in Korea." Slasher from GameSpot.com

That is such a huge statement coming from these players because these guys are the stars that see the biggest crowds in Korea and even they are saying that this event is more impressive. MLGs success may have been due not only to Starcraft II (and the fact that Korean Broodwar legends were going to be competing) but also to other eSports games like League of Legends, Mortal Kombat and Soul Caliber V. Even with big eSports titles like Halo being dropped from the MLG event, the outcome was bigger than ever. This is big news for the development of eSports here in America.

I had the pleasure of watching several of the Starcraft II matchups and it was very competitive and entertaining. Several matches that went to the third round were nail-biting (yes, even eSports can be nail-biting). The most memorable for me was Stephano's loss to MarineKingPrime (MKP), Sase's victory over Stephano, and then of course the final of DongRaeGu (DRG) vs Alicia. It was awesome to see a Protoss player make it all the way to the championship round. I even enjoyed DRG vs MKP, even though DRG beat him 2-0.

The results of the Starcraft II championship are as follows:
1st: DongRaeGu (South Korea)
2nd: Alicia (South Korea)
3rd: MarineKing (South Korea)
4th: Sase (Sweden)

And the results of the KeSPA exhibition championship:
1st: Flash
2nd: Bisu
3rd: SoulKey / JaeDong

You can check out the results of the championship bracket here: MLG Spring Championship Results. These guys really are on a different level and I'm looking forward to more events like this one.