Must-See TV
Competitive gaming is must-see TV, CNN says.
According to Youtube's global head of gaming content Ryan Wyatt, six of the top 10 most viewed channels in the US are gaming-centric. Youtube's most popular personality is PewDiePie, a guy who films himself playing a variety of video games. He has more than 45 million subscribers. For context, Justin Bieber has only 21 million. Take that Beliebers!
Other impressive eSports stats: eSports' global audience is expected to surpass 427 million by 2019 and Twitch (the popular online streaming site) gets more than 100 million unique views every month, with each person watching an average of 106 minutes daily.
ESports Integrity Coalition launches
Last week, we wrote about how the UK created an official governing body for eSports -- British eSports Coalition. Well, it appears it's not the only governing body in the UK. The ESport Integrity Coalition also launched last week with the aim of becoming "the recognized guardian of the integrity of eSports." In short: it wants to prevent, investigate and prosecute all forms of cheating in eSports -- from match fixing to doping.
(How much Mountain Dew do you need to drink for it to count as doping?)
Manchester City signs 18-year-old eSports player
Manchester City FC recently hired Kieran "Kez" Brown, an 18-year-old competitive gamer to represent the soccer club at eSports tournaments and fan events. He'll be specializing in FIFA 16, the league's video game produced by EA Sports.
Lucky bloke!
ESPN boosts it's eSports coverage
ESPN is giving a big boost to it's eSports coverage. The network will be airing 18 hours of eSports programming on ESPN2 and ESPNU this Sunday, July 17th.
The programming will start at 10am ET with re-airings of past tournaments and matches. It all leads up to the 2016 Street Fighter V EVO World Championship final at 10pm ET on ESPN2. The programming will also be available on WatchESPN.