The future is still only in South Korea
I thought the future was here, but apparently that isn’t the case. Heroes of the Dorm, the Heroes of the Storm collegiate tournament, failed to pull viable numbers on ESPN2, having an average viewership of 96,000 people. This means Heroes of the Dorm was the third-least-viewed program on the network Sunday, failing to pull more viewers than Bassmasters Elite Series, a fishing tournament. Yup…
For even more comparison, the previous Sunday time slot has 313,000 viewers on a rerun of the 30 for 30 documentary about Bo Jackson. Ironically, Bo Jackson is no stranger to videogames, having been in the NES classic Tecmo Bowl and Bo Jackson’s Hit and Run as well as more recent games like Madden 15.
While it was one small step for eSports becoming mainstream, I wouldn’t count on that happening anytime soon.
Heroes of the Dorm ESPN2 Overnight Rating only 0.1 despite high Social Media activity [reddit]