For The Very First Time, Astro Will Be Broadcasting The International DOTA 2 Championships
The event will be held from the 4 to 9 August 2015.
By John Lim — 30 Jul 2015, 05:57 PM
For the very first time, Astro will be broadcasting The International Defence Of The Ancients 2 (DOTA) or TI5 on Astro SuperSport Plus Channel 808 and Astro On The Go from 4 August to 9 August. The event will be held at Key Arena, Seattle Centre.
With such popularity, it's no surprise that TI5 is one of the most lucrative eSport competitions around
TI 5 is easily the most lucrative eSports tournament in the world. With the prize pool funded by sales of in-game items on Steam, it breezed past the $10 million (RM38 million) mark in 2014, and this year, the prize pool has surged past $17.65 million (RM64 million). It’s fair to say that this tournament has almost single-handedly reignited interest in the global eSports scene.
lowyat.netFor years, fans of the game and competition have tuned in to the competition through web streaming or YouTube videos. So, this broadcast by Astro is a huge step for the eSport industry.
With over 10 million players worldwide, DOTA 2 is one of the most played multiplayer online games in the world
More than 10 million people now play Dota 2 (at the time of this writing, exactly 10,313,855 players), making it one of the most popular online games in the world. Within its genre, Dota 2 is only surpassed by the insanely successful League of Legends, which at this time last year had around 67 million people logging in each month.
theverge.com
But the broadcast wouldn't happen if not for the persuasion and persistence of local fans. They did everything - from spamming Astro's Facebook page...
... to an online petition
Although the petition didn't hit the goal of 10,000 signatures, it surely made a point - how desperate local DOTA fans are.
It all paid off! Fans are in for a treat because Astro's TI5 offering is a big one. Viewers will be able to enjoy 8-hours of live matches daily and exclusive content on Astro and Astro On-The-Go
In addition to the live coverage, viewers will be able to get behind the scenes and follow the progress of Team Fnatic, our local Malaysian team that'll be participating in the competition
Datuk Latt Shariman Abdullah, president of eSports Malaysia has some positive things to say about Astro's broadcasting of the event
"We would like to thank Astro for taking the lead to bring eSports through the mainstream media reaching out to all Malaysians. At eSM, we hope that this coverage will ignite more interest amongst the gaming community as well as for sponsors to invest and be part of the e-Sports Industry in the future." said Datuk Latt.
Head of Sports Business at Astro, Lee Choong Khay said Astro is honoured to be the first broadcaster in the South East Asia region to offer live eSports telecast
…e-Sports is now enjoying booming popularity and we believe that the championship will be a big hit with over 10 million gamers in Malaysia.” said Lee.
malaysiandigest.com
