E-sports (electronic sports) have been around for quite some time. Quake and Counter-Strike were the two most popular E-sports, with online leagues and tournaments with tens of thousands of dollars in prizes. Starcraft is another popular E-sport in Korea where the top players earn over 200k a year! With World of Warcraft growing larger and larger, it was only a matter of time before competitive gaming came to it, in the form of Arenas.
When Blizzard released the first expansion for World of Warcraft (The Burning Crusade) they introduced a whole new aspect of PvP (Player versus Player) called Arenas. Arenas were special locations where organized teams of 2, 3, or 5 faced each other in order to get more gear. Arenas use an advanced rating system, similar to chess, that instantly made it the most competitive part of the game. Teams fought against each other day after day trying to get to the top 10 (out of thousands of teams). Blizzard then announced that they would be hosting a tournament for 5v5, and the top 3 teams from each bracket would be invited. This not only ignited the spark in some teams to climb even further but it also drew interest from many top E-Sport sponsors, such as Pandemic and Check-Six. Now not only were teams competing for a $10,000 grand prize but also to be sponsored by many of the top teams. It was a very competitive tournament, with Power Trip winning and Pandemic coming in 2nd, and really opened the doors for WoW to become an E-sport.
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