DirecTV to help create pro league for video gamers along with Microsoft
 

El Segundo-based DirecTV Group said on the 8th of this month that it will lead a team of companies in starting a new professional sports league for video gaming. Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox is a partner in this venture. Other partners include Mountain Dew, Fox Interactive Media and Best Buy.

The Championship Gaming Series, or CGS, will begin next year with gaming tournaments broadcast on the DirecTV satellite service and online with IGN Entertainment, another of the partners in the venture.

The league will be unusual from the general video-gaming tournaments because it will offer a series of ongoing competitions than just gaming events, DirecTV said. Jade Ekstedt, spokeswoman said that this would be DirecTV's first major step into video gaming. She also added that the video games to be used in the tournament were not decided on as yet.

Jim Schaeffler, senior analyst for media and telecommunications at The Carmel Group, described DirecTV's new initiative as ‘brilliant’. "I have teenagers who are very interested in card gaming, and thus become very interested in telecasts of card gaming," Schaeffler said. "By analogy, measuring their level of interest in video gaming, a telecast of video gaming would be more interesting to them than even the World Series of Poker."

"But nothing quite like this on an entertainment level," Schaeffler said of CGS. "The bottom line is it's the kind of thing that will gain and keep subscribers. And when all is said and done, that is the name of their game."

The televised CGS tournaments will use "new technology that takes viewers inside the actual game competitions," according to DirecTV.

Teams nationwide will participate in the tournaments, all vying for the "Dew Cup," sponsored by Mountain Dew. Details of the Dew Cup and the "unprecedented prize money" will be unveiled later this year.

David Hill, DirecTV's president of entertainment, will lead the consortium developing CGS. The consortium will help develop the first three DirecTV gaming tournaments to be broadcast in July. DirecTV portrayed these three tournaments as a "warm-up" for CGS tournaments starting next year.

DirecTV has more than 15 million subscribers, making it the nation's leading digital-television service provider. DirecTV shares rose 48 cents Monday to close at .06 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Direct TV News | Direct TV Articles