This morning GOMtv announced that, in an effort to help grow eSports in the foreign community, it will be holding the GSL October Finals in Anaheim at Blizzcon.
In a post made by GOMtv’s Mr.Chae, the manager of the GSL stated: “Lots of people have made requests about it through Twitter and when I went to MLG Columbus, I came to believe that holding GSL final outside of Korea would be an excellent idea.” He went on to say, “I hope GSL becomes a festival for all the e-sports fans around the globe. I don’t want StarCraft 2 to become an e-sports title like SC BW which was excluded to people inside of Korea.”
This is obviously a huge event for western eSports, but it will be a monumental task for GOMtv. As Mr. Chae says in his post, “The decision was not easy to make. This will be our first time and therefore a great challenge for us to send our staff to produce and transmit from overseas. But it is worthy of a challenge for GSL and something that must be done at some point.” Good thing GOMtv is partnered with Blizzard, who will be “providing us assistance with GSL’s first oversea final.”
This is obviously a huge deal for Western eSports. Anybody who followed Brood War would tell you that the idea of a Korean League holding its finals in the U.S. would be preposturous. I guess this shows that with StarCraft II we’ve entered a new era of progaming, an era that focuses on eSports as a global movement.