On national Chinese television last week, Xinwen Lianbo (新闻联播), the official Chinese government-sanctioned nightly news, reported that DOTA 2 would be part of a national esports tournament from the 20th of June (if I have got my Chinese right). They showed footage of the game, and remarked that a Chinese national esports team would be selected from the players in the tournament. According to Dotaland, no other game was referred to by name.
More details have come to light: specifically, the tournament will be hosted by the Zhejiang Daily Newspaper in conjunction with the e-sports broadcaster Gamefy.
According tosgamer.com,a Chinese gaming website that Google translate has totally mangled on your behalf, DOTA 2 is now OFFICIALLY GOVERNMENT ENDORSED, which would be kind of awesome if the Chinese government didn’t have such a terrifying reputation. One wonders what Valve did to deserve the endorsement of the only world superpower that thinks the best way to slow down the birth rate is to say “just have one child, children are like Trebor Strong Mints, just one is enough to last you ages” and then forcefully make sure everyone obeys it.
DOTA 2 appeared on this official news broadcast, where the endorsement was announced. Dotaland translate the voiceover as:
“In five days, a National Esports Tournament, held by Zhejiang Daily Corporation, will incorporate competition in five different internationally-recognized games, including Dota 2. From across China, some 180 schools and over 200 clubs/societies will have teams participating. Over the course of 300 matches, which will be streamed live, there will be an estimated 3 million spectators across all competition. This will be the largest scale esports competition to be held domestically within the past five years. And through this competition, there will also be a selection for a Chinese national esports team to take part in further international competition.”
According to the lovely people at sgamer, “Everything will be simulcast live across various digital platforms — including negotiations for live feeds to broadcast television, as well as official Chinese Administration of Sport support (with further details of national team selection to come later on).”
Of note is this little snippet, which states “the State Sports General Administration to promote next year eSports league system”. The State is officially endorsing the league next year, too, and overseeing it.
You can get Google to translate this news slightly awfully here.