Sky has partnered with FACEIT to broadcast the ongoing CS:GO London Major. The tournament, which has a total prize pool of $1 million, is currently underway, with Minor and Challenger stages taking place last week. The tournament sees top teams competing in “the biggest esports event to take place in the UK to date,” according to a recent press release.
Sky Sports is one of the leading broadcasters of traditional sports in the UK, and is responsible for showing many Premier League football matches, as well as Formula 1 and most of the England team’s international cricket matches, across a selection of channels. The partnership will be the first time that Sky Sports has ever broadcast competitive Counter-Strike.
Sadly, you won’t be able to watch the live event on the television. From September 20-23, viewers will be able to check out live broadcasts of the finals on Skysports.com, as well as via the Sky Sports Facebook page and YouTube channels. There’ll also be an exclusive hour-long documentary showing off the road to latest major.
If you do want to catch some Counter-Strike on your TV screens, you’ll be glad to know that highlights of the finals will be broadcast on Sky Two, after the event at 23:00 BST. If you’d prefer to stick with Twitch, however, you won’t be alone – a press release says that fans watched 20 million hours of the tournament during last week’s Challenger stage alone.
This won’t be the first time esports have been shown on one of the UK’s national television networks. Earlier this year, BBC Three broadcast the Dota 2 Birmingham Major, while several years ago, the same channel broadcast various stages of League of Legends’ Worlds 2015.