ESPN3 to Stream BlizzCon’s Esports Championships

$750,000 in prize money — more than Xander Bogearts made this year and more than twice as much as Anthony Rendon made —  is up for grabs this weekend at BlizzCon. The annual expo put on by video game developer Blizzard Entertainment, BlizzCon, marks the start of the weekend’s world championship matches and for the first time the games will be live-streamed to ESPN3 as well as Twitch.TV. BlizzCon starts today and has been long host to championship world finals for Blizzard from StarCraft II to World of Warcraft. This year the company has also included their new latest project, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, and posted a total prize pool of a $250,000 for each game.

The ESPN3 schedule was tweeted out yesterday afternoon and will include an impressive array of viewing options for all three games today, starting at 12:45 eastern.

According to ESPN3’s schedule, they will also show the  matches leading up to and including the grand finals for each game tomorrow.

If you happen to be interested in more than the in-game action, there is the option to purchase the virtual ticket for BlizzCon, granting access to Q&A panels, exclusive previews and the ability to re-watch sections at a later date for the people who are too busy to sit and watch a stream for 10 hours.

Given ESPN’s recent backing of esports with their partnership between MLG and the X Games it should be no surprise to see even more events being streamed via ESPN3. With the general acceptance of esports rapidly growing — including professional players getting not just student visas to stay in the United States, but full on athlete visas — and the increased ease of access to live games via streaming services, expect more esports events to be shown to a wider audience.