After a successful debut as the first esports event on a major U.S. television network, Heroes of the Dorm will be returning to ESPN in April for a second installment.
Heroes of the Storm‘s collegiate event will get underway in just a couple of weeks, and ESPN will be broadcasting the later stages of the event.
Players from 462 different U.S. colleges will be eligible for the Blizzard and TeSPA run event, with $500,000 worth of scholarships on the line. Open online qualifiers will start on Feb. 20, with the top 64 teams entering the finals bracket on March 19. The early rounds will be broadcast on ESPN’s digital platform, ESPN3, as well as Twitch and YouTube.
The semi-finals and final will be broadcast live on ESPN2 on April 9 and 10.
The 2015 event was the first major Blizzard-run Heroes event, and was also the first esports event on a major U.S. television network. The final was won by Cal Berkley, led by renowned StarCraft player Conan “Suppy” Liu. The star of the team was Fan Yang who was quickly snapped up by Cloud9—and went on to win the inaugural Heroes World Championship with that team, becoming one of the most decorated players in the game to date.
The original broadcast was broadly considered a success for the game and esports as a whole. With ESPN now establishing its own esports vertical earlier this month, it’s clear that was no fluke.
