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As esports booms across Europe, the Netherlands finds a bigger boost to its repertoire—by airing regular competitive gaming on television. Specifically, the Dutch Dota Championships, from the studio and team of the Dutch Dota League, has made its new weekly Dota 2 competition available on television through an agreement with Fox Sports.
“Both Dutch Dota and [production studio] Inside e-sports are super excited to broadcast our program live on Fox Sports,” the staff told The Flying Courier. “We are super proud and grateful that they give us the opportunity to broadcast DotA to such a well-known sports channel.“
In this league, eight teams compete for seven months, from November 21 until June 23, for a €4.000 prize pool and tickets for WCA 2018 in China.
The staff has high hopes for the teams in such an intimate, if lengthy, series.
“The amount of teams for DDC was restricted to eight teams so that we could have a tournament in which player stories have time to develop,” they explained. “Since the tournament lasts until the end of June we hope that some rivalries can unfold, which would be really cool from a productions standpoint.”
For players not quite up to par for the Championships, the staff also runs the Dutch Dota League, a weekly league for players in the region. Mostly played for fun, DDL has been around for over two years and across five seasons.
The DDC/DDL staff told TFC that the community is small, “but it’s slowly growing.” This online tournament brings in players from the communities of BeNeDotA, a Dota group overlapping Germany and the Netherlands, and DutchDotA.
With the additional presence of some ex-pros of Heroes of Newerth and highly-ranked Dota 2 players, they explained, the League itself became increasingly competitive—“hence why this competition [DDC] is a reality.”
The show-runners hope that airing this competitive atmosphere to a greater audience will help the Dutch Dota 2 scene.
“We at Dutch Dota and Inside esports hope to make esports is more mainstream,” they told TFC. “Esports can be super exciting to watch, and by publishing DotA on Fox Sports, people from other esports or sports may be attracted to give DotA a try, which would help grow the Dutch Dota community.”
The event airs live Tuesdays on Fox Sports 7, 6:00 PM local time (12:00 PM ET), but the event remains accessible via Twitch for non-Dutch (or non-television) viewers via Inside Esports TV.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Some quotes were edited for clarity.]