ESPN recognises Halo 5 as an extreme sport: invites teams to X Games Aspen

27 January 2016
ESPN recognises Halo 5 as an extreme sport - invites teams to X Games Aspen

We hope you’ll forgive us for not noticing this little titbit of news earlier, especially after yesterday’s eSports piece. Whoops.

Nevertheless, it’s no less exciting to hear that ESPN now considers Halo 5: Guardians an extreme sport, having invited eight teams to take part in this year’s X Games Aspen.

From January 28th to the 31st, the Halo World Championship Tour: X Games Aspen Invitational 2016 will pit eight teams against one another for a share of the $30,000 prize pool – R492,000 to you and us.

For six North American and two European teams, it’s a fairly historic event. That’s not to say that videogames are now a sport because ESPN said so, we’ve though eSports should have been considered legitimate sports for some time now, but it’s proof that eSports have become too difficult to ignore – something yesterday’s piece will reiterate.

The teams taking part are:

· Epsilon eSports (UK)
· PENTA Sports (Germany)
· Team Allegiance
· CLG
· Evil Geniuses
· Leftovers
· Dream Team
· Team Liquid

ESPN’s stance on eSports is hardly surprising given their recent addition of a dedicated eSports page, or that Twitch regularly gives ESPN a run for its money.

At one point, ESPN’s president claimed that they had no plans to incorporate eSports coverage into ESPN, but that won’t stop us nerds.


Source: ESPN

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