If that was just one too many acronyms for you to figure out, don't worry, it's not as complicated as it looks. That's the Electronic Sports League, an eSports organisation, that's looking to take Valve's Defense of the Ancients two, to Madison Square Garden, for what it's describing as New York's biggest ever eSports event.
Set to take place during New York Super Week, the 10 day festival of culture, media, entertainment and education running between 3rd and 12th October, the event will take over the 5,500 seat Theatre in MSG. This is a large event by eSport standards, though it's dwarfed by the Staples centre showing of last year's League of Legends championship games, which were watched live by over 20,000 fans. MSG can hold up to 18,000 people at a time, so this isn't a main stage event.
However, it's still a big one, which means big prizes. ESL is giving out a $100,000 to the winning team, which could be one of several professionals, or just a bunch of gifted amateurs that make it through the qualification rounds. Details on how to apply and who is confirmed as taking part, will be released in the next few weeks.
“By staging this event at the iconic Madison Square Garden, we're going to see history in the making,” said James Lampkin, Product Manager for ESL One, who also explained that Twitch would be live streaming the event.
If you want to take part or just go and watch, you'll need to be in New York on 9th-10th October. Good luck finding accommodation however, as that's during New York's Comic Con, which rounds out the Super Week.
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KitGuru Says: While I can see it making sense to hold this during a big nerd event like Comic Con, people visiting the conventions are unlikely to go watch DotA 2 instead. They paid a lot of money for those tickets.