Blizzard and GOMTV Strike a Deal

In a fomos.kr post translated by a user over at TeamLiquid.net, an official announcement of a partnership struck by Blizzard Entertainment with Gretech Corporation's GOMTV has been published.

On May 26th, 2010 it was announced that Blizzard Entertainment and Gretech Corp. made a partnership agreement which will see Gretech's popular internet streaming service, GOMTV, gain exclusive rights to broadcasting e-Sports matches of Blizzard games. This will include StarCraft II, Broodwar, WarCraft 3, and World of WarCraft matches along with any expansion pack to follow these titles.

This announcement comes several weeks after KeSPA released an official statement in response to comments by Mike Morhaime in an interview with Korean news outlet Yonhap news. These comments stated the end of negotiations with KeSPA over the intellectual property rights of their games and thus many were left to speculate what was to happen with e-Sports broadcasting in Korea.

Blizzard and Gretech are no strangers with each other. Blizzard has held many tournaments in the past on GOMTV for various Blizzard titles. Previous tournaments for BroodWar were the Averatec Intel Classic tournaments and the Norton Antivirus GOMTV World Invitationals for WarCraft 3.

With the release of StarCraft II this July 27th, GOMTV plans to host tournaments as well as a Ladder Tournament in cooperation with Blizzard. There are also said to be plans for a Global StarCraft II league, a World Championship, and clan battles as well.

This partnership will not come as a surprise to some with the previous relationship that they have had together. This move will no doubt cause some restructuring in the Korean e-Sports broadcasting industry as it seems gaming channel outlets MBC and OGN are out of a major flagship video game to broadcast.

Another issue that is up in the air is that of professional gaming teams in BroodWar. Previously GOMTV BroodWar tournaments came to a halt due to the unified embargo of players from the tournaments by teams which were under KeSPA. The fate of these teams remain uncertain as they are closely tied with the fate of KeSPA itself.

Links
TeamLiquid.net - Source
Fomos.kr - Source (Korean)
GosuGamers - Blizzard and KeSPA break talks