Professional StarCraft

The real time strategy (RTS) computer game StarCraft had an active professional competition circuit, particularly in South Korea. The two major game channels in South Korea, Ongamenet and MBCGame, each ran a Starleague (Ongamenet Starleague, MBCgame Starleague), viewed by millions of fans.

Starting in about 2002, pro-gamers started to become organized into teams, sponsored by large South Korean companies like Samsung, SK Telecom and KT. StarCraft is also the most popular computer game competition during the annual World Cyber Games thanks to its Korean fanbase, and it is overall one of the world's largest computer and video game competitions in terms of prize money, global coverage and participants.

Over US$4,000,000 in prize money has been awarded in total, the vast majority of which comes from tournaments in South Korea. For several years after the release of StarCraft II, competitive StarCraft: Brood War was no longer televised. However, in early 2015, the game returned to Ongamenet's televised lineup.

Throughout the establishment of the Starcraft II pro-scene, the GSL and WCS formats became the main avenues for top tier individual competition, with WCS "points" replacing Elo scores for assigning yearly rankings. Proleague was limited to a team-based format, with the most recent version being the SK Telecom Proleague, consisting of the 8 Kespa teams of South Korea competing. As of 2015, the World Championship Series (WCS) was the main format for the Starcraft II 1v1 pro-scene. The top-16 ranked players qualify for the ultimate end of year tournament at Blizzcon, with the winner being crowned world champion.

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Wikipedia