ESPN2 MtG Schedule

[Griffith_se]

ESPN2 to air all Magic PT and
WorldChamp Events

Wednesday, June 07, 2000

Reported by Various Readers (thanks to all!)
Source: WotC Press Release

WotC announced that starting today, ESPN2
will be airing all the Pro Tours, as well as the
World Championships. Look inside for the
air times.

Here is the complete press release, the air times
are listed within:

June 5, 2000 (Renton, Wash.)-Wizards of the
Coast Inc., a subsidiary of Hasbro Inc.
(NYSE:HAS) and makers of the Magic: The
Gathering® and PokémonTM* trading card
games, announced an agreement with 24-hour
national sports cable network ESPN2 to begin
televising the 2000 Magic: The Gathering Pro
TourTM season, starting with Pro Tour-New York
and including the U.S. Nationals and the World
Championships.

ESPN2 is scheduled to broadcast nine shows in
the year 2000 beginning in June of this year.
Since 1997, ESPN2 has only covered and aired
the Magic® World Championships.

"ESPN2 viewers for the first time will have the
opportunity to follow their favorite Pro Tour
players throughout the entire season and watch
how top Magic players become World
Champions," said Brian Kemp, Visual Media
Group, Hasbro Inc. "ESPN2's coverage will focus
on the Pro Tour players' unique strategies,
in-depth deck preparations and what it takes to
become top professional players of the game."

ESPN2 sports network will begin airing
30-minute programs on June 7, 2000. Programs
will cover the Magic: The Gathering trading card
game Pro Tours, the new team challenge at Pro
Tour-New York, U.S. Nationals and the World
Championships. Two 60-minute programs will be
produced from the World Championships in
Brussels, Belgium. The first segment will consist
of individual tournament play while the second
segment will cover team tournament play.

"The full-season coverage will give our top Magic
players the opportunity to showcase their skills in
front of a national viewing audience," said David
Hoppe, director of Organized Play for Wizards of
the Coast. "Magic fans will watch top players like
Bob Maher Jr., Mike Long, Jon Finkel and Kai
Budde compete during the Pro Tour season and
see exactly what type of strategies they use to
win."

The Magic: The Gathering events will air on
ESPN2 beginning with Pro Tour-New York on
June 7, 2000, 2:30-3 p.m., followed by U.S.
Nationals on July 7, 2-2:30 p.m.; World
Championships on September 6, 1-2 p.m., and
September 29, 1-2 p.m.; Pro Tour-New York on
October 24, 1:30-2 p.m.; and Pro Tour-Chicago
December 20, 1-2 p.m. All times are Eastern
Standard Time.

With an estimated fan base of more than six
million players, the Magic game is played in
social and competitive settings, including the
prestigious $1 million Magic: The Gathering Pro
Tour circuit. Played in more than 52 countries
worldwide, the Magic game is supported by the
DCITM players' organization, the governing
authority for all officially sanctioned Magic
tournaments. Helping both amateur and
professional Magic players track their rankings,
the DCI players' organization currently sanctions
more than 60,000 Magic tournaments around the
world per year.

Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro Inc.
(NYSE:HAS), is the worldwide market share
leader in the trading card game and tabletop
roleplaying game categories. A leading
developer and publisher of game-based
entertainment products, as well as the owner and
operator of one of the nation's largest specialty
game retail chains, the company holds an
exclusive patent on the play mechanic of trading
card games (TCGs) and produces the world's
best-selling Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering
TCGs. The company's retail locations, many of
which provide game-play areas, include a
growing number of Wizards of the Coast®
specialty game retail stores as well as 53 The
Game Keeper® stores. Headquartered near
Seattle, Washington, Wizards of the Coast has
international offices in Antwerp, Paris, Milan,
London and Beijing. For more information on
Wizards of the Coast, visit the company's
website and electronic retail store at
http://www.wizards.com.

posted by DG

[Edited by Griffith_se on August 28th, 2000 at 01:11 PM]

 

[Gumby Khan]

That's so cool that Magic will get TV coverage. I know it's only ESPN2, but you gotta start somewhere. I read an article once in Duelist or somesuch that projected a day when people all over the world would watch the Magic World Championship. Sponsors like Pepsi and Nike would be prominent on Pro-players' jer-zees. Old people would sit in Barber shops and talk about the good old days, when individual players would make up nasty combo's that couldn't be stopped, not like the young punks of today, who have whole R&D teams testing out possibilities on super computers! Anyhoo, I thought that was so far-fetched at the time, it was almost a farce. That was only two years ago...now it's a reality. Magic on TV, and not some news clip about how some idiot, bible-thumper thinks it's a form of devil-worshipping! Sick of seeing that. Well, that's my 2 cents.

 

[Griffith_se]

Just wanted to bring this back to the top.

 

[rkoelsch]

But these times are killers. I could set the VCR but my wife watches other programs at that time. And try as I might I can't get her to change channels by TV and not cable. Oh well. they should web cast them.

 

[Cateran Emperor]

I said it before and I'll say it again, GIVE IT A BETTER TIME SLOT. There's no way I can see this except for taping it. Give it a better time, or can ESPN2 not afford to lose that day's Fly Fishing/Drag Racing/"X-Games" coverage. Just for ONE day, is it so much to ask?

 

[Volradon]

I just hope that the coverage will be better then it was last year...

Volradon

 

[Firestorm]

Yes, It definatly needs to be aired at five or six cause us younuns have school, and aren't they supposed to be attractin new players?

 

[Phydomir]

Can you watch espn 2 somewere on the internet?
living in Europe can be hard