What was the first game broadcast on ESPN2 as an esports event in 2015?

Heroes of the Storm was the first esports game broadcast on ESPN2 in the 2015 event commonly associated with the network’s esports debut.

ESPN2 aired the Heroes of the Dorm collegiate tournament, a Blizzard-sponsored competition based on Heroes of the Storm. The broadcast was presented as a live sports-style program, complete with commentators, brackets and university teams, and it helped expose competitive gaming to viewers who did not normally follow dedicated esports channels.

The game is a multiplayer online battle arena in which teams share experience and fight across maps with different objectives. That design made it suitable for a collegiate tournament with a straightforward team format.

The broadcast attracted criticism from some traditional sports commentators, but it also demonstrated that esports could be packaged for a mainstream sports network. It should not be confused with ESPN’s later coverage of other gaming competitions.