The ‘sport’ of StarCraft attracts sponsors as heavy weight as the likes of Samsung. There’s big money to be made here. This is a newly branded StarCraft plane to show you that they certainly aren’t short of a bob or two:
Almost half of the world’s versions of StarCraft have been sold in South Korea (4.5 million out of 9.5 million in 2010). In 2005 120,000 people crammed into a stadium to watch the cream of the crop play live. 120,000! And I don’t mean they just watched it on telly, I mean they actually went to watch the players do their thing on the big screen. Completely bonkers.
The picture above shows the sorts of turn out you can expect at South Korean major tournaments. The players even get groupies. Can you imagine computer nerds getting hot groupies in this country?
Even the Korean Airforce has its own team, built in an effort to help good players continue their practice during the two-year compulsory service they have to complete in South Korea. But apparently they’re not that good, firstly they are way too old (averaging 27) and secondly they can’t commit to the 10 hours a day 6 days a week practice that it takes to stay in tip-top shape. Here’s what they look like:
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