The Korea e-Sports Association (KeSPA) is a South Korean body established to manage esports in South Korea. It is a member of the

Korean Olympic Committee The Korean Sport & Olympic Committee (, Abbr.: KOC) is the National Olympic Committee of Republic of Korea (competing as Korea) for the Olympic Games movement and inbound sports issue. It is a non-profit organization that selects players and ...

and the International e-Sports Federation. , it was the managing body for 25 e-sports in the country, including '' Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void'' (excluded in 2016), ''

League of Legends ''League of Legends'' (''LoL''), commonly referred to as ''League'', is a 2009 multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by '' Defense of the Ancients'', a custom map for ''Warcraft III'', ...

'', '' Dota 2'', and '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive''. KeSPA also hosts the

KeSPA Cup The KeSPA Cup ( Hangul: 케스파컵) is an annual esports event organized by the Korean eSports Association. As of the 2021 edition, the tournament is organized for '' League of Legends''. Until 2016, the tournament was also organized for '' St ...

, a yearly tournament event for some of their games.

History

The early years of KeSPA

KeSPA was founded in 2000 after the approval of the

Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) is a central government agency responsible for the areas of tourism, culture, art, religion, and sports. It has two vice ministers, three assistant ministers, one commission, and ...

. Its official goal is to make esports an official sporting event, and to solidify the commercial position of esports in all sectors. The organization manages the broadcasting of e-Sports, the formation of new events, and the conditions in which

pro gamer Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...

s work, as well as encourage the playing of

video games Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedbac ...

by the general population. In 2008

SK Telecom SK Telecom Co., Ltd. ( or ) is a South Korean wireless telecommunications operator and former film distributor and is part of the SK Group, one of the country's largest chaebols. It leads the local market with 50.5 percent share as of 2008. ...

was given the leading position on its board, effectively making Seo Jin-woo the organization's president. KeSPA regulates broadcasting by e-sports television channels such as

Ongamenet OGN (formerly known as Ongamenet) is a South Korean pay television channel that specialized in broadcasting video game-related content and esports matches, particularly '' StarCraft'', ''Starcraft II'', ''League of Legends'', and Overwatch. OGN ...

MBC Game MBC Game (Korean: MBC 게임, 엠비씨 게임) was a South Korean specialty channel, specialty television channel owned by MBC Plus Media. The channel primarily broadcast's programming related to video games, but it, along with its competitor Ong ...

GOMtv GOM Player is a media player for Windows, developed by GOM & Company. With more than 100 million downloads, it is also known as the most used player in South Korea. Its main features include the ability to play some broken media files and find ...

, and

Pandora TV In Greek mythology, Pandora (Greek: , derived from , ''pān'', i.e. "all" and , ''dōron'', i.e. "gift", thus "the all-endowed", "all-gifted" or "all-giving") was the first human woman created by Hephaestus on the instructions of Zeus. As Hes ...

, as well as 23 e-sports journalists and over twelve e-sports teams. Additionally, they have created a rankings system. On May 11, 2012, after a slew of announcements from KeSPA regarding the transition between '' StarCraft: Brood War'' and ''

StarCraft II ''StarCraft II'' is a military science fiction video game created by Blizzard Entertainment as a sequel to the successful ''StarCraft'' video game released in 1998. Set in a fictional future, the game centers on a galactic struggle for dominance ...

'', it was announced that they would be partnering with

Major League Gaming Major League Gaming Corp. (MLG) is a professional esports organization. MLG is headquartered in New York City, New York and was founded in 2002 by Sundance DiGiovanni and Mike Sepso. MLG has held official video game tournaments throughout the ...

, a US-based esports organization to send KeSPA players to MLG events. On October 27, 2014, KeSPA, alongside Riot Games and

, issued a press release stating new policies directed toward the welfare Korean professional esports players. Some of the major changes include a minimum salary for professional esports players that is competitive with popular traditional sports, and setting a 1-year minimum for contracts between players and teams starting in the 2016 season. There were also many ''League of Legends'' specific changes that include limiting companies to have a minimum of one team with 10 players per team, and beginning a shift from tournament to league format for Korean Worlds qualifiers. A 2016 article in

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

said that KeSPA reported that it would shut down its Starcraft ProLeague. The article said that KeSPA chairman, Jun Byung-hun, said that they were shutting down their Starcraft ProLeague due to fewer ProLeagues and players, problems getting sponsorships and problems with match-fixing.

2008 intellectual property dispute with Blizzard

In 2008, a slump in the distribution of e-Sports media was caused in part by the fear that video game developer

Blizzard Entertainment Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded on February 8, 1991, under the name Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three gradu ...

would demand royalties from KeSPA, because of their

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...

rights. In 2010,

announced that negotiations were going poorly, and that they would only allow GomTV to broadcast Blizzard games. KeSPA responded saying that they will challenge Blizzard's intellectual property rights. However, soon after,

, a gaming television station, announced that they will negotiate with GOMtv, which Newhua news speculated would lessen KeSPA's power. In May 2011, the dispute was finally settled, allowing

(OGN) and Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) to officially broadcast ''

Brood War ''StarCraft: Brood War'' is the expansion pack for the military science fiction real-time strategy video game ''StarCraft''. Released in December 1998 for Microsoft Windows and June 1999 for Mac OS, it was co-developed by Saffire and Blizzard E ...

'' games.

2010 match-fixing

In April 2010, eleven ''Starcraft'' players were implicated for match-fixing during the 2009 e-Sports season. The Sanction Subcommittee of KeSPA banned them from playing e-Sports in the future, and those implicated are due to be charged in criminal courts by KeSPA, as well as professional gaming teams. Along with progamers, the owners of over twelve illegal gambling websites, and former players and staff members will be charged. It is alleged that players were bribed to leak information, or lose games, allowing owners of the illegal gambling site to obtain huge profits. There was an outcry in Korea following these developments.

2015 match-fixing

A 2016 article in Kotaku said that two KeSPA players,

Lee "Life" Seung-hyun Lee Seung-Hyun ( ko, 이승현) is a former professional ''StarCraft II'' player from South Korea who played Zerg under the alias Life. His last team was Afreeca Freecs, which he joined in January 2016. He also played for StarTale and KT Rolster. ...

and Jung "Bbyong" Woo Yong, were indicted for match-fixing along with seven other people. The article said that "Life" who was one of the most dominant ''

'' players in the world was charged with receiving 70,000,000 won (about US$62,000) for intentionally losing two

matches in 2015. A 2016 article in Kotaku said that the tournament where "Bbyong" intentionally lost a match was GSL Season 1 in 2015.Zacny, M. (2016). Match-Fixing Report Shows How Gambling Has Ruined Korean StarCraft. Kotaku. Retrieved March 24, 2017, fro
link.
/ref>

Notable teams

CJ Entus OGN Entus is a South Korean esports organization with teams competing in '' Clash Royale'' and '' PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds''. It formerly had teams competing in ''League of Legends'', '' StarCraft II'', ''Warcraft 3'' and ''Special Force 2 ...

KT Rolster kt Rolster is a South Korean multi-gaming organization founded in 1999 with Korean Telecom as the head sponsor. A member of the Korean e-Sports Association, KT Rolster holds one of the richest and most successful ''StarCraft'' teams in the worl ...

Samsung Galaxy Samsung Galaxy (, stylised as SΛMSUNG Galaxy since 2015 (except Japan where it omits the Samsung branding), previously stylised as Samsung GALAXY; abbreviated as SG) is a series of computing and mobile computing devices that are designed, m ...

SK Telecom T1 T1 (previously known as SK Telecom T1 or SKT T1) is a South Korean esports organization operated by the T1 Entertainment & Sports, a joint venture between SK Telecom and Comcast Spectacor. At the end of 2003, SK Telecom took the StarCraft Team O ...

* DRX

References

External links

* {{authority control Esports governing bodies Sports organizations established in 2000 Sports associations Esports in South Korea Government agencies of South Korea