After Dota 2 and TI2 made it onto mainstream Chinese evening news last year, yesterday we saw Dota 2 and an upcoming ‘National Esports Tournament’ reported in on an even greater stage, the Xinwen Lianbo (新闻联播), the official Chinese government-sanctioned nightly news broadcast that reaches every television in the country.

Worth noting:

• Dota 2 is specifically mentioned by name, and in-game footage of the game was shown live to an audience of hundreds of millions
• An esports national team will be selected from the results of this tournament
• No other game was specifically mentioned by name

Watch the broadcast here: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTcxMTgxNjcy.html

Translation of the Dota 2-specific portion of the broadcast: “In five days, a National Esports Tournament, held by Zhejiang Daily Corporation, will incorporate competition in five different internationally-recognized games, including Dota 2. From across China, some 180 schools and over 200 clubs/societies will have teams participating. Over the course of 300 matches, which will be streamed live, there will be an estimated 3 million spectators across all competition. This will be the largest scale esports competition to be held domestically within the past five years. And through this competition, there will also be a selection for a Chinese national esports team to take part in further international competition.”