ESL Brawlers and ESL Speedrunners are coming to Disney

Esports programming is becoming a norm on television these days, and while most of it focuses on the popular esports titles, two new series are coming to Disney XP in dedicated slots to gaming. These two new shows will be ESL Brawlers, starting today (July 20th), and ESL Speedrunners, which begins in August reports ESL.

The shows will be short at first, starting with a six-episode series pitting the some of the most skilled Street Fighter V players against each other in ESL Brawlers. The players will take part in a “first to 10 match” challenge, and each week the defending challenger must hold his throne in a “king of the hill” style tournament. According to the report, the show will feature some familiar names in the SFV community including Victor “Punk” Woodley, Bryant “SMUG” Fenton Huggins Jr., Kenneth “K-Brad” Bradley, and Martin “Marn” Phan. Brawlers won’t only be about Street Fighter V with a final (seventh) special episode featuring the mobile hit Vainglory, putting community influencers against professional players in a showmatch.

Following the success of programs such as Games Done Quick (GDQ), a speedrunning series dedicated to pushing the boundaries of our favourite titles, will also form a part of the original programming coming to Disney XP. Speedrunning is an interesting competitive esport, one that takes ingenuity and an extensive, intricate understanding of a game. Speedrunners will test players’ abilities to run through a game in the quickest time making it more a challenge as opposed to the showcases of skill we’re used to in GDQ. It’s unclear what titles we’ll be seeing in Speedrunners, but it’s often a nostalgic journey through some of our favourite titles from yesteryear and offers infuriating entertainment as Speedrunners breeze through content which kept us gridlocked for hours on end.

“Creating original programming is one of ESL’s top priorities and we are thrilled to partner with Disney’s D|XP to create engaging content for their audience,“ said Nik Adams, Senior Vice President of Global Media Rights and Distribution, ESL. “We’ve produced really exciting, unique content for D|XP to capture a variety of gaming elements across the cultural landscape, and we look forward to bringing this programming to the community.”

Disney XD is available on Channel 304 on DSTV and the programming will commence from 9PM to 3AM. We’re assuming this is CEST (which is currently the same as South Africa). Brawlers starts tonight, so tune in and enjoy some Street Fighter V.

Like esports?
Check out esports central

Last Updated: July 20, 2017