Professional South Korean Starcraft League Shuts Down

Well, this is something I thought I'd never live to see: South Korea's long-running Starcraft Pro League, the eSports circuit that perhaps birthed the modern world of eSports, is being shut down.

That's right: professional Starcraft playing, which is one of the three things people know Korea for, is no longer a thing!

There's a lot to unpack here, most of which has been discussed and revealed in a recent statement drafted by the league's current president Jun Byung Hun, which you can find in full on Facebook. But here's the TL;DR version: it's no longer profitable and it has been embroiled in so much controversy that its reputation has been shattered.

The profits are understandable, and tied closely with the reputation: the very first case of match-fixing in eSports happened in the ProLeague, combined with a slew of cheating, flared passions, and hacks, has turned the already tiny league, struggling to find more worthy competitors, on its head. This, of course, means that fewer people have been willing to sponsor it, which has made the league suffer a want of some cash.

Combine all these problems with the rising popularity of League of Legends and Blizzard's own Overwatch, there's just not a place for what was once Korea's #1 online sport.

Following this announcement, the big five professional teams have disbanded their Starcraft branches: SK Telecom, Samsung, KT, CJ, and MVP.

This, of course, is a sad day for eSport fans, but we should keep good cheer... after all, eSports isn't going anywhere, and it'll only be a matter of time before we get even more professional Starcraft 2 action. It just won't come from the ProLeague.

"The end of an era," as they say.