After coordinating on WCS America Season 1 and careful consideration, Major League Gaming has decided to transition away from operation of WCS America and refocus its efforts on producing its own eSports competitions. MLG's next major event will be the Spring Championship in Anaheim on June 28-30. The event will feature StarCraft II as a WCS Tier 1 competition with $25,000 in prize money and a 128-player open bracket, offering an opportunity for local American StarCraft II talent to test their skills against proven, world-class progamers.

MLG will continue to produce the WCS America Season 1 competition through the end of Challenger League and Up/Down matches, which will conclude on June 21.

The operation of WCS America Season 2 will transition to the North American Star League (NASL). To assist with the transition, Blizzard's experienced internal staff, many of whom are veterans of the IGN Pro League, will operate the online portions of WCS America Season 2 — these include the Qualifiers, Challenger League, and the Round of 32 events of Premier League. NASL will operate the offline events of WCS America Season 2, including the Round of 16 action and WCS America Season 2 Finals. NASL will then take over full operations of WCS America from Season 3 this year, through the end of 2014. From a scheduling standpoint, the transition will be seamless to players and viewers, and matches will continue to broadcast from the same WCS channels on Twitch.

“We’d like to thank MLG for helping us launch the 2013 StarCraft II World Championship Series. After some discussion, both organizations agreed that redistributing our efforts would help benefit the overall eSports ecosystem,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard. “We’d also like to thank the NASL for partnering with us to operate WCS America for Season 2 and beyond. We look forward to working with them to continue elevating professional StarCraft II eSports.”

For more information about the WCS and a full Season 2 schedule, please visit the new Blizzard eSports website at http://www.starcraft2.com/wcs.

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