CGS announces second season North American schedule

The Championship Gaming Series has officially announced its schedule of events for the 2008 North American season.

The second CGS season will kick off on March 7-9 in Austin, Texas with the North American Combine and Draft, featuring the best gamers from the US and Canada vying for a spot on one of the six North American teams - Los Angeles Complexity, New York 3D, Chicago Chimera, Carolina Core, San Francisco Optx and Dallas Venom.

"Last year, CGS revolutionised competitive gaming by launching the only worldwide professional gaming league and creating groundbreaking television programming distributed to a worldwide audience," said CGS Commissioner Andy Reif.

"This year CGS will continue to build on this momentum with plans to further expand our television distribution and also amplify our online initiatives to give our fans even greater access to the league."

The six North American teams will commence their competition in April and continue until mid July. Live coverage of the regular season on DIRECTV's The 101 starts June 23 and continues until the North American Final on July 14.

During its inaugural season last year, the CGS drafted 18 teams on five continents and crowned the Chicago Chimera as the first ever CGS World Champions.

"When we announced the launch of CGS two years ago DIRECTV made a commitment to bring the phenomenon of competitive gaming viewership to a critical mass, and from the astounding results of the 2007 season, we believe we are on our way to achieving that goal," said Steven Roberts, senior vice president, new media and business development, DIRECTV, Inc.

"The television audience from the World Final has truly exceeded our expectations and proves that CGS is popular programming that attracts more than just core gamers, especially in the key male demographic of 18-34 yrs. We are proud to be a part of history in the making and we canât wait to see what the 2008 CGS season brings us."

CGS events are broadcast to more than 350 million viewers by DIRECTV's The 101 in the US, BSkyB's Sky One, Sky Two and Sky HD in the UK, ESPN STAR Sports in Asia, Sky in Brazil and Mexico, and DIRECTV throughout the remainder of Latin America and across Continental Europe via broadcast partners.

In the coming weeks, details will be announced regarding CGS' international schedule, the World Final, official Draft rules for each region and the official slate of the league's 2008 Games.