FOX Sports Will Be Broadcasting Australian Counter-Strike This Saturday (And Next Week)

While the VAC authentication errors might be frustrating fans of the game and organisers of this weekend’s $55,555 Crown Invitational, the community can take solace in one note: the fact that FOX Sports, one of Australia’s biggest broadcasters of sport, will be televising Counter-Strike: Global Offensive next Tuesday.

There’s been chatter on forums and streams about the prospect of Crown’s CS:GO tournament being broadcast on TV, and now the website has an official listing.

Update: A listing on Foxtel’s page says that the invitational will be broadcast from 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM on Saturday on FOX Sports 1, which you can see below. The remainder of the original story follows.

It’s for the finals of the Crown Invitational and, according to the FOX Sports website just now, people will be able to watch FOX talk about AK-47’s and professional pop flashes from 3:00 AM, next Tuesday.

Some have suggested that the Saturday portion of the tournament will be shown on Fox Sports Now, although I can’t find any listings on the site to confirm.

It’s not the first time Counter-Strike has been shown on Australian TV, though. News channels covering the World Cyber Games have tangentially shown footage of older versions of Counter-Strike in the background, and the ABC produced a documentary about Australia’s WCG representatives in 2002, iCHOR, showing some behind-the-scenes footage of their efforts in South Korea and interviews talking about the growth and status of eSports back then.

But it will be the first time Counter-Strike matches have been broadcast in full. It might not be the first broadcast of a full match — that honour would go to Channel 7 and the A*MAZING kids game show, which often displayed kids facing off one-on-ones in various games (including Tetris, Nigel Mansell’s World Championship and the fly-swatting mini-game from Mario Paint).