The final was scheduled for the evening, which allowed the two finalists some rest time.
At the same time, various advertisements could be aired multiple times during this period.
At this time, even if the viewers in front of the television were not happy, they still had to watch these ads to the end, after all, they didn't want to miss this seemingly very interesting esports competition.
Although the mid-game advertisements during esports matches were not yet at the level of the Super Bowl in the United States, the advertising revenue for this first esports event was the highest.
The companies that initially invested only paid relatively small advertising fees but gained considerable attention. They were delighted beyond measure.
However, next year's advertising fees for the competition would probably not be the same.
This first event had already demonstrated the value of esports, and the next event would only be more mature based on the first one.
In the future, Takayuki had many plans.
In his previous life, esports had remained on the fringes for over a decade without truly achieving global influence. Takayuki hoped to shorten this time and believed that having enough buzzworthy topics was the best way to promote it.
The current grand final was a great opportunity.
Takayuki directly woke Bob, who founded Facebook across the ocean.
Facing one of the initial major shareholders, who was willing to grant long-term voting rights to Bob while retaining permanent original shares, and could occasionally provide ideas and creativity far beyond this era, Bob, who was forcibly awakened from his sleep, had no temper at all.
He felt that perhaps only Takayuki in this world could make him do such a thing.
And Takayuki's request was simple: to have Facebook push as much StarCraft content as possible during this period.
Now, Facebook users were already accustomed to casually browsing on the social platform, which had the same magic as being able to watch short videos all day later on.
And Bob only needed to slightly tilt the weight of StarCraft-related content on such a social platform to bring about a terrifying amount of clicks for StarCraft itself.
Of course, this kind of thing couldn't be used often, it was like a super move in a game, it was best to use it only at the most critical moment. Using this super move every day would make it look cheap.
For such a long time, Takayuki had only asked Bob to do such a thing once.
He hadn't even asked for it when Final Fantasy VII was released.
Because he hoped to spread StarCraft to the world more quickly.
In the early hours of the next day, discussions about StarCraft on social networks became more and more numerous.
Originally, the matches in Korea were late-night broadcasts in the United States, watched only by some gamers.
But when morning came, it coincided with the final showdown between Korea and America in StarCraft.
At 7 o'clock on a weekend morning, in an ordinary American family, the child was originally planning to sleep in.
But then the mother's voice rang out.
"Hamlin, get up quickly, your friend is calling you."
Hamlin complained as he struggled to get out of bed to answer the phone.
Why would his friend call him at such an early hour? Don't they ever rest?
However, the phone call only lasted about three minutes, and Hamlin rushed to the living room like he was sprinting a hundred meters, startling his parents who had woken up early.
With shining eyes, Hamlin turned on the TV and continued talking to his friend on the cordless phone.
"Channel six, right? OK!"
He quickly used the remote control to switch the TV program to the sixth channel.
At this moment, the TV was looping interviews with the two players and highlights of their previous matches.
Soon, the commentators passionately exaggerated the match, calling it a showdown of national honor.
Hamlin's father glanced at the program on TV with curiosity and asked, "What's this?"
"My friend said it's an esports program, a game duel."
Hamlin replied without looking back.
He himself was a loyal video game player, especially obsessed with strategy games.
When StarCraft was released, he was the first to buy a copy of the game and played it day and night with several classmates.
They were deeply immersed in this sci-fi and mysterious world of war.
For the first time, he felt like a commander, truly commanding soldiers.
Before playing StarCraft, they only played board games with soldiers.
Before playing StarCraft, they thought board games were the most fun thing.
Even the most popular video game at the time, Final Fantasy VII, was only fun to him for a while before being left aside to gather dust.
But now, his concept had changed with the release of StarCraft.
Now he thought StarCraft was the best thing ever.
Then, when his friend excitedly told him that the world-class StarCraft competition was about to begin, he couldn't remember it even though he had played StarCraft until past five in the morning yesterday.
Youthful energy was vigorous, and even with only two hours of sleep, as long as he knew that the program he most wanted to watch was about to air, he could get up excitedly without hesitation.
And his father was also curious.
He wasn't interested in video games. At nearly forty years old, he was past the age when he would quickly become interested in games, at least it was difficult for him to be attracted to games like Super Mario.
But watching the game screen of soldiers fighting each other on the TV, he also rarely felt a hint of interest.
It could be said that his son Hamlin's obsession with strategy games also had something to do with his father.
When he was young, he was a fervent enthusiast of board games.
Even now, at this age, he would occasionally gather a few old friends to play a game of board game war.
At this moment, the father couldn't help but sit on the sofa, and then casually asked, "Son, is this also a video game? I remember the games you used to play didn't look like this."
"Dad, you're just ignorant. I've been playing StarCraft for months, and you don't care at all. Let me tell you, this thing is really awesome. How about we play a game together sometime?"
"Uh... that's fine."
After all, he was bored recently. If he could have a common topic with his son, he could give it a try.
Moreover, he was indeed attracted by the battlefield confrontation shown on TV.