BlizzCon 2011 will host the October season finale of GOMtv's excellent South Korea-based StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty professional league the GSL (Global StarCraft II League), Blizzard Entertainment has announced. This comes in addition to Blizzard's regular BlizzCon tournament, the Global Battle.net Invitational.

Both competitions will be streamed for free online, requiring only a Battle.net account to get in on the fun. This will be the first time that the GSL finals venture outside South Korea, so hopefully the travel won't affect finalists too much.

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Earlier this week, it was revealed that Blizzard had filed a lawsuit in South Korea against MBCPlus Media, which operates the MBCGame television network and airs professional StarCraft: Brood War leagues and tournaments.

Now, Blizzard has sued OnGameNetwork (OGN) for broadcasting an unauthorized Brood War league. (translation via TeamLiquid.net). The situation is a bit different from the MBCGame lawsuit because OGN had successfully negotiated for a broadcast sub-license from Gretech for a previous competition. Read more »

Back in May, Blizzard signed an exclusive deal with Gretech in South Korea to carry and sub-license broadcast rights to its games including StarCraft: Brood War and StarCraft II. Companies that had been running Brood War tournaments and broadcasting them were required to negotiate terms with Gretech in order to continue legally, according to Blizzard and Gretech.

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If you're looking for some StarCraft II tournament action, this is your friendly reminder that the first month-long GomTV GSL tournament has begun in Korea. If you're up for staying up late, a low-quality stream is available for free during the matches. Subscribers gain access to a high-quality stream.

After the games are played, archived VOD versions of the games are also posted. The first game of each match--best two out of three at this stage--is available for free, while subscribers will get game two and three (if needed). English commentary is provided on all videos by Nick "Tasteless" Plott and Daniel "Artosis" Stemkoski. Read more »

GomTV has announced the formation of the Global StarCraft II League (GSL) (via TeamLiquid.net), which will be run by the South Korean company and is open to players of all nationalities, though the initial tournaments held in 2010 and all of the finals will take place in Seoul, South Korea.

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Blizzard may have just dealt the deathblow to the Korean eSports Players Association (KeSPA) and existing professional StarCraft leagues in South Korea. The company has signed an exclusive broadcast deal (via TeamLiquid.net) with Gretech-GomTV, which will be the only company licensed to broadcast leagues, tournaments, or gameplay for all Blizzard games.

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