Twitter streams its first eSports tournament this weekend

Twitter is expanding beyond traditional stick-and-ball streams and moving into the lucrative eSports realm this weekend. As part of a partnership with Eleague and Turner Broadcasting, the microblogging service will air two days of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive play from Atlanta. The action starts today at 5pm Eastern with semi-finals. Eleague's end-of-season championship play starts Saturday afternoon at 4 Eastern with two teams going head to head in a best-of-three series.

Of course, streams on Twitter or Twitch won't replace this weekend's traditional broadcast on the TBS cable network, but will serve as a different venue for a much different audience than TV. It's a bit surprising that this will be the first time Twitter has streamed eSports, but hey, everyone has to start somewhere.