NASL format released: Open Qualifier/Seed System

From reddit:

We know a lot of people have been wondering what the exact format of the North American Star League is. Well, we’re not going to keep you waiting any longer.

http://nasl.tv/Images/graphLarge.jpg

Getting to the Grand Finals First off, we invited fifty of the world’s best players. They will be divided into five groups of ten players each. Each player will play every other player in his division once per season in a best of three format for a total of nine weeks. After nine weeks, the top two in each division, determined by their win-loss record will advance directly to the Grand Finals.

ESPORTS Drama: KellyMilkies, NASL, and iNcontroL

A lot of things happened in the world of western ESPORTS (requires capitalization, always) this past week. Lots of drama revolving around Kelly, the new Code A caster for GSL; the production value of the recent Jinro versus IdrA show match, and the NASL; and most recently, iNcontroL.  

KellyMilkies

Kelly. If you've been anywhere near TeamLiquid of SCReddit  this past week then you probably know the exact issue. If not, basically, people are unhappy with her casting. The usual complaints are about her accent and how unintelligible she is at times, or her general shortage in in-game knowledge to deliver meaningful commentary. 

As the internet does, some are more calm about it and say she at least deserves as chance; some openly bring on the hate. I dropped by her blog to find hateful comments, and in the most recent State of the Game, iNcontroL mentioned that she has also been getting death threats.

North American Star League Confirmed

NASL.tv

The North American Star League (or NASL, not to be confused with the North American Soccer League) has been confirmed, and it's shaping up to be the biggest Starcraft 2 tournament outside of Korea and the GSL. 

The revelation was made earlier today (GMT +8 represent), after a BO7 hype / show match between Liquid`Jinro and EG.IdrA, with the former walking with $1500 after a 4 - 2 victory. 
 
There's still much we don't know about the league at this time, but these are what we have so far:

• $400,000 prize pool split across 3 seasons (100k, 100k, 200k)
• Main casters: iNcontroL, Gretorp (with occasional guest casters / commentators)
• Will feature 50 of the best Starcraft 2 players split across 10 divisions
• Will not be in Team League format
• 5 players per team, players will be spread across the divisions to avoid team kills
• It will be Season 1 will starting on April 5, 2011 and will last 13 weeks
• Games will be broadcast/streamed on weeknights, with 5 games per night 
• Regular (free) and premium streams (estimated $20 - $25) are available
• Premium members will also receive bonus content, but not much has been revealed at this time

 For more information about the NASL, do check out the interview with iNcontroL at G4TV.