Why aren't video game matches on TV yet?

One of the top 5v5 teams has become one of the first groups of WoW players to become professional gamers– Curse reports that CheckSix Gaming, an e-sports agency (or should that be promoter? sponsor?), has picked up ZERG IT DOWN as the first professional 5v5 arena team (one of the first actually, see Update below). CheckSix also sponsors Counterstrike, Call of Duty, and BF1942 teams, and while they say they were skeptical Blizzard would be able to make WoW a part of “eSports,” the arena system is what put it over the top– it provides a quantifiable way to determine which team has the better players.

Was just reading over on WoW Insider that a few 5-man arena teams are now sponsored and it made me wonder why we aren’t seeing competitive video games on TV yet. It’s obviously coming, but when? Are there not enough people interested in watching? Does that mean that there are enough people interested in watching half the other crap that’s on TV currently? There are a number of professional gamers and gaming teams that make a living off tournament winnings so clearly there’s some serious money being put into it. There must be dozens of games out there with communities large enough to have an active, competitive community. I give it 2 years before there’s a channel dedicated to it or ESPN has some sort of coverage. Lucky headshots clearly deserve a place in the SportsCenter Top 10.

Also, I just noticed that the OGL is still around and is sporting the exact same website design they were when I was a member back in 1999.