Heroes of the Dorm didn’t exactly make ratings history, but ESPN’s still happy

E-sports are certainly growing, but they aren’t quite mainstream.

Last Sunday, ESPN2 aired Heroes of the Dorm, a Heroes of the Storm tournament that featured college teams competing against each other in Blizzard’s multiplayer online battle arena game. It received a 0.1 Nielsen rating.  That means 0.1 percent of people watching TV at that time were tuning in. That’s pretty low. According to TV ratings sight Zap2it: Sunday cable ratings, reruns of Law & Order, River Monsters, and SpongeBob Squarepants all beat it. Of course, those are established shows, and e-sports on cable is a new experiment. Market research firm Newzoo estimates that 47.7M people watch or participate in e-sports in North America and Western Europe, but they’re used to watching on their computers.