The announcement for the Starcraft II Open's first season has been made, and the prize pot looks quite enticing for any player.

Coming straight from Bangkok, Thailand, this tournament will have live studio audience and will also be streamed online. They will be using a service called Advection, because Justin.tv is banned in some countries, this will allow them to reach on a more global scale.

Tournament sign-up will begin on May 15th for professional players to enroll, and then following that in June other players may sign-up for the remaining spots. The final form of the tournament will be a single elimination with seeding, in a standard tournament format for 32 players. There will also be 2 showmatches between the players that the viewer base would like to see play most.

The big catch with this tournament is what the major sponsor, eSports TV Thailand, is planning for this tournament. They are looking to have more audience participation to keep the viewers interested in more than just watching games. As before mentioned, they will have the opportunity to vote on the showmatches, as well as random polls, quizzes and things of that nature. This won't be fruitless though, because they plan on giving prizes that will include HD vouchers and coaching lessons, as well as other prizes not disclosed yet.

32 players will compete over the course of 11 days from August 8th to the 19th, all playing for a piece of the $100,000 US prize pool. First place will take $50,000, Second will grab $25,000, third and fourth will snag $8,000 and places 5 through 32 will get $500.

According to the tournaments Twitter page, professional team Incredible Miracle is lined up to play. The casting will be done by Ben 'Benji' de Ridder, a popular caster in the Southeast Asia area, starting his career in 2004 in Command and Conquer. He returned for Starcraft II on release.

HD Tickets will cost $9.99 US while medium quality stream with ads will be free to all. There are also talks of a slightly more expensive 3D service as well.

Links
http://sc2open.tv - Starcraft II Open's website
http://twitter.com/#!/SC2Open - Starcraft II Open's Twitter

Starcraft II Open Season 1