It also marred the opening of the championship game of the Confederations Cup, a soccer tournament viewed as a dress rehearsal for the World Cup, which Brazil is set to host in 2014.
In short, games are becoming a spectator event, both through content streaming, and through the rise of e-sports, professional gaming tournaments viewed by millions across the world.
There had been gaming tournaments and the like beforehand, but by the early millennium, Starcraft and its expansion Brood War had professional teams playing in televised leagues and tournaments viewed by millions – at what was perhaps the game's peak, the 2005 Pro League Final filled a 120,000-seater stadium in Busan.
Bradley Dredge says Wales' leading golfers are desperate to win the home tournament they view as a fifth major.
Even that transfer of funds, which allowed a group of children in the club to travel to Westfield and participate in a table tennis tournament, was viewed by many of Ms. Venning's supporters as benign.
Player's Lounge also has an online platform, which allows players to sign up for tournaments and view leaderboards and rankings.
Despite that, Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas - who won the competition with Porto in 2011 - has said he could not understand why the tournament was viewed as a punishment in England.
Negreanu has started to view tournament footage the way football coaches do game tapes, tracking his findings on Excel spreadsheets.
Among his findings: at colleges with teams in the N.C.A.A. men's basketball tournament, library patrons view 6 percent fewer articles a day as long as the team is in the tournament; on the day immediately after a team wins in an upset or a close game, library use plunges by 19 percent.
Six months ahead of the first match of the 2014 World Cup — Croatia vs. Brazil, on June 12th in São Paulo — the shape of the tournament zoomed into view on Friday with the much-hyped televised draw that determines the fixtures of the contest's opening-group stage.
