Apex Legends tournament won't air on TV due to recent shootings (updated)

(Image credit: Respawn Entertainment)

Update: The Apex Legends tournament broadcast that was scheduled for this weekend has been delayed, not cancelled. It will be shown on ESPN2 on Sunday, October 6, then again on Tuesday, October 15, and Sunday, October 27.

Original story: The EXP Invitational Apex Legends at X Games tournament was due to be rebroadcast this Sunday, August 11, on ABC, but has now been pulled from the schedule. A letter addressed to ABC affiliates, posted to Twitter by esports consultant Rod Breslau, explains that this was done "Out of respect for the victims and all those impacted by the recent shootings".

The Apex Legends tournament in question took place at Minneapolis on August 2 and 3, and a condensed, hour-long highlight show was planned for broadcast this weekend. It was due to be Apex Legends' first appearance on TV in the US. The letter explaining its removal is dated August 6, two days after the mass shooting in Dayton took place.

The rebroadcast has been shelved in favor of a hockey documentary called E:60 Forever Broncos.

See more
Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.