Starleague started out as a program on Tooniverse, following the immense popularity of StarCraft in Korea, and the success of broadcast-gaming on other Korean channels.

[citation needed] Recently in the related Proleague finals, 120,000 fans came out to watch the match between SK Telecom T1 and KT Rolster.

Pro gamers are organized into teams supported by major Korean firms, and prizes, contracts, and endorsements are now huge in comparison to even 3 or 4 years ago.

Starleague became so popular that it began to attract several foreign players, including Elky (Bertrand Grospellier) from France and Grrrr... (Guillaume Patry) from Canada.

Prize money by this time was more than double the amount in the 2001 Coca-Cola championships, and regular games started to attract more people, with a refurbishing of the Ongamenet studio.