Months following the phenomenon of "Twitch Plays Pokémon," The Pokémon Company International announced their next national championship tournament will be streamed online via Twitch.

For The Pokémon Company International, it will be the first time streaming their U.S. National Championships, ever. Scheduled for July 4-6 from Indianapolis, fans have the opportunity to compete against fellow players of either the Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG) or "Pokémon X" and "Pokémon Y" video games.

The Twitch live stream will be on specific time frames in order to cover both trading card and video game tournaments. The live stream will start on July 5 at noon EST with the "Pokémon Video Game Swiss Rounds." The noon program will conclude at 5 p.m. for the "Pokémon TCG Swiss Rounds," which ends at 9 p.m.

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On July 6, the live stream will start early at 9 a.m. for the "Pokémon TCG Top Cut and Finals" and conclude at 2 p.m. The "Pokémon Video Game Top Cut and Finals" will kick-off at 2 p.m. and end at 5 p.m.

The decision to live stream on Twitch may be due to the video gaming broadcast network's rising influence on online broadcasting. According to comScore's Video Metric report, Twitch ranked as the top video website in the video games category in October 2013. Twitch also featured the "Twitch Plays Pokémon" series, a multiplayer stream that allows people to insert demands for the Pokémon franchise's Game Boy and DS system games. The stream has generated over 62 million views since its February debut. According to Twitch, the overall website attracts more than 45 million unique viewers and over 600,000 unique broadcasters per month.

The U.S. National Championships is open to all "Pokémon X" and "Pokémon Y" video game players. The TCG participants in the Junior and Senior Divisions require five Play! Points from the current Pokémon Championship Series season in order to compete, and Masters Division players need 10 Play! Points to participate.

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