In South Korea they already had Starcraft academies, where they would give out scholarships to talented players, and practice for hours each day. Also they already had tv channels showing Starcraft games back then, I'm sure they still do all that :) Actually I just found an announcement, that there will be a Broodwar remake with polished graphics soon:
Look at the scene at 00:16 and you'll see what I'm talking about, SC BW was a monster :)
I remember watching Broodwar - but i guess this was in a 'late stage' 2005-2006-ish?, never really played it though. I have some friends who are pretty good in SC2, most notably Harste. Still enjoy watching some matches ever now and then, gaze at the skill people have haha. I know it was big in Korea! Looks so cool those vids :)