Esport under Construction: The U.S. Builds New Venues
The real battlegrounds for esport in the U.S. are under construction to meet the needs of gaming tournaments. A huge number of esport leagues, teams, and other ventures increase with fucking intensity every year, requiring more and more physical locations for in-person events.
World-famous building and architect companies are joining the gaming boom to offer their services to the tournament organizers. Such ambitious building projects in U.S. include:
· 3,500-seat Fusion Arena that costs $50 million and belongs to Comcast Spectacor (Philadelphia Fusion of the Overwatch League also belongs to them).
· Sponsoring of the new Allegiant Stadium by Twitch streaming platform (belongs to Amazon).
· Building of esport arenas in malls by the “fresh” partners Allied Esports and Simon Property Group.
Created for Esports
Brian Esposito, vice president of partnerships for Spectra (sales agent of Fusion Arena) mentions, that they dedicate their building to esport enthusiasts. Moreover, all seats will be turned to the main stage, in contrast to the traditional sport arenas, to make it as much convenient as it’s possible. Nice one!
Fusion Arena
The venue will be located in the Philadelphia Sports Complex, designed with a futuristic metal look (resembling awesome Mercedes-Benz Stadium), including the huge entryway, premium loges, and training blocks. In addition, the whole space of the arena will have dozens of LED screens.
Brian Esposito along with his team are trading naming rights to attract brands as potential sponsors – as it is typical of traditional sports. Despite the fact that the venue will be opened not before 2021, Spectra plans to find partners as soon as possible to stimulate the premises design elaboration.
It is planned to build the largest esport arena in the Western Hemisphere, kicking asses of already existing ones in the U.S.: Full Sail University’s Fortress Esports Arena, Orlando; Allied Esports’ HyperX Esports Arena, Las Vegas; Esports Stadium Arlington, Texas.
Streaming – it’s not for douchebags
Full of beans streaming platform Twitch is trying to attract sponsors for the Raiders’ new Allegiant Stadium. It will include a branded lounge both for esports and traditional sports events. It’s the first experience of such kind for Twitch, so it is faffing to share detailed info.
Allegiant Stadium, Photo Credit: Allegiant
Doug Scott, CMO of Twitch, said that the Stadium will have a lot of screens and streaming stations. They do their best to satisfy their community, and the next step will be to become a founding partner at Allegiant Stadium to show their deep love to sport to the audience. However, they don’t give a clear answer, whether they are going to build out more physical spaces in other locations or not.
Transformation of the Malls
The titanium in real estate business turns to esport competitions to reinvent its properties.
Simon Property Group, “Big Daddy” and the largest American mall operator, invested $5M into Allied Esports, an infrastructure company for esport. They will build several physical platforms in malls for competitive gaming.
The Westfield North County Mall in Escondido, Calif.
Sam Hodgson | Bloomberg | Getty Images
For Simon, it will be an awesome opportunity to spice up the malls’ atmosphere to attract more people, flow of whom has reduced because of the online shopping tendency.
Creating the physical touchpoints will stimulate active players’ community to become influencers in spreading the info about the malls.
Frank Ng, Allied CEO, claims that building locations for the esport industry is still at its infancy, but it is an absolutely fucking perspective business.