In a Jan. 16 Today’s News item, an esports arena was announced to be opening in March. What in the world is an esports arena?! Is this a spectator sport and what can we expect from it?
In a nutshell, e-sports, short for electronic sports, is competitive video gaming. And yes, it’s a spectator sport, played by professional gamers in front of what can be arena-sized crowds.
The Millennial Esports operation in Neonopolis opened downtown in March 2017 in a 15,000-square-foot arena with stadium seating for 200 spectators, plus the competition area that can accommodate another 500. As you can imagine, it’s one of the highest-tech environments in the city, with three miles of CAT (Ethernet) cable, one-gigabit Internet speeds (100 times faster than average), a major video wall, live streaming for players with a following (Twitch.tv is a live-streaming platform owned by Amazon that’s dedicated to esports), and a studio for hosting ESPN-style webcasts.
A second esports arena is opening at Luxor in March in the space that formerly housed LAX nightclub. It’ll be the first permanent esports venue on the Strip. At 30,000 square feet, it’ll be twice as large as Millennial Esports, though in all our research, we couldn’t find a single mention of the number of seats for spectators.
However many there’ll be, both these venues are tiny compared to the largest arenas and stadiums in which esports tournaments have been played, such as London’s Copper Box Arena, where the Gfinity 3 event attracted 4,000 fans, the KeyArena in Seattle, where the Dota 2 International hosted 10,000 fans, and the Staples Centre in L.A., with the League of Legends World Finals contested in front of 12,000 fans. But South Korea has the most rabid esports fans in the world; in the Sang-am World Cup Stadium in Seoul for the League of Legends 2014 World Finals, 45,000 tickets sold out almost immediately.
The Vegas venues tend to host smaller events for lesser-known esports, such as Halo and Madden 17, rather than the major events like League of Legends, Rocket League, and Super Smash Bros.
Esports are most popular with 18- to 34-year-old males (85%) and same-age females (15%). In 2017, upwards of 100 million people worldwide watched esport live streaming. The number of major events has mushroomed this century, from 10 in 2000 to nearly 300 over the past few years.
Whether or not esports are a “real” sport is a matter of disagreement and a topic for some other forum, but the organization committee for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris is currently in discussions with the International Olympic Committee about incorporating esports into the Olympics. Both cite the need to try to keep the Olympics relevant to younger generations — the same reason, certainly, that a second arena, though minor in size, will open in Las Vegas soon.
