A lot of Rocket League fans were upset this past week, after the RLCS Season 9 Worlds Championship sold out of tickets in only a few hours. Some took this news as a win for Rocket League, since the fan base was energized enough to sell out an arena.

The RLCS World Championship just sold out in HOURS.



Gotta love those tier 3 esports and their crazy fans — FLuuMP (@fluumpy90) February 22, 2020

However, a close examination of the circumstances paints a less flattering picture of the RLCS organizers (aka: Epic Games). The Curtis Culwell Center will be the venue for the RLCS Season 9 Worlds competition, however the Dallas-based arena only holds 6,860 people at most.

Although typically this venue might be sufficient for an esport event, it’s not large enough for a world championship event. It turns out the Curtis Culwell Center, though a wonderful venue, is way too small to meet the ticket demands of diehard Rocket League fans looking to attend the largest RLCS event of the year.

For some perspective, the RLCS Season 8 Worlds were held at Palacio Vistalegre in Madrid, which held 15,000 people.

Hey Epic, Rocket League’s esports fan base didn’t magically shrink since last year.

The need for dedicated esports venues continues to rise as esports itself continues to grow. In the future, esports events will likely be hosted in esports venues, rather than seeking to retrofit random, sometimes even non-sport, venues.

Every major esport seems increasingly interested in larger events, both due to demand and because there is a lot of money to be made through live event ticket sales, concessions, and other sources of revenue. This begs the question: Will there be dedicated esports venues in the near future?

The Esports Boom is outpacing its infrastructure

Esports audiences have grown quickly in recent years. A decade ago, game developers started turning their eyes toward the esport potential of some competitive games. Esports have been around since the 1970’s, growing massively throughout the 1990’s with games like Warcraft and Starcraft in Korea and games like Doom and Quake in America. Since that time, esports have grown exponentially each year, creating more demand and profit than ever before.

In 2020, esports is a billion dollar a year industry.

Along with the growth of esports comes the demand to scale live events. A decade ago, live audiences might have been in the hundreds, now they are in the tens of thousands. The larger size of the audience limits potential venues – combined with the limitations of esport competition schedules – makes it very difficult to organize such tournaments in 2020.

Sports have faced similar scaling challenges in the past. Professional sporting stadiums have gotten bigger and bigger over the past century, in a bid to sell more tickets and involve more fans. When I was a kid, the Cincinnati Reds and the Cincinnati Bengals shared one stadium. I went to that stadium once when I was four. Soon after, that stadium was demolished and replaced with two stadiums. The Reds now play at the Great American Ball Park (42,319 seats) and the Bengals play at Paul Brown Stadium (65,535 seats).

Those stadiums are for just Cincinnati sports.

The difference between scaling infrastructure in esports and traditional sports is the public support. Both Cincinnati stadiums were heavily subsidized by the taxpayers (to the chagrin of my parents). I doubt Eeports organizations will be able to convince local governments to subsidize dedicated esports arenas, but I have been wrong before.

Currently, most esport events are hosted at sporadic arenas and event centers around the world, rather than dedicated stadiums. The need to find various event centers introduces a lot of difficulties when it comes to organizing and scheduling events in the ever expanding esports market.

The Overwatch League has made inroads with a diverse set of stadiums, concert halls, and other event centers to host their 2020 homestands. These halls vary from 1,200 all the way up to 15,000 person capacities. The LCS 2019 Summer Finals were held at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, a venue that holds as many as 22,000 people.

Although scheduling with these general-use venues has been an essential step for making esports events available to larger live audiences, the future of esports is in dedicated arenas. It’s a big investment, but if traditional sports can tell us anything about the return on investment, it will increase the amount of revenue gained per fan.

Currently, according to JP Morgan, the amount of revenue made in esports is around $5/year per fan. In comparison, the NBA ranges from $15/year to over $100/year per fan according to Forbes. This comparison isn’t ideal, since the NBA is a specific organization and JP Morgan examined esports more broadly, but the point is that – on average – franchised sports make more money from their fans than esports do.

Live events are a big driving factor in increasing the amount of revenue made per fan, which is probably why franchise leagues with regional focused partners are quickly becoming the norm in esports. I am not saying everyone needs a dedicated esport arena, but I do think they are going to start showing up over the next few years.

Do you think esports need their own dedicated arenas? Definitely, it will help the industry grow 75%, 9 votes 9 votes 75% 9 votes - 75% of all votes

Nah, not enough interest from the general public 25%, 3 votes 3 votes 25% 3 votes - 25% of all votes Total Votes: 12 Voting is closed Poll Options are limited because JavaScript is disabled in your browser.

What does a dedicated esports arena look like?

The production on esports events has developed a very unique aesthetic. The events often feature neon lighting, large LED screens and walls, and programmed light displays. In some ways, esports events remind me more of a concert than a sporting event. Dedicated esports venues can better serve the needs of esports and its audiences than many traditional event venues.

Lights! Cameras!… LED screens!

Ideally, a dedicated arena would capitalize on the “gamer aesthetic” which video game companies have carefully cultivated over many years. Installing permanent LED screens and versatile lighting rigs would give the arena a significant amount of flexibility to host a variety of esports, from Dota 2 to Rocket League and beyond. Flexibility is essential, especially when multiple esports could, in theory, be hosted during the same tournament.

Dedicated arena spaces allow for more advanced production techniques. Cameras can be rigged on lines or on cranes in a semi-permanent fashion, so as to allow for advanced camera movements while covering live events. Excellent camera work combined with incredible live graphics actually won Riot Games a sports Emmy back in 2018 for their coverage of LCS worlds in Beijing. Imagine what they could do with an arena expressly created for the purpose of covering and hyping esports.

What’s the wifi password?

While wi-fi is somewhat important in traditional sports venues, the internet is essential in esports. Players typically play on LAN connections, so the internet won’t affect the game, but it can affect the broadcast depending on the broadcast workflow.

The vast majority of esports are streamed online, making internet connections essential to sharing the event with the thousands or millions looking to watch online. The Esports Stadium Arlington is outfitted with a one gigabyte (not bit, byte) line, to ensure that events always have the bandwidth they need to succeed. The network experience for temporary events like ESL or Dreamhack is infamously inconvenient to set up. A dedicated arena would solve a lot of headaches for a lot of people on the network front.

Breakout Sound stages, isolation booths, and other nerd things

Another way that esports arenas could serve esports better than traditional arenas is by providing a variety of smaller sounds stages which can host games as well. The Blizzard Arena in Los Angeles only hosts around 450 people, which is an appropriate crowd size for small group stage matches. Smaller stages enable multiple games to happen at once, which is ideal for a tournament format where not every match is a main event worthy of the main stage.

Having isolation booths available can also be a really helpful part of an esports tournament. Depending on the esport, crowd noise has been known to interfere with player decision making, especially in FPS games like Counter-Strike. Ideally, isolation booths would be an optional amenity, since not every production team needs to lock their teams in a small glass booth during gameplay.

Lounge areas can also be a really nice feature for esports venues. There are some limited lounge areas available at traditional sporting events, if you toss the correct number of coins at your witcher; however, lounge areas are even more important for esports events which often happen over the course of a couple days and involve dozens of matches. Sometimes people need a break from screaming “Crunch Time” from the live audience. Providing on-campus activities or areas to relax in can enhance fan experiences and expand event revenue opportunities.