Mentioned in this article Games: Overwatch

It was Oct. 7 a year ago that fans filed into Blizzard Arena in Burbank, Calif. for the first time, filling the 450 capacity venue to watch the playoffs for Overwatch Contenders Season One.

Built in the 1950s, the revamped TV studio used to be the home of Johnny Carson’s “The Tonight Show,” and was in the process of being transformed into the hub of Blizzard esports.

The event was seen largely as a test run. Blizzard Entertainment was preparing for its highly anticipated Overwatch League that was set to begin play in the winter, and the developer had just recently acquired the four-story facility in September.

However, Blizzard Senior Director of Global Broadcast Pete Emminger said it was almost surprising how easy it was to turn the building into a headquarters for Overwatch esports content.

“It kind of shows how production is kind of this evergreen everlasting thing,” he said. “How they designed facilities to support production in the 1950’s, a lot of our needs are still true today. We need hair and makeup rooms, control rooms, the sound stage, the audience. All of those things were really similar, and we didn’t have to do too many major things.

“We were expecting to do more work than we winded up having to do because the facility worked so well for us.”

Since that first event, Blizzard Arena has hosted the long seven-plus month Overwatch League season and become the home to all six of the developer’s esports franchises.

Credit: Carlton Beener/Blizzard Entertainment

Emminger was involved in the Blizzard Arena project from the beginning, working with the company as a contractor before becoming a full-time employee in February last year. He remembers what it was like moving into Carson’s old stomping ground.

“Moving into an old building … there were fun surprises that were kind of funny,” he said. “There was a door that for some reason when you open the door there was a brick wall behind the door. To this day, nobody understand why. It was a joke. It looks like a Roger Rabbit cartoon or something.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”It looks like a Roger Rabbit cartoon or something.”[/perfectpullquote]

“We constantly found these little things because the of way studios are built. When they’re built over time, people make changes to suit their needs and sometimes cover up what was there. We were finding lots of things.”

Still, Emminger reiterated that the move-in was cleaner than anticipated. The most surprising thing to him over the past year has been how much content the facility has been responsible for producing.

“We have had people working the facility every day except Christmas and New Year’s Day,” he said. “For a lot of people at our other offices, I feel like they forget that, ‘Hey, that StarCraft show at two in the morning, yeah there’s a crew up in Burbank making that happen.’”

More Than Meets the Eye

Emminger still loves every chance he gets to walk inside Blizzard Arena. As it came into existence, flexibility was a key element that Blizzard wanted to instill while running the venue. The goal was to have it support every piece of esports-related content the developer had.

After its first full year, Emminger thinks his project has done exactly that.

“It’s really proved itself,” he said. “We continue to do a really wide range of programming there.”

[perfectpullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“It’s really proved itself.”[/perfectpullquote]

When you watch an Overwatch League broadcast on the big stage with the crowd, the analyst desk, the enormous screen, and all the shining bells and whistles, what you’re seeing barely scratches the surface of what Blizzard Arena truly is.

You don’t see the numerous control and production rooms used to broadcast the matches and generate player interviews during days off. You don’t see the plethora of practice rooms that teams use throughout the week to prepare for their matches. You miss the skybox in the back of the arena where Blizzard Esports Leagues President and CEO Pete Vlastelica takes aspiring team owners in an attempt to woo them into helping the league expand.

Credit: Carlton Beener/Blizzard Entertainment

“If you’re the audience watching, what you’re able to see is actually only about 20 percent of the total facility,” Emminger said. “The other 80 percent has an additional about 100-person staff that does support work.”

Not everything was peachy from the get-go for the venue, however. Blizzard employees are often known for the passion they have for what they do and the positive attitude they bring to tasks. But Emminger wasn’t afraid to admit that early in the OWL season, the group realized there were some things they needed to change about the arena to give it a “Blizzard polish.”

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“If you’re the audience watching, what you’re able to see is actually only about 20 percent of the total facility.”[/perfectpullquote]

From adjusting the security entrances to make the gameday experience more fan friendly to improving concession options to moving around production staff, Emminger and his team are constantly looking for a way keep the facility up to Blizzard standards.

Maybe the biggest adjustment for the arena was what Emminger called a “re-jigger” of the OWL’s four different gameday control rooms. Halfway through the season, the crew used one of OWL’s offweeks to move around the main control, audio, instant replay, and observer rooms.

“After a few months of the season there was this realization that we could sort of make it a lot more efficient and mix up where the people sat based on the workflow,” Emminger said. “We basically switched around a bunch of the tech rooms and … where the tech teams sat.”

No one enjoys moving, especially when it involves the logistical nightmares of switching out technical equipment, but Emminger said the change made for a “really big workflow improvement” during the second half of the season.

Credit: Robert Paul/Blizzard Entertainment

Food for Thought

Blizzard is still looking to make improvements to the arena as it prepares for the second season of its staple esports franchise, and according to Emminger, guest amenities and food options are a key focus.

“When we started, it was very casual snack or grab-and-go food, pre-packed sandwiches and candy bars, and it was just soft drinks,” he said. “Then we expanded into some first step hot food items like nachos, pizza, hot dogs, and we’re still trying to find the right things.”

When fans opt to spend an entire evening—matches generally take place from 4 p.m. PT until 10 p.m. or so—watching Overwatch pros go at it, offering them food is a necessity. Though there isn’t necessarily an expectation of a restaurant-quality experience at Blizzard Arena, as Emminger’s team began expanding food options, fan response was positive.

“Those went over really well with people. So based on that experience, we’re trying to figure out the next things we expand into in terms of growing it. Should we have hot sandwiches?” he said. “It’s not a venue where you have a sit-down table experience so we’re not looking at food at that level, but we’re still looking.”

Credit: Robert Paul/Blizzard Entertainment

Having an Impact

Blizzard Arena isn’t the first of its kind, nor is it the first time Blizzard has dabbled in esports-specific facilities. The publisher opened a 200-seat esports arena in Taipei in April of last year, and Emminger is quick to point out that fan-friendly esports facilities are popping up all over the place in the United States, boasting high-profile investors.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”What Blizzard Arena has done is set up a precedent for what a spectator experience is like.”[/perfectpullquote]

But the impact Blizzard and it’s one-year-old facility have had on the budding trend can’t be ignored.

“Specifically what Blizzard Arena has done is set up a precedent for what a spectator experience is like and that’s one key core model,” Emminger said. “We are starting to see more models where it’s starting to be a social experience.”

Emminger said that 30,000-square-foot Esports Arena Las Vegas is a “really good example” of how an esports facility operator can generate a more consumer-focused experience for fans.

“We have a lot of people coming to us and really looking at what we built and how we built it and starting to emulate that,” he said. “Conversely, we’re watching the market and watching what our community is looking at and what they want.”