Staples Center in Los Angeles had success hosting the League of Legends World Championships gaming competition Oct. 4, 2013. (Photo by Staples Center/Bernstein Associates)
Video games started out a solitary basement pursuit, but over the past few years gaming has grown to an arena-filling juggernaut. The latest proof is the upcoming Intel Extreme Master competition slated to touch down at the SAP Center – home to the NHL’s San Jose Sharks – on December 6 and 7. With players from all over the globe, the event will host League of Legends and StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm competitions, with live streaming provided by Twitch.
“I thought for a long time there was potential in this area, I just wasn’t sure what form it would take,” said Jim Goddard, Exec.VP of Building & Business Operations for SAP Center. “When we look at our business, content is king and we’re always looking for new content. Ten years ago I was speculating about the potential for electronic gaming being a spectator event and I just thought there had to be a way to scale this to appeal to a larger participant or spectator group in an arena environment.”
Well, Goddard was right and now the18,000-capacity SAP will be the seventh U.S. host for the Intel Extreme Masters event since the tour started in 2006. It will also be the first ever stand-alone North American event and the biggest one of its kind in a U.S. sports arena.
Fittingly, the show will bring one of the world’s biggest esports events to the Bay Area, which has contributed mightily to the rise of the genre, thanks to the programming power of the area’s digital wizards.
“A promoter we know got us connected with [the Europe-based ESL] and we started talking and they came for a site visit,” said SAP director of Event Booking Steve Kirsner. “Intel, of course, got involved and since the Bay Area has played such a big role in gaming it seemed a natural fit.”
The global broadcast on Twitch is expected to attract up to 4.5 million online viewers, making it one of the most-watched events of its kind this year. ESL bills itself as the world’s largest independent sports brand, with a number of online and offline competitions and offices in Germany, Spain, China, Russia, France and the U.S. The league is also scheduled to host a Dota 2 tournament in the 5,500-capacity Theater at Madison Square Garden on October 9-10.
More than 11,000 fans turned up for the League of Legends World Championships gaming competition at Staples Center in Los Angeles, Oct. 4, 2013. (Photo by Staples Center/Bernstein Associates)
Though it seems like a futuristic endeavor, Kirsner said the setup for the event is not that different from a sporting or music show. “The biggest issue is Internet and bandwidth,” he said. “We will need to create a separate pipe just for this event because we’re streaming it.”
Otherwise, like a boxing match, it is
an in-the-round setup with an expected capacity of 14,000-16,000.
Los Angeles’ Staples Center hosted the League of Legends World Championships gaming competition in October and President Lee Zeidman had one word for the results: “phenomenal.”
After hosting the semifinals in 2012, Zeidman said last year’s massive LOL championship was the most-watched sporting event in history as of that year, with more than 32 million viewers worldwide. “It was broadcast all over the world and the total tickets sold were 11,181, with a drop count of 11,000, so almost everyone who bought a ticket showed up,” he said of the event that grossed $415,000 and offered more than $2 million in prize money.
Though it was a massive undertaking – featuring 18 production trucks, 5 TV trucks and a 32-hour load-in for the huge stage with a massive screen and 218 rigging points above the stage – he said the numbers all added up. The per cap was just under $28, which blows away any regular-season numbers (which average around $4-$5 per) and were up near the $30 per cap for Stanley Cup playoff games.
Setup for the League of Legends World Championships gaming competition at Staples Center in Los Angeles, Oct. 4, 2013, included a 32-hour load in. (Photo by Staples Center/Bernstein Associates)
Michal Bilcharz, director Pro Gaming at ESL, said that setup for the SAP event could take anywhere from two days to a week depending on the venue’s flexibility with load-in. “Speed is king,” Blicharz said of the most important element of the show. “It’s not just our broadcast that relies on speedy Internet, but also the quality of the games that are being played. Our players have often battled their way through intense qualifying rounds to compete on our stages. We don’t want them to be held back by subpar Internet speeds … Generally, we won’t book a venue that offers internet speeds lower than 30mbits, but the faster the better.”
He said ESL travels from event to event with millions of dollars worth of equipment, including its own top-of–the-range TV studio, the behind-the-scenes technology and the computer systems the gamers compete on. “We are very self-sufficient in the sense that … we bring most of our own equipment with us,” he said. “Our portable TV studio, all of the gaming PCs (both on and off stage), gaming booths with air conditioning built in, cabling, even the tables and chairs – all of this is packaged and transported to every event.”
These tournaments have risen so quickly, thanks to growth that Bilcharz described as “explosive,” from live audiences “the size of football teams” five years ago to ones that fill actual football stadiums like Frankfurt’s 2006 World Cup stadium. “What it really comes down to is the fact that gaming is now engrained in mainstream youth culture,” he said of the steep curve. “A growing percentage of young people are spending their free time both playing the games and watching others play professionally.”
SAP was chosen for the Intel Extreme Masters event in part because of its proximity to the Intel’s Bay Area headquarters, but also because of the dense population of gamers in the area.
“It’s part of the reason we’re so confident about filling the [SAP arena],” Bilcharz said. “Speaking of, the SAP Center is a fantastic venue. It meets (and in some cases exceeds) all of our requirements for an event of this kind, especially in terms of size and infrastructure.”
Though it was too early to talk about ticket sales, demographics or possible per caps, Goddard and Kirsner said they expect to draw gamers locally, regionally and internationally by reaching out through ESL’s social media platforms as well as relying on the gamers themselves to spread the word online. The cost to set up an event of this size with full lighting, sound and sets, as well as a trade show-like area is “significant,” but Goddard said it is well worth it.
“We hope this event repeats year after year,” he said.
Contacted for this story: Michael Bilcharz, 011-49-221-880-449-233; Jim Goddard and Steve Kirsner (408) 287-7070; Lee Zeidman, (213) 742-7255