The Edge - Volume One

The real estate of eSports Watching video games is not just a home experience for fans. Increasingly large-scale events are setting live attendance records. The Intel® Extreme Masters 2018 World Championship events 8 in Katowice, Poland, recorded 169,000 in-person attendees, which represents a small drop from the 173,000 spectators at the 2017 events. The same league puts on large annual events in Sydney, Shanghai and Chicago. The Chicago event is held at the WinTrust Arena, which is where the WNBA’s Chicago Sky and DePaul University’s men’s and women’s basketball teams play their home games. Most competitions are currently taking place in stadiums that are multipurpose venues for sporting events and concerts, such as the aforementioned Overwatch League championship at The Barclays Center. However, dedicated eSports arenas are popping up around the world.

The city of Arlington, Texas, home to both the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers, has begun construction on the $10 million eSports Stadium Arlington, in a redesign of its convention center. The 100,000-sf arena has seating for 2,000 spectators, which makes it the largest U.S. eSports arena, surpassing Blizzard Arena LA in Burbank, Calif., which seats 450 fans.

tourist and shopping area that also boasts luxury residences, high-quality office buildings and fashion flagship stores. On the southwestern side of China, the Zhongxian eSports stadium in Chongqing is opening this year as part of a mixed-used development. Alongside the 7,000-seat eSports arena will be a luxury hotel, exhibition space, food and shopping options.

Theme parks have the space, technology and capital to create environments where players experience games in very interactive ways.

A second Blizzard Arena in Taiwan sits in the high-rent Da’an District right at the center of Taipei. It has a capacity of 200 to 250 for events, and its on-site store and game demo area are open daily for visitors. It fits well into the

Opportunities also exist for eSports to serve as a secondary use of existing real estate. Gfinity ESports Australia and the Hoyts cinema chain have partnered to install eSports arenas in movie theaters around Australia.

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