By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
The millennial super nova better known as the esports craze stormed Las Vegas Saturday night, as 75 of the world’s top video game players sat in a futuristic-looking circle of computer screens and lights in a gamer spectacle.
It showed that if you raise enough capital — like $38 million in the case of Beverly Hills-based Vision Esports — you can take 15 five-player teams composed of 20 somethings and turn it into a WWE-style battle royal in the shadow of the Strip.
Tonight was the inaugural Las Vegas competition of something called the “H1Z1 Pro League” and the entertainment setting was a massive circular set with in-game announcers perched in the middle; bleachers and a VIP section filled with 580 video game fans drinking Stella Artois in cans; and team founders like former LA Lakers player Rick Fox mesmerized by the big screens showing the video game action.
The setting was a large Caesars Entertainment Studios building along Koval Avenue, with the Strip’s giant hotel-casinos looming as a backdrop. It was called the Twin Galaxies Esports Arena — kind of an answer to MGM Resorts International’s new esports arena that debuted in a renovated club in the Luxor. There’s also an esports venue in the Neonopolis commercial development along the Fremont Street Experience.
The esports phenomenon in Las Vegas comes at a time when the sports industry is exploding here with the Vegas Golden Knights’ historic Stanley Cup run; the Raiders moving to a new domed $1.8 billion stadium that includes a record public stadium subsidy; and a new $150 million Triple A baseball park being built in suburban Summerlin.
Las Vegas has established itself as a North America esports co-center with Los Angeles, as both entertainment hubs are drawing millennials out of moms’ basements of America and branding them as esports “athletes” competing for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
LVSportsBiz.com tried chatting with team investor Fox, but was told by the former NBAer that he was too busy to talk. But LVSportsBiz.com did interview Mike Madden, a game developer of H1Z1 at the Twin Galaxies Esports Arena.
The esports craze is riding a wave because the big-time gamers and fans alike can go online to compete against each other, while an NBA fan would never have a chance to compete against a superstar like Kevin Durant, Madden pointed out.
“They can go home and play against each other,” Madden said. “The fans can play against the pros.”
Gamer and fan Jose Martinez, 19, of Las Vegas said the competition makes it sports and the attraction is that “you can play the same game as they’re playing.”
Madden also liked the evening’s gamer atmosphere, highlighting the “chaos and mayhem” that came with the battle royal of 75 skilled gamers on 15 teams — including Las Vegas-based, Steve Aoki-bankrolled Rogue — going at it during the two-hour competition.
“This is a visual spectacle,” Madden said.
And he made an important point about the marketing of the esports competition by pointing out the players and fans fall in the coveted 21-35 age group.
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Fans paid $15 for general admission to watch the gamers, including many who gave up jobs to compete full-time in this league, Madden said. The gamers are making about $50,000 — $60,000 a year to play video games — not bad income for 19-year-old video players.
Esports is serious money and it’s being driven by legitimate investors such as former Laker Fox and Stratton Sclavos, Vision Esports managing general partner and a former San Jose Sharks co-owner. NFL star Odell Beckham, Jr., New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals are also investors.
You can check out the PR news wire press release on the Vision Esports money raised.
The H1Z1 Pro League rolled out some star power to add pizzazz to the entertainment. Actress Michelle Rodriguez and American Ninja Warrior co-host Kristine Leahy were on hand to serve as hosts and intermission entertainers at the Twin Galaxies Esports Center.
“You want to make it entertaining,” Haley Hey, PR director for Vision Venture Partners. “It empowers them to get out and play videos. Now they’re pros. This validates them. There’s a lot of work in being a pro. True, they’re not sweating but they are pros.”
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