Millions Invested In Array Of Esports Formats, Venues In Las Vegas, Making Sin City A Gamer Co-Hub With LA
By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
LVSportsBiz.com photos by DANIEL CLARK
So, they have arrived, Las Vegas’ newest conquering heroes.
Let’s just say they have varied backgrounds with one commonality — they’re really good at playing video games.
“It’s the future of sports. All the kids are into technology,” video gamer Austin Weisler told LVSportsBiz.com in late May when he joined dozens of other millennial video gamers at a weekly video game competition called the H1Z1 Pro League at the Caesars Entertainment Studios off Koval Lane behind the Strip. “Every company wants a young audience.”
HiZ1 is a league with a battle royale format at the Caesars arena-style venue, which hosts something called the “Twin Galaxies Sports Arena” and its circular stage with 75 gaming screens.
Another video gamer in the H1Z1 Pro League, a 27-year-old former stuntman named Grant “Aladdin” LaBelle from Clearwater, Fla. was at the “tailgating” pre-game food truck rally outside the Caesars studio on this Wednesday in late May, swigging the free beer and munching the free food. The tailgate experience marked the halfway point for the inaugural H1Z1 season.
“It’s free. I’m not going to complain,” LaBelle, the 20-something said. “It chills me out.”
The Caesars studio is just one of several esports venues created in Las Vegas by investors who believe esports are the next big thing on the entertainment scene. While NFL and other big-time pro sports mean hefty ticket prices and TV cable bills or special broadcast services, millions of video game fans worldwide watch for free on twitch.tv on the internet and 20-somethings are cashing in childhood gamer skills for $50,000-a-year incomes.
Here in Las Vegas, esports and video game competitions in Las Vegas are the millennials’ entertainment equivalent of the various Cirque du Soleil performances up and down the Strip.
“Gaming is not just happening in your mother’s basement,” said Miranda Charsky, director of esports league at Beverly Hills, California-based Twin Galaxies. “It’s a lifestyle.”
There’s been an esports harmonic convergence of big-name investors like former Los Angeles Lakers player Rick Fox and music event man/DJ/longtime gamer Steve Aoki; hotel-casino-entertainment companies like MGM Resorts International buying into the genre; and a global democratization of video gaming realized through the internet making the competition as accessible as you can in the entertainment world.
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Today, LVSportsBiz.com visited the Aria’s PokerGO Studio, which is hosting a weekend launch party/ exhibition match this weekend of 16 four-person gamer teams, split from the U.S. and Europe and vying for $100,000 in prize money in the PUBG invitational event Saturday and Sunday.
Las Vegas-based ESP Gaming put on the gamer series kickoff for competition that begins in the fall, with ESP poised to now produce monthly events with UFC-style cards of gaming competitors and teams. The gaming series that begins in the autumn will be called the World Showdown of Esports — or WSOE. The card-style esports events will be a different format than the bracket-based tournaments you see in the industry.
ESP built out the 10,000-square-foot gamer space at Aria with a boutique touch and is designed to give the video gaming experience a VIP feel, said Jeff Liboon, ESP president.
ESP’s sister company is Poker Central, which had a relationship with the Aria to re-purpose the former art gallery space into a small gamer venue that opened in May and will complement MGM Resorts International’s much bigger Esports Arena in the nearby Luxor hotel-casino. Poker Central puts on known brand events such as the World Series of Poker.
Liboon doesn’t see ESP Gaming’s new gaming venue competing against MGM Resorts’ esports arena because of the different sizes of the venues. Liboon said the studio can accommodate 150 in an audience.
Liboon said a local Las Vegas family he declined to identify is bankrolling the ESP Gaming initiatives, calling it a “significant investment.” About 15 t0 25 ESP Gaming workers will staff the match-style cards once they begin the autumn.
Liboon didn’t know how long the new World Showdown of Esports would last. “We want to build a high-quality product and build a community around it,” he said. In March, ESP Gaming produced a Mountain West Conference esports event as part of the Mountain West basketball tourney at Thomas & Mack Center.
While the HiZ1 Pro League charged admission, there won’t be paid tickets for the ESP Gaming’s “WSOE” events.
Liboon and ESP’s VP of Marketing Matt Grabowski are based in Seattle, while ESP’s public relations contact, Morgan Kaminsky, is in Las Vegas.
The new ESP Gaming series is part of a growing esports scene in Las Vegas that will include a company called Foundry IV partnering with MGM Resorts International to create something called “New Sports” that would expand videogame platforms to the casino floor for contests that would resemble poker tournaments.
Julien Benichou of Foundry IV contacted LVSportsBiz.com to discuss this “New Sports” concept and cited its partnership in a press release with MGM Resorts International.
MGM Resorts’ Lovell Walker, executive director of Interactive Gaming Development for the hotel-casino giant, said in a press release that this “New Sports” concept will “inspire growth” at MGM Resorts. Here’s Walker’s statement:
LVSportsBiz.com asked to speak with Walker and was introduced to him in an email. But despite the fact there was a press release released on this New Sports idea, an MGM Resorts International public relations representative declined to allow LVSportsBiz.com to talk with Walker.
Here’s the start of the release:
Keep in mind, MGM Resorts converted a club into the esports arena at the Luxor hotel-casino. The arena hosted a hockey video game competition when the National Hockey League held its annual awards show in Las Vegas last month.
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