Twenty-two years ago, Columbus welcomed a professional world sport to America with the founding of the Columbus Crew, an MLS charter member. On March 29, the Ohio capital will again invite a foreign-dominated game to catch on in the States: “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.”
For the first time, Major League Gaming will host a major tournament in the e-sport in North America, with preliminary rounds set for MLG studios in Columbus and the final rounds headed to Nationwide Arena April 1-3.
The event is a sellout. More than 7,500 tickets have been sold in a gaming configuration that cuts most of the 18,000 seats normally available for Columbus Blue Jackets games. MLG is trying to add 500 seats in the final weeks to meet demand. General admission seats are $45, and a VIP pass costs $150.
The competition field’s American flavor adds to the hype, said MLG co-founder and Activision Blizzard senior vice president Mike Sepso. Four of the tournament’s 16 teams are from North America: Splyce, Counter Logic Gaming, Team Liquid and Cloud9.
“Counter-Strike” is one of the longest-running competitive games but is dominated by Europeans at the professional level.
“It will be great to see if these teams can compete with the big European teams, who have traditionally been the powerhouses,” Sepso said. “In a lot of ways, professional ‘Counter-Strike’ is having a ‘soccer moment.’ We now have some North American teams able to compete at the same level.”
Major League Gaming, acquired by games publisher Activision Blizzard in January, is running the tournament on behalf of the game’s publisher, Valve Corp. After announcing a $250,000 prize purse in November, Valve quietly quadrupled the purse to $1 million in February. The last “Counter-Strike” event on American soil, at the Intel Extreme Masters San Jose in November, had a purse of $100,000.
Other e-sports tournaments have drawn big crowds in the United States, including last year’s International Dota 2 Championships at Seattle’s KeyArena and a “League of Legends” world championship in New York. But taking the concept into smaller, more traditional sports markets was a new risk.
“This is a pretty big deal,” Sepso said. “Columbus is awesome; we have a home base here. But it’s not a major market, and the ability to pull this together there is great.”
Columbus works because it’s centrally located and skews young, thanks to Ohio State University and many other colleges and universities within a few hours’ drive, Sepso said.
The “Counter-Strike” tournament is the first major event MLG has produced since the Activision Blizzard acquisition, though it has run several smaller tournaments. Sepso said Activision’s resources will be most evident in the advanced production MLG is applying to the Columbus event, both in the qualifying process and the on-site event itself.
The tournament will be streamed on MLG.tv but will not appear on linear television.
Nationwide Arena operator Columbus Arena Sports & Entertainment would like to host more e-sports, said CASE vice president Michael Gatto. The group has worked with MLG since October to promote and plan the tournament under a rental agreement and has fielded calls from other curious arena operators. “Originally they were only planning two days, but they added the day,” Gatto said. “That’s great. We’re excited.”
E-sports brings unconventional challenges to venue operators, just as it has to the traditional sports media world. For instance, e-sports fans expect to be able to come and go under one ticket, a big shift for major pro sports facilities.
“On Friday, we are allowing re-entry, but beyond that we will not,” Gatto said. “We’re not entirely sure how that’s going to work with this crowd, so we might have to look at that. We thought long and hard about doing that.”
The venue may also alter its food and beverage choices for the especially young crowd.
