The world’s largest e-sports arena is being built in Shanghai. At the beginning of the week the foundation stone for the “Shanghai International New Cultural and Creative E-Sports Center” was laid. China is one of the largest markets for e-sports.

The arena should be up 2023 to be completed and opened in the following year. In the first construction phase it costs the equivalent of almost 630 million euros. The Chinese SuperGen Group, main investor and parent company of e-sports team Edward Gaming, puts the total investment at over 1.2 billion euros.

The e-sports The facility in Shanghai should not only have an arena with a spectator capacity of 6 000 people, but an area of ​​around 500. 000 square meters also a “futuristic” 5-star hotel with E- Sports topics as well as leisure activities such as indoor skydiving and deep diving pools. Overall, the complex should be designed for 10. 000 visitors .

E-sports, competitive gaming on the computer or mobile device, is gaining popularity among other things due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, public e-sports events were mostly canceled 2020, the construction of several e-sports arenas was stopped or delayed.

Trend towards own buildings E-sports events have so far mainly taken place in football stadiums or in multi-purpose halls such as the Lanxess Arena in Cologne, Handball, basketball and concerts is used. There are also specialized esports arenas, including the Esports Stadium Arlington in Texas or the HyperX Esports Arena in the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas. Both were opened 2018.

In addition, the Fusion Arena was a new stadium in the US city of Philadelphia this year planned. They are all significantly smaller, both in terms of audience capacity and usable area, than the construction project now being tackled in Shanghai.

(fds)