Edmonton’s plan to become an esports hub city

Rogers Place is known for hosting major sporting events, such as the Stanley Cup playoffs which kick off Monday, but it could soon become the venue for large-size esports events – drawing in thousands of gamers.

Edmonton city Councillor Andrew Knack saw the success of the Esports Expo back in February, which sold more than 3,500 tickets, and wants the Alberta capital to be the host city of similar events, but bigger and better.

“The energy that was there, the passion folks have for the gaming industry is quite strong here. So seeing the success of that, having the strategy we have, I think we are quite set up for it,” Knack explains.

Councillor Andrew Knack proposed his motion to city council on April 4th, to have the city review the Alberta Esports Strategy and work with groups to create a plan to host mid-size esports events in the city, with the goal of eventually hosting large-scale esports events.

“I would be ecstatic to see E-town become the home of esports,” councillor Paquette said during the meeting.

The city has access to Rogers Place up to 28 days a year, a venue Knack says was built with esports events in mind, and large enough to accommodate the growing community, that’s also becoming increasingly diverse.

“One of the biggest changes we’ve seen since we opened is the change in the female demographic of gamers. It’s increased massively, we used to see about 5 per cent of the people who came into the store were ladies, and now it’s about 15 per cent or 20 per cent which is like 3x or 4x growth. Which is phenomenal,” says Timothy Cooper, the owner of Overklocked Gaming, a local gaming café.

“Which, COVID probably had something to do with that because people were at home probably trying to find new things to do.”

Knack says the League of Legends final in 2019 has almost 100 million unique viewers, that’s more viewers than the Super Bowl in the same year and says the esports audience is expected to grow to just under 500 million in 2024.

By becoming a hub city for esports events, Knack is confident it will be great for the local economy.

“I think when you’re attracting that many people to any type of major event, whether it’s a major sporting event, esports, even something like the Juno’s from earlier this year, you’re bringing people in and they’re going to be in and around the city,” he says.

“Esports is not necessarily directly tied to video game development, but we have a strong video game developments community here in Edmonton, and I think the other reason it could start to benefit us is that I think we’ll be slowly building up our reputation not just as an esports hub, but it’s a video game development hub and I think that could also help benefit the region as we start to see more development Studios setting up shop here in Edmonton.”

Cooper, the owner of Overklocked Gaming says the Esports Expo in February was a great success.

“It’s always wonderful to see community organizations taking more initiative and making things happen. I know some of the guys behind it, they worked tirelessly, making sure the event went on, and I think everyone who attended the event had a great time. And really, that is the indicator of success: whether or not the people who came had fun. And a lot of people came, and a lot of people had fun sit was a great success.”

But Cooper is concerned that by expanding, revenue will get in the hands or larger companies outside the country.

“The community has local grassroots that are growing strong, and in general, I think the government would probably move the money instead of in local hands, outside to bigger people, and that doesn’t seem to me like it would be fair,” he explains.

“There’s a lot of start-up capital involved in the esports space, so the last thing I would want to see is Edmonton taxpayers’ money going to a California start-up, and just disappearing.”

CK Dhaliwal, the Business development and academics manager at the Alberta Esports Association says he understands Cooper’s concerns.

“Canada is a little bit delayed in terms of its development in comparison to the states or Europe, or other places across the globe.” But says his job at AEA is to ensure the money generated locally form the industry funnels back to our own province.

“Our responsibility is finding ways on how we say ‘How do we get to Roger’s Place’? We need to start using some of the community members’ infrastructure and facilities we already have in place, versus trying to recreate the wheel or get a massive investment for new infrastructure,” he says.

“That’s kind of where AEA plays that roll, is the intermediator between our government relations and our communities, and making sure what we are creating is actually sustainable, and again from that economic impact lens, we are creating our own kind of infrastructure to make sure the money we generate from this industry funnels back to our own province.”

City Council voted unanimously for Knack’s motion earlier this month, to develop a plan for Edmonton to host a mid-size esports event in the next one to two years, and a major esports event in the next two to three years. “Edmonton is ready to host these things,” says Knack.