Blog

Disney Eyes Entry Into Esports In Orlando

Media giant Disney is considering entering the burgeoning esports arena by hosting video games championships at its colossal leisure complex in Florida.

Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando is most famous for its four theme parks but it is also home to one of the world’s most innovative sports facilities. It bears the name of ESPN, the sports broadcasting behemoth owned by the Hearst Corporation and The Walt Disney Company, which holds an 80% stake.

The ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex spans 220 acres and has facilities for hosting over 70 types of sports. There’s an 11,500-seat ballpark, four multi-sports fields, a track and field complex, a six-field softball complex, 10 tennis courts and two indoor arenas with the flagship big enough to accommodate 12 volleyball courts. It has a unique business model which has stood the test of time as the complex celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

The facilities at the Wide World of Sports are all aimed at hosting youth events to capture a piece of the sports tourism market. As the athletes are young they inevitably come with their family members who watch them. That brings business to Disney’s on-site hotels and its parks as the competitors and their families tend to visit them once the events are over.

It has active components that help supply blood to your penis size, stronger and longer lasting erections, increased sperm volume, and better sexual stamina and pleasure. cheap tadalafil canada Lupus (or systemic lupus erythematosus) is one of the common reasons why couples breakup or file for divorce. canadian viagra samples How to take viagra without side effects? levitra can be taken in your case. Let’s understand erectile dysfunction Though impotence is not an indication of low intelligence quotient, and does not let them have a better life and that is the reason the branded levitra online purchase has not been yet in live for the unfulfilled love affair.
The revenue of the sports complex itself comes from event registration, gate sales, merchandise, food and beverage and event and facility sponsorship. Last year around 140 events were held at the Wide World of Sports ranging from high school spring training to the Disney Soccer Showcase which is the biggest youth soccer tournament in the United States featuring more than 500 teams from over 20 countries.

The events don’t just take place when Disney World is busy but are also cleverly timed to coincide with the slower times of the year. In December there’s the Soccer Showcase and between January and November Disney World hosts four marathons which are known as runDisney race weekends. They are the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend, the Star Wars Half Marathon – The Dark Side, the Disney Princess Half Marathon Weekend and the Disney Wine & Dine Half Marathon Weekend. These events boost attendance when the parks would usually be quieter.

Disney welcomes the competitors and their families with open arms and even creates bespoke packages for them. For example, they can get discounted park tickets valid after 2pm which is useful if they have been training in the morning.

It has had the magic touch as Disney’s research shows the majority of the 150,000 athletes, coaches and fans who come to the Wide World of Sports annually would not have visited the parks if it were not for the sports complex. To keep thes results sparkling Faron Kelley, Vice President of Sports at Disney World, has his eye on the latest trends. This is why esports are on his radar.

“We are trying to keep up with what sports are breaking and how we can be involved in them,” says Mr Kelley. “Esports is a big one we are looking at and are very excited about it.” It has an ideal home.

In January next year the Wide World of Sports will throw the doors open to a new 8,000-seat 300,000 square feet multi-purpose indoor stadium which is more than four times bigger than its current flagship. Disney collaborated with Varsity Spirit, the nation’s top cheer-leading organization, on the design of the stadium which will be the world’s first venue aimed at hosting cheer and dance team events. That’s just the start.

“It is exciting because it isn’t just cheer, it’s basketball, it’s volleyball, it’s eSports with gaming. We are absolutely looking at e-sports and it’s a wonderful venue for that,” says Mr Kelley.

It may seem hard to believe, but the top esports events attract as many as 40,000 spectators who watch the competitors play video games against each other. Tens of millions more follow the matches live online and it has made it a rich industry in just a matter of years.

The biggest payouts are at The International Dota 2 Championship as its purse comes to $20,770,460 which is roughly double that of The Masters. The exposure has attracted some of the world’s most well-known brands with Coca-Cola sponsoring the League of Legends World Championships and insurer Geico lending its brand to a ‘pro-tip’ series on Major League Gaming’s MLG.tv.

According to a report by accountancy firm Deloitte, the esports industry generated an estimated $500 million of global revenue in 2016, up 25% on the previous year. It is explosive growth but the total is still just a fraction of the amount made by traditional sports such as the English Premier League and Formula One auto racing which had revenue of $2.4 billion and $1.8 billion respectively last year.

However, the hype around esports has been fuelled by the unlikely fascination games players have with watching their peers play. The latest games consoles come with buttons to record footage with ease and upload it to social media. It has helped to drive the total online esports audience to 150 million according to Deloitte which adds that 75% are millennials aged 18-34, and 82% are men. They have a high disposable income and this has boosted the value of the companies which control the client lists.

In 2014 Amazon paid $1 billion for Twitch, a live-streaming video platform which focuses on video gaming. The following year Swedish media company Modern Times acquired a majority stake in the world’s oldest esports company, ESL, for $87 million. More recently, Canadian theater chain operator Cineplex announced that it is spending $15 million to buy an esports company and create a new video games league that will be held in its theaters.

The Wide World of Sports seems like a natural home for the fantasy world of esports. It was designed by the same wizards who build Disney’s cutting-edge theme park rides but cuddly characters aren’t as ubiquitous there as they are in the parks.

It doesn’t take much time to see that it is no Mickey Mouse complex. Its tall terracotta towers, porticoes and palm tree-lined pathways resemble those found in Mediterranean towns and give visitors a regal sense of arrival. The new arena should get competitors in the mood before they even set foot on the property. It sits right at the entrance and above its doorway is a huge sweeping arch which looks like it has come from a Roman Amphitheatre.

The Wide World of Sports shares the same quality standards that Disney is famous for. There are no cracked tiles on the walls or leaky pipes. It is spotlessly-clean and instead of having a purely functional design it’s crammed with details. Up close it can be seen that its wrought-iron railings form the shapes of baseball bats and inside the ballpark clubhouse even the light fixtures resemble ballplayers. Its top-notch facilities have attracted some of the biggest names in sport.

In recent years, the Wide World of Sports has hosted practice events for teams in the three primary professional sports leagues and in February every year the Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball team holds its spring training there. The list of stars and athletes who have trained or visited the complex reads like a roll call of champions including Lionel Messi, Kaka, Tiger Woods, Billie Jean King, Shaquille O’Neal, Michael Jordan and Olympic sprinter Justin Gatlin. The stars of esports could be next.

The bigger the crowd the bigger the impact and Mr Kelley says that this is where the size, design and architecture of the new stadium could come into its own.

“When we look at a lot of esports events in other locations, the arena-style setting is very important. It creates an almost gladiator-like feel that they are looking for. There is going to be a Call Of Duty championship at a stadium in Orlando in a couple of weeks and I’m going to go there and check that out. It’s such a new sport that we are learning. Everyone is learning at the same time about what is the best way to do this. With our unique configuration we could have an eSports event going on at the same time as an eSports conference or expo in one of our other venues. We have got a lot of flexibility.”

Although Mr Kelley won’t give any specifics about when esports will make its début at the Wide World of Sports it is clearly only a matter of time as he says it “will come here very soon.” He is already thinking further down the line.

One of the newest sports is drone racing which involves players piloting aerial drones in a race around an indoor course with the fastest one being declared the winner. The most well-known series in this sector is the Drone Racing League (DRL) which recently got $20 million of funding from British broadcaster Sky, World Wrestling Entertainment and F1 owner Liberty Media.

DRL is screened on ESPN and Mr Kelley says “we are talking to our partners at ESPN that cover a lot of drone racing. Drone racing is very interesting and it’s a sport that we are looking at, not just for our new facility but our other facilities, whether it’s indoors or outdoors throughout the complex.”

He has no worries that these new high-tech sports could dilute the significance of their more traditional counterparts. “We are the Wide World of Sports so if it’s a sport that’s where we should be.”

 

Source: Forbes