2022 eSports Directory
| Company | About | Established | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| OverActive eSports Arena Toronto, Ontario | OverActive Media has unveiled plans to build a new 7,000-seater esports and entertainment venue at Exhibition Place in Toronto, Canada. The new venue will serve as the home for OverActive Media’s Call of Duty League (CDL) and Overwatch League (OWL) franchises, Toronto Ultra and Toronto Defiant. Expected to cost nearly US$500 million, it will also include a ‘theatre-style entertainment venue and hotel complex’. | 2025 | Canada |
| Ventura Sports Group FEC Mount Pleasant, South Carolina | The new venue is planned to be anchored with an esports stadium. The overall project is on 29 acres of land, near Highway 17. The eSports stadium is envisioned at 120,000 SF including a 1,600-seat auditorium. | 2024e | U.S. |
| Cedar Fair eSports Arena Sandusky, Ohio | The facility is envisioned to include as many as 1,500 stadium seats for spectators at Midwest youth and collegiate gaming and esports events. It would also include 200 gaming stations and offer food and beverage options, supplying amenities for both competitors and spectators. The esports arena would be part of the next phase development for the roughly $50 million Cedar Point Sports Center. The venue currently features Sports Force Parks and 10 multi-purpose outdoor turf fields, as well as a 145,000 SF indoor facility with 10 basketball courts. | 2023e | U.S. |
| Epic Sports and Recreation Center Cary, North Carolina | A planned $195 million sports and recreation center, by Epic. | 2022e | U.S. |
| Fusion Arena South Philadelphia Sports Complex Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | September 2020 - the facility's opening was delayed due to coronavirus pandemic, with construction only at its early stages. The facility plan includes 3,500 seats and a training facility. | 2022e | U.S. |
| Surge ESports Smash Interactive | A planned $30 million, 108,000 SF video gaming stadium with capacity for 1,040 spectators. Smash Interactive plans to build the Surge esports arena, virtual reality hangout and space for its corporate headquarters at 2601 S. Wabash Ave. | 2022e | U.S. |
| Butler Esports Park Butler University | A 7,500-square-foot space dedicated to esports and technology, housed in Butler’s Sunset Avenue parking garage. Butler Esports has been competing since 2017 and currently supports two titles that compete in the BIG EAST Conference: League of Legends and Rocket League. Beyond the BIG EAST, students can also compete in club esports titles in Apex Legends, Call of Duty, Counter-Strike, Fortnite, Hearthstone, Overwatch, Rainbow Six, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, and Valorant. | 2022 | U.S. |
| Esports Development Co. | The new company is partnering with Cedar Fair for a planned eSports arena in Sandusky (Ohio). | 2021 | U.S. |
| ESP eSports Experience Center Shanghai | June 2021 - China's first esports themed shopping destination, opens. | 2021 | China |
| Wisdom Gaming Group Minneapolis, Minnesota | October 2021 - Mall of America has announced a deal with Wisdom Gaming to create an esports broadcast studio and gaming venue, at Mall of America. The venue is intended as a place to host livestreaming video gaming events, in the mall's TCF Rotunda. | 2019 | U.S. |
| ESPN Collegiate Esports Championship (CEC) | ESPN's first collegiate championship event, held during the George R. Brown Convention Center Comicpalooza weekend, in May, 2019. | 2019 | U.S. |
| Vindex | June 2021 - Vindex plans to open 500 experiential gaming centers in the U.S. over the next five years. First Unit for U.S., a planned 4,000 SF venue for Houston, at Pearland Town Center. Vindex is owned by Mike Sepso and Sundance DiGiovanni, founders of Major League Gaming in 2002, which they later sold to Activision Blizzard. | 2019 | U.K. |
| Esports Stadium Arlington, Texas | At 100,000 SF, the facility is described as the largest e-sports center in North America, with flexible seating (capacity of 2,500), a state-of-the-art broadcast studio and an 85-foot-long LED wall. | 2018 | U.S. |
| HyperX Esports Arena The Luxor in Las Vegas | A project of Allied Esports. A 30,000 SF venue. In between tournaments, the arena has a rotating lineup of local events for games like Fortnite, Mario Kart and Rocket League. | 2018 | U.S. |
| Torrent (formerly Alpine Esports) Minneapolis, Minnesota | Torrent (formerly known as Alpine Esports) is an American esports organization owned by Michael Zweigbaum which is currently hosting a North American Rocket League team. | 2018 | U.S. |
| 100 Thieves | Owned by Matthew Haag, Drake, Scooter Braun, and Dan Gilbert. Based in Los Angeles, California. | 2017 | U.S. |
| Allied Esports Entertainment | The company manages e-sports arenas and produces e-sports content. Allied operates HyperX Esports Arena, located at The Luxor in Las Vegas. Based in Irvine, California. Publicly traded. | 2017 | U.S. |
| Blizzard Arena Burbank, California | Shuttered in 2019 upon Warner Bros.' acquisition of the real estate property; was operated by Blizzard Entertainment for its Overwatch League. A 15,000 SF venue, in the former home of NBC Entertainment. | 2017 | U.S. |
| Gen.G | Owned by Kevin Chou, Battery Ventures, Canaan Partners, Will Smith, and NEA. | 2017 | U.S. |
| Gold Rush tournament | A Rocket League tournament, owned by Wisdom Gaming Group. The community featured top players from North America and Europe. | 2017 | U.S. |
| NBA 2K League | An esports league joint venture between the National Basketball Association and Take-Two Interactive. Inaugural season was a year later, in 2018. NBA 2K is a series of basketball sports simulation video games developed and released annually since 1999. | 2017 | U.S. |
| National Esports Association Kansas City, Missouri | An American collegiate esports association | 2016 | U.S. |
| Overwatch Blizzard Entertainment | Overwatch is a multiplayer first-person shooter game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. Described as a "hero shooter", Overwatch assigns players into two teams of six, with each player selecting from a large roster of characters, known as "heroes", with unique abilities. | 2016 | U.S. |
| Overwatch World Cup | The Overwatch World Cup is an annual international Overwatch esports tournament organized by Blizzard Entertainment, the game's developer. | 2016 | U.S. |
| Belong Gaming Arenas (Vindex) | Belong Gaming Arenas, owned by global esports and technology company Vindex, said it plans to open 500 locations in malls and shopping centers in the U.S. Vindex acquired the Belong brand in 2020 from Game Digital Limited ("GDL"), then the largest video games retailer in the UK and Spain. GDL first launched Belong Gaming Arenas to build a network of local gaming communities that play, watch, and compete together in state-of-the-art gaming centers. | 2016 | U.K. |
| Huya | The company has a large presence in the PRC. Founded in Guangzhou, China. Publicly traded. | 2016 | China |
| Esports Arena | A chain of indoor arenas and event centers dedicated to esports, the venues specifically intended to host esports tournaments and events. The first Esports Arena opened in 2015, in Santa Ana, California. | 2015 | U.S. |
| NRG Esports | Owned by Andy Miller and Mark Mastrov. | 2015 | U.S. |
| G2 Esports | Owned by Carlos Rodriguez and Jens Hilgers. First established in Spain. | 2015 | Spain |
| Enthusiast Gaming | Founded by Menashe Kestenbaum. Publicly traded. | 2014 | U.S. |
| Super League Gaming | Super League Gaming began in 2015 with the idea to run esports events in movie theaters. Publicly traded. | 2014 | U.S. |
| Cloud9 | Owned by Jack and Paullie Etienne. Based in Santa Monica, California. | 2013 | U.S. |
| High School Esports League (HSEL) | The largest national esports league for high school students. | 2012 | U.S. |
| League of Legends World Championship | The annual professional League of Legends world championship tournament hosted by Riot Games. The annual tournament has a round-robin, single elimination format. The 2019 championship is reported to have drawn an audience of 100 million around the world, as compared to the Season 1 Championship (2011) that earned an audience of just over 1.6 million viewers. | 2011 | U.S. |
| Twitch | Twitch arrives to propel esports viewers, starting in 2011. Games such as League of Legends (LoL) and Defense of the Ancients 2 (Dota 2) attract large audiences as spectator sports, bringing in millions of unique views on Twitch. | 2011 | Global |
| Dota 2 tournament The International | The first publicly streamed Dota event. The tournament was broadcast in four different commentary languages and the grand prize for the winner was $1 million. Held at the five-day trade show GamesCom, in Cologne. | 2011 | Germany |
| FaZe Clan | Owned by Lee Trink, Richard Bengston (FaZe Banks), Thomas Oliveira (FaZe Temperrr), Yousef Abdelfattah (FaZe Apex), and Nordan Shat (FaZe Rain). | 2010 | U.S. |
| Wii Games Summer | Nintendo hosts the Wii Games Summer 2010. The month-long tournament attracts 400,000 participants and helps to establish Super Smash Brothers for Wii as one of the most popular esports games of its time. | 2010 | U.S. |
| TSM | Named by Forbes in 2019 as the most valuable esports organization in the world, with an estimated valuation of nearly half a billion dollars. TSM was originally created around the community website SoloMid.Net Owned by Andy Dinh. | 2009 | U.S. |
| Smash Interactive | Smash Interactive is a Web Designing(UI/UX) service provider. Acquired Mass VR from Chris Lai, now a Smash co-CEO. | 2009 | U.S. |
| Activision Blizzard Santa Monica, California | One of Activision Blizzard’s most popular games is Overwatch. Headquartered in Santa Monica, California. Publicly traded. | 2008 | U.S. |
| Worldwide Webgames Championship | FUN Technologies convenes the Worldwide Webgames Championship in 2006, in which 71 players competed for a $1 million grand prize. | 2006 | U.S. |
| T1 | Previously known as SK Telecom T1 or SKT T1) is a South Korean esports team operated by the T1 Entertainment & Sports, a joint venture between SK Telecom and Comcast Spectacor. | 2003 | South Korea |
| Major League Gaming | A professional esports organization. Headquartered in New York City. Owned by Activision Blizzard. | 2002 | U.S. |
| Team Liquid | A multi-regional professional esports organization based in the Netherlands. Owned by aXiomatic Gaming, Victor Goossens, and Steve Arhancet. | 2000 | Netherlands |
| Epic Games Cary, North Carolina | January 2021 - Epic announced its purchase of Cary Towne Center, about two miles from Epic’s current headquarters. Epic intends to make the 87-acre mall property its new global HQ. Epic Games has been based in Cary, North Carolina since 1999. The company is well known for developing the Unreal Engine and Fortnite, and has about two dozen subsidiaries and studios in other global locations. | 1999 | U.S. |
| Tencent Holdings | Tencent Holdings owns Riot Games. Riot Games is an American media company that is best known for the League of Legends series. League of Legends may be the most popular eSport in the world. Headquartered in Shenzhen, China. | 1998 | China |
| Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) | Founded by Angel Daniel Munoz, in Dallas | 1997 | U.S. |
| Professional Gamers League | The AMD Professional Gamers League was one of the first professional computer gaming eSports leagues. The PGL was run by Total Entertainment Network and sponsored by AMD. The league's first professional tournament featured StarCraft, held in 1997. | 1997 | U.S. |
| The Red Annihilation | Considered to be one of the first true esports competitions. The internet allowed for 2,000+ entrants to face each other in one-on-one competitions in Quake before the field was reduced to 16 players. These 16 players convened in Atlanta, Georgia to compete at the Electronic Entertainment Expo at the World Congress Center. This event was viewed by spectators and online viewers, and was covered widely by newspapers and television networks. | 1997 | U.S. |
| QuakeCon | A yearly convention held by ZeniMax Media to celebrate and promote the major franchises of id Software and other studios owned by ZeniMax. | 1996 | U.S. |
| Take Two Interactive | Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (New York) is a U.S. video game holding company, founded by Ryan Brant. Owns 2K, a game published based in Novato, California, and another major label, Rockstar Games. | 1993 | U.S. |
| Electronics Arts | Publicly traded. | 1982 | U.S. |
| Space Invaders Championship | Atari produces the first Space Invaders Championship. | 1980 | U.S. |
| Twin Galaxies | Organization formed to record and keep world records for video gaming, founded by Walter Day. | 1980 | U.S. |
| Spacewar competition Stanford University | Considered to be the first official video game competition, held at Stanford University in October, 1972. That event invited players to compete in a game called Spacewar, a space combat game that dated to 1962. | 1972 | U.S. |