There has simply never been a better time to invest in the industry, and one of the most rewarding ways you can do so is by organizing, hosting, and potentially sponsoring an eSports tournament. In this article, we’ll enlighten you as to just exactly what eSports is, as well as why we think you should care. Lastly, we’ll break down the entire organizational process behind eSports events management in order to equip you with the information you need to organize your own eSports competition.
What are eSports?
Electronic sports (nicknamed ‘eSports’ for short) is the name given to one of the world’s fastest-growing sporting industries: specifically, the competitive playing of video games online. As we’ll find out, ‘eSports’ can refer to a number of different types of video game competitions. However, the unifying theme is that each match of an eSports tournament is between two or more gamers playing each other competitively, via the internet and their PCs or consoles (yet often whilst in the same event space), at a popular video game in front of a live and/or online audience.
How to Organise an eSports Tournament: 11 Steps
Now you’re aware of the many benefits a brand, community, or individual can enjoy from eSports, let’s take a look at how to organize an eSports event in 11 comprehensive steps.
Step One: Decide on a Budget
Budget is, of course, the first consideration you need to make. How much do you want to spend on the event, and how much – if pushed – can you spend on the event? eSports tournaments can take many different forms, as we’ll soon see, so even on a tight budget, there are ways to host a successful gaming competition.
Let’s take a look at common expenses associated with eSports, which you’ll have to budget for:
- Venue
- Advertising and marketing
- Equipment costs
- Internet
- Ticketing platform and registration software
- Game developer licensing fees
- Prize money
- Wages for contractors such as electricians, videographers, game monitors, and judges
- Food and drink
- Electricity and heating bills
- Miscellaneous
One of your biggest expenditures should be on internet connection/bandwidth and equipment for the venue. Given that eSports tournaments take place via screens, PCs/consoles, and the internet, you need these things to work flawlessly in order to pull off a successful event.
To mitigate some of the costs of organizing an eSports tournament, here’s a brief look at some of the ways you can recoup expenses:
- Charging players a registration fee
- Charging audience members a ticket fee
- Enlisting sponsors
- Outsourcing to vendors
- Partnering with hardware brands to provide equipment
The elements which will dictate the kind of budget you’ll need to draft can be found by reading on.
Step Two: Set Event Goals
It’s important to set yourself and your team goals before organizing an eSports tournament. Ask yourselves: What do we want to achieve by hosting this event? Your goals for the event will inform the rest of the organization’s process.
For example, if you simply want to make some money, then you’re going to need to focus on offsetting your expenses with sponsors and vendors whilst attracting big-name players to your competition in order to draw in enough of a crowd to make a profit.
On the other hand, if you want to increase brand awareness for your brand, then maybe you’re less concerned about costs and will instead be the main sponsor of the event.
Finally, if your reason for organizing an eSports tournament is to strengthen and expand your community, then you’ll want to scale down the size and cost of the event, perhaps hosting it in a local community space and pairing it with a local charity.
Step Three: Choose the Type of Event
eSports is fluid in its definition. Unlike basketball, for example, where the rules of the court are well-established, without wiggle room for event organizers to change them, eSports can be just about anything you want it to be.
An eSports tournament can be among individual players or between teams of varying sizes; the goal posts for winning can be to do with skill, endurance, or speed; elimination can operate through single or double brackets (faster) or via a round-robin/Swiss seeding setup (longer); the games can be played by professionals or amateurs; and at a local, national, or international level. Furthermore, eSports tournaments can be held either entirely online or in a physical event space but with an online live-streaming component.
The nature of an eSports tournament is often dictated by the game around which they revolve. Popular games for eSports competitions include:
Fortnite (100-player battle royale)
Defense of the Ancients [DOTA] 2 (multiplayer online battle arena [MOBA])
Valorant (first-person shooter [FPS])
Starcraft II (real-time strategy [RTS])
Tekken VII (1v1 fighter)
Super Smash Bros: Ultimate (platform multiplayer fighter)
Step Four: Find a Venue
Text – bandwidth and internet connection crucial for the venue; safety and comfort precautions; different areas for different stages of the competition (final should be on the biggest stage); parking, accessibility, atmosphere, permits and licenses, food and drink
eSports tournaments don’t technically need a venue. If you’re running a community competition or working with a really tight budget, you could always host the entire event online. In the post-COVID-19 era, we’re well used to watching our favorite sports teams play via a live stream from the comfort of our own homes, and the same can be applied to eSports.
However, if you want to put on a bigger show, make more money, and expose our brand to more people, you’ll need a killer venue to host the tournament in.
Unlike traditional sports, which require custom-made courts and pitches for the players to play on, eSports venues tend to pop up wherever necessary. Nevertheless, there are some dedicated eSports arenas being built all around the world as the sport grows in popularity, so do make sure to check whether there’s an available arena already in your area.
When scouting for possible venue locations, consider the following:
- Size: Is it big enough for your estimated audience and gamer numbers?
- Licencing: Can you award cash prizes at the venue, or do you need a special license?
- Food and drink: Are you able to bring in food and drink vendors?
- Internet connection: Is the internet connection at the venue strong/reliable enough?
- Bandwidth: Is there enough bandwidth at the venue to host your event?
- Location: Is the venue accessible to disabled people, and in terms of transportation?
- Atmosphere: Will the venue be conducive to an exciting atmosphere?
- Equipment: Does the venue meet your equipment/power outlet requirements?
- Cost: Does the cost of the venue fall within your budget?
Step Five: Find Vendors and Hire an Onsite Team
The success of any eSports tournament relies on the hard work and cooperation of an onsite team and the range of vendors hired for the occasion. You’ll need a lot of very specialist equipment to host your competition, as well as food and drink vendors to keep your audience (and players) happy. You’ll probably also need a regular onsite team of videographers, tech solutions professionals, judges, and a host. Your host will be the face and voice of your competition, so it’s worth hiring someone who either has some clout in the gaming/eSports community or within the local community where the event is being held.
Step Six: Approach Sponsors
Depending on your reasons for organizing an eSports event, you may or may not require sponsorship. Indeed, your brand may well be the sponsor of the event if increased brand awareness and engagement are your goals. Nevertheless, onboarding sponsors can be a great way to either offset some of your expenses or drum up a cash prize which will make participants’ effort worthwhile. Depending on the sponsor, their presence may also help to legitimize and raise the status of your event in the minds of prospective attendees.
Most eSports sponsors tend to be gaming- and hardware-related brands, though this trend is changing. Today, more recognizable brands like Coca-Cola, KFC, and Huel are getting involved in the gaming industry, whilst some luxury brands, such as Louis Vuitton and Gucci, are also beginning to recognize that there’s money to be earned as sponsors of gamer influencers and eSports.
Step Seven: Choose a Ticketing Platform
In order to ensure the attendance of your audience, as well as the registration of players, you’ll need to choose an appropriate ticketing platform. There is numerous registration and ticketing software you can use, many with an eSports leaning. The most important thing is that it has a smooth UX/UI (user experience/user interface) so that it’s easy for prospective players and audience members to find it and use it.
When designing the tickets, it’s worthwhile to spend a little money hiring a graphic designer to customize the tickets. This not only makes the event feel more special but also offers enhanced branding opportunities. Lastly, ensure that it is clear to buyers what the price of the ticket affords them: i.e., access to which events, free parking, food, and drink coupons/vouchers, as well as a list of the other onsite services available to them outside of the ticket price.
Step Eight: Book Players
Next, you’ll need to open your registration lists to players. Research where best to launch the news of your eSports tournament. A combination of the following is always a safe bet:
- In newspapers, magazines, and radio ads local to the venue
- On social media, especially linking with popular gaming and eSports accounts
- On internet forums popular with eSports teams/players, such as r/esports
- Via Discord communities for the game your tournament will be hosting
Step Nine: Invite a Guest List
It’s important to pay equal attention to this next step: curating and inviting a guest list. A guest list is a list of individuals to who you’ve extended a free ticket (often with a ‘plus one’ so that they can bring a friend or partner). Guest listing big-name players and managers in the eSports industry, as well as gamer influencers and local journalists, increases your chances of positive exposure surrounding the event and may also afford you free publicity to help increase attendance.
Step Ten: Provide a Prize
Organizers of eSports tournaments (any tournament, for that matter) always strive to make their audience happy, their venue hosts happy, and themselves happy. Unfortunately, they all too often forget about the people who actually make the event possible in the first place: the players.
In addition to ensuring your players are comfortable and well looked after for the duration of their time in the competition, offering a desirable prize to the winner(s) is key to fostering a healthy competitive atmosphere.
Prizes can involve sponsorships, material rewards, and cash. Cash pots are the most popular, and if you can afford to offer one, you should do so. For an idea of just how huge these winning pots can be, take a look at the top five eSports prize pools of all time:
- DOTA 2 – $47.79 million
- Counter Strike Global Offensive – $21.89 million
- PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds Mobile – $20.57 million
- Fortnite – $19.96 million
- Arena of Valor – $17.37 million
Oh, and a trophy’s always nice, too!
Step Eleven: Market and Advertise Your Event
Finally, it’s time to market the heck out of your eSports tournament. It’s fully organized. Now you just need to fill the seats! Social media is key to marketing, and in gaming, influencer marketing is found to be especially effective. Target influencers on Twitch who like to play the game your tournament is based around, as well as micro-influencers local to your arena.
And remember, you’re trying to attract audience members and gamers to the physical event, but you’re also trying to sell tickets to the live stream of the tournament, as well. Thus, it’s important that you make the live stream package as attractive as possible, too.
Organize an eSports Tournament: The Easy Way
There is a lot that goes into successfully organizing an eSports tournament, to put it mildly. In order to get it right, it takes a whole team of people, at least some of whom know exactly what they’re doing. The prospect of tackling the challenge of organizing an eSports competition may, to many of you reading this, simply seem too daunting to begin with.
Thankfully, you don’t have to go it alone. There are dedicated, highly-experienced gaming and eSports marketing agencies out there who can help share the burden. Mindfuture is one of them. At Mindfuture, the team shares over 14 years of experience connecting gaming influencers with brands interested in entering the industry; part of that job includes offering eSports online and offline tournament organization services.
Not only can working with Minfuture save you time and hassle, but it can also save you money, thanks to the connections the company has acquired over the years and the expediency with which they will help you organize the event of your dreams.
Whatever your goals for eSports organization, let Mindfuture help you achieve them.