Esports
ESL are bringing Dota to the UK, selling out tickets in record time. With the event just days away, we spoke with James Dean, ESL UK’s managing director, to find out if they expected this success.
For the first time ever, there’s about to be a Dota Major in the UK. Despite having a healthy esports scene, and a lot of major esports companies, the UK has rarely seen top level esports events on its soil. Outside of FACEIT’s annual invasion of Wembley Arena for the ECS CS:GO Finals, and an occasional visit from Riot Games, big events have been few and far between.
But now ESL are bringing the penultimate Dota 2 Major of the season to the UK; more specifically, Birmingham. This weekend, 12 of the best teams in the world will battle it out for a share of the $1 million prize pool, but more importantly, some of the final Dota Pro Circuit points of the season are up for grabs. Winning one extra map at this event could be the difference between going to The International or missing out, which could end up changing the lives of some players.
Not only is this the first big Dota event ever to take place in the UK, it’s also one of the most important of the year. Having an empty crowd for an event like that would have been catastrophic for ESL, and would have made the event seem underwhelming, but all signs point this being one of the biggest crowds of the season, despite the UK’s reputation as a console focused country.
“Well that was the concern,” says James Dean, managing director of ESL UK. “We’ve got some good data showing generally the UK fan base is very dedicated on going to the European events, so we knew that. That was an indication that it's not going to be a failure and we also know from our social accounts that there's a decent level to the UK fan base. It's been quite a few years since we've done anything in the UK for Dota. It was a super hard community to work with on the player base side of things, for teams to form. That was the main reason we struggled before.”
It was certainly a gamble to host an event of this size in the UK, but the response was surprising to everyone. Within hours of tickets going on sale they had sold out, breaking records all over the place and destroying the ticket sales of massive events such as ESL One Hamburg. ESL have had to change some plans, and work with the venue to release more tickets, with sales continuing at a rapid rate.
“We obviously spoke to Ted ‘PyrionFlax’ Forsyth, Owen ‘ODPixel’ Davies, and you know, just their excitement was almost enough to actually do it, so we knew we could have got two guys there,” jokes Dean. “But we didn't think it would sell out this quickly, because it literally is the fastest selling ESL Dota 2 event in history. Obviously the UK community has done the entire esports industry proud. If we had come out with a decent crowd, maybe a sell out by the end, great, but we've blown the top off and obviously, we worked with the venue to release more tickets, which is really awesome. I've not got the official figures, but I know that we added an extra few thousand. The crowd is going to be electric.”
Of course it remains to be seen just how the event will play out: numbers don’t always make for an entertaining crowd, however the UK fans do have somewhat of a reputation for entertaining antics. But even if things don’t go as smoothly as ESL hope, there’s no doubt that this event has changed the perception of the UK esports crowd. Selling that many tickets to a Dota Major shows that the UK is a prime location for top tier PC esports events, and should lead to more coming over.
“I think an ESL One, or certainly an ESL mega event will be a permanent fixture, because, give me one reason why it shouldn't, for a start?” says Dean. “I would like to see it grow, obviously, but let's see what the community feedback is post event, I'm sure there'll be plenty of suggestions for improvements, which we'll be very happy to hear.”
“If we can get a major again that'll be even better, I think that would be awesome. But yeah I think we've proved the point, we've shown that the UK’s Midlands is a great central location with great value proposition for a very large audience to visit.”
One thing that has surprised a lot of people is the choice of Birmingham and not London. Pretty much every top level esports event in the UK has headed to the capital, but ESL have decided to head to Birmingham instead, which lacks the same level of international appeal that London certainly has. However, for ESL this was never really an issue, as they have a history of going to some unique places.
“The business model around esports remains that the main monetisation is still the online viewership, and I think esports will remain kind of geographically agnostic because it's a global thing anyway,” says Dean. “You know, you can be in a relatively little known town such as Katowice and have a big event, or Odense in Denmark. I hadn't heard of Odense; now I have because of esports. And it works, it absolutely works and I think that's the beauty about it. You know, I think if the event goes as well as we hope, I think Birmingham will continue to embrace that and why not? It just makes complete sense.”
With just days to go before ESL One Birmingham kicks off, the final preparations are being put in place. Thousands of Dota fans will descend upon the city to watch what promises to be one of the best events of the season. Taking Dota to the UK was a big risk, but it seems to have paid off and could be the start of a long history of top level esports events heading to the UK. Watch this space.
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