“We’re now in the initial stages of negotiating to potentially place” the sports complex at the South Hills property, McRainey said in an interview.
The sports complex is important, he said, because it would be designed in such a way to create a 4,000-seat arena, opening up the possibility for a diversity of events, including esports. “We will definitely design it to make sure that we could host a large esport event,” McRainey said.
Before the pandemic, the town hosted its own Rocket League tournament as a chance to build experience putting on an esports event. More than 1,000 people ended up attending, and Lenovo provided laptops, McRainey said. The town plans to host a similar event in the spring.
“We are trying to build a feel for the industry: What works? What doesn’t? What’s our niche?” he said.
Esports has become an increased focus of the Greater Raleigh Convention & Visitors Bureau, and McRainey said the Cary complex isn’t meant to directly compete with events coming to Raleigh but rather complement them.
He expects that esports will grow enough in the coming years to justify the focus. Already there are more than 2.4 billion gamers in the world, according to research firm Statista. And revenues from esports were expected to exceed $1 billion last year, another report from games researcher Newzoo found.
