Major League Gaming (MLG) announced on Thursday that it will build the world's first stadium designed for video game events.
The 15,000-seat stadium will be built on Hengqin Island, which is located in China's Guangdong province just off the coast of Macau - a popular spot for gambling.
MLG announced that Lai Fung Holdings Limited and eSun Holdings Limited were slated to be partners for the project. The stadium will host the centerpiece of the "Creative Culture City" initiative for Kengqin Island, and is located in what is called the "V-Zone".
This zone is set to be a $2.8 billion gaming theme park, for which the first phase of development is expected to finish in 2017 and will cost about $480 million, Yahoo! News reported.
"We started with a blank sheet of paper, and we were looking for what would be the fastest-growing field in the world," said Chew Fook Aun, chairman of Lai Fung, which is overseeing the project's development. "The trends were with video gaming."
MLG will run operations at the stadium. MLG.tv will stream the events at the arena.
Eedar, a market research firm, said that more than 500 million people in China play video games, and almost 145 million of them play over an hour per day, Businessweek reported. There is also an increasing number of people who like to simply watch video games being played. Sony and Microsoft have built streaming capabilities in their consoles due to the growing popularity of game videos on YouTube.
MLG said Hengqin is the best spot for the stadium because the island is only five minutes away from Macau, 30 minutes from Hong Kong, and within 100 kilometers of five domestic and international airports, Gamespot reported.
The company added that it had a 1,376 percent increase in MLG.tv viewership in the first quarter of 2014, Yahoo! News reported.
"MLG has been at the forefront of the global eSports phenomenon for over a decade and we're taking our leadership position to new heights with this expansion into the world's fastest growing eSports market- China," said Mike Sepso, President and co-founder of MLG. "This is yet another step in our plan to make eSports and MLG a part of mainstream culture worldwide."
