Vindex announced wednesday the acquisition of Belong Gaming and plans to spend $300 million over the next five years to open 1,000 eSport gaming centers worldwide, according to Esports Observer. Belong will marry e-sports conglomerates Envy and Andbox to open sites in the Dallas and New York spaces, respectively.
Belong, which already operates 24 gaming locations across the UK, has been valued at the acquisition at around $50 million, according to the Financial Times. Belong will provide logistics operations for game centers to take off, and Envy and Andbox will bring events, marketing and professional players from eSports groups who have to provide programming and awareness to help centralize local game scenes in their internal markets. . Training
Each flagship location in Dallas and New York will provide a hundred PCs and consoles for parties, events, school outings, clubs and local eSports tournaments. Clearly, given the coronavirus pandemic, the time of opening of these sites is still unknown.
“The Dallas-Forth Worth market has been, at least until this year, highly event-oriented, team-oriented and competitive as a source of entertainment,” said Geoff Moore, President and Chief Operating Officer of Gaming Envy. “We are excited to have experienced high-level operators who perceive e-sports as a spouse with us while building the entire e-sports ecosystem.”
Envy, owner of Dallas Fuel of the Overwatch League, Dallas Empire of the Call of Duty League and Team Envy, competes and broadcasts everything from Call of Duty and Overwatch to CS: GO, Rocket League, Super Smash Bros and Valorant. it still works. progression of its housing market from North Texas to Oklahoma and Waco. And running with Vindex and Belong will make Envy expand its success locally, from large-scale events like OWL homes to smaller, more localized activities.
“Here, there are thousands of people who play all those other games, however, they all play separately from home and are connected to each other through their headphones and the Internet,” Moore said. “But what was missing from this vertical stack were the options that allow them to expand and combine for occasions of participation or entertainment. It’s just a great piece of the puzzle that’s full.”
Moore said in two years, expects between 8 and 12 gaming centers to be operational in the Metroplex. These places, Moore expects, will host corporate events, anniversaries, camps, clinics, academyes and school and professional tournaments.
“Texas are creating more and more eSports clubs,” he said, “and helping them is also a great component.”
Andbox, which owns the New York Excelsior of the Overwatch League, the New York Subliners of the Call of Duty League, streamers and content creators for many games, said New York electronics has been unattended for a long time.
“These new gaming centers that we will launch in partnership with Vindex will offer a world-class, high-quality delight that e-sports enthusiasts in the Metropolitan Domain of New York deserve,” Farzam Kamel, president and co-founder of Andbox, said in a statement. “One of Andbox’s goals has been to provide the local network here with specially designed physical spaces committed to the game, and we couldn’t be more excited to make this a reality.”
With the coronavirus pandemic having a significant effect on the economy, the time has come, Moore said, for Vindex and Belong to grow.
“There’s never been a better time to ask your genuine real estate consultant to look for rental deals in existing ad slots,” he said. “There are some attractive donations to make right now.”
Whenever Vindex can have those sites operational and whenever it is to do so, Envy and Andbox will be in a position with their groups and transmitters that constantly publish content to help free those gaming centers when things are general again in the U.S.
“The fact that this era is happening right now,” Moore said, “doesn’t mean there’s not much effort and paints under the surface to prepare and take advantage of the so-called repressed entertainment and occasions that will happen once the public fitness scenario has made considerable progress. “
Shlomo Sprung is senior editor of Forbes SportsMoney. He is editor of feature films in Awful Announcing and writes in FanSided, SI Knicks, YES Network and
Shlomo Sprung is senior editor of Forbes SportsMoney. He is also a feature film editor for Awful Announcing and writes for FanSided, SI Knicks, YES Network and other publications. He graduated in 2011 from Columbia University’s School of Journalism and previously worked for the New York Knicks, Business Insider, Sporting News and Major League Baseball. You stick to him on Twitter.