Esports
With ESL One New York kicking off this weekend, we chart the rise of esports in the Big Apple and find out how it became the epicentre of organised multiplayer video game events.
This weekend, thousands of Counter Strike: Global Offensive fans will flood into The Barclays Center in Brooklyn for ESL One New York. But Counter-Strike isn't the only esports that's played in the stadium – Blizzard recently hosted the finals of the Overwatch League’s inaugural season there, with the finals coming down to a nail-biter between the Philadelphia Fusion and the New York Excelsior.
The glitz and the glamour, the TV production crews and swarms of cameras, the clouds of confetti and pyrotechnics, and sellout crowds jumping out of their seats can all swirl together and make it easy to forget that esports events haven’t always been big enough to sell out venues like the Barclays Center or Madison Square Garden. Ahead of ESL One New York, we take a look back at an abridged history of New York esports leading up to this weekend’s CS:GO festivities finals.
Before Counter-Strike 1.6 was an esports staple, before Dennis ‘Thresh’ Fong won John Carmack’s 1987 Ferrari 328 GTS cabriolet playing Quake, and before Brood War became a national pastime in South Korea, there was Capcom’s Street Fighter II.
Chinatown Fair was the bedrock of the New York fighting game scene since Street Fighter II’s arcade release in 1991. It was the haunt of a litany of some of the most famous and prolific players in all of American fighting games: Justin Wong, Chris Gonzalez, Michael ‘Yipes’ Mendoza, and many more – names which are still relevant to this day. It’s fair to say that the players who cut their teeth at Chinatown Fair made New York the focal point of fighting games on the east coast of the USA for decades to follow.
The esports boom of the 1990s
The formation of the Cyberathlete Professional League – largely devoted to Quake and other arena shooters – in 1997 marked a boom period for esports. Starcraft: Brood War was released a year later and quickly became a phenomenon, particularly in South Korea. The original Counter-Strike was released at the turn of the millennium. But just as quickly as the market for esports had exploded, it underwent a contraction when the dot-com bubble burst. That contraction was, however, short-lived, as a new generation of 3D consoles and their flagship titles hit the market.
Where fighting games were largely arcade-focused and the shooters and RTS games that had been so dominant in the esports scene at the turn of the millennium were PC-based, a new breed of shooter came along in 2001: Halo: Combat Evolved. At the same time that Halo was gaining traction, the NYC-based Major League Gaming formed in 2002 and Halo would go on to become MLG’s crown jewel.
In 2004, MLG hosted its first ever event, a tournament in New York headlined by Halo. It was part of a 10-tournament season with events scattered all across the United States and ending where it began, with its Championship stage coming home to New York. The 2005 Championship Finals, also played in New York, saw Team 3D continue one of the most dominant Halo seasonal performances of all time, taking home US$20,000 in an incredible final over Team Phreaks.
CPL’s World Tour Finals in New York City broadcast an unforgettable series of games in Painkiller between one of the most recognisable names in esports, Johnathan 'Fatal1ty' Wendel, and Sander 'Vo0' Kaasjager. Both players vied for the first place prize of $150,000 live on MTV Overdrive. Vo0 performed valiantly, but ultimately lost to Wendel – but it was a pivotal moment in esports history, signalling that it could make for captivating television.
The rise and fall of the CGS
The stage was set for a new foray into broadcast competition for esports. The Championship Gaming Series went on to build upon the groundswell and framework laid out by the likes of CPL and MLG. Owned by DirecTV, CGS was a league that debuted in 2007 on TV screens across the country and in the UK and across Asia. It featured franchises much like traditional sports – and what we see in the likes of the Overwatch League and League of Legends. A CGS franchise consisted of 10 players: a 5-man Counter-Strike: Source squad, a male and a female Dead or Alive 4 player, a FIFA player, and two Project Gotham Racing 3 players. New York served as the home of one of those franchises, the New York 3D, formerly known just as Team 3D.
Though CGS folded in 2008, the setback didn't prove long-lasting for esports, particularly in New York. Any momentum that may have derailed was made up for as Twitch (formerly Justin.tv) boomed in large part due to the swelling popularity of esports. Starcraft 2, Counter-Strike: Source and eventually, CS:GO came out as worthy successors to Brood War and 1.6, respectively. League of Legends was fully released in the early 2010s and quickly eclipsed virtually everything else in terms of popularity, while Street Fighter IV was launched in 2008 and brought about a fighting game renaissance. There was something for everyone, and that something was pretty much guaranteed to be broadcast on Twitch, making it all the more accessible.
Watching on Twitch, however, wasn't the only option for larger titles. Esports in the United States was beginning to catch on more readily, and so too did the in-person experience as venues became bigger and more prestigious to answer the demand of fans who were wishing to attend tournaments and cheer on their favourite teams.
The progression to arenas
ESL boasted in 2014 that with ESL One New York – their very first ESL One event in the state – they were “hosting the largest in-person competitive gaming event ever held on the East Coast.” Thousands of fans of Dota 2 poured into the Madison Square Garden arena for a magical weekend of competition and ESL would return to the Garden the following year for another epic Dota 2 tournament.
One year later, Riot set their sights on that same venue for the North American League Championship Series finals which saw Counter Logic Gaming dominate Team SoloMid 3-0. They sold out the Garden for League of Legends, and did so again a year later for the semi-finals of the World Championship – a huge feat for esports.
ESL, meanwhile, continued returning to New York in 2016 and 2017. This time, they packed the Barclays Center with CS:GO fans, changing a focus on what they would be bringing to the New York crowd.
OWL’s thunderous debut season concluded in the Barclays Center, as well, in front of a crowd in excess of 19,000 fans cheering their hearts out largely for the hometown team, the NYXL. Though the NYXL didn't walk away from the first season of the OWL with a trophy, they proved to be a dominant force throughout that first season.
The XL connected quickly with New York fans despite fielding an all-Korean squad. Jong-ryeol ‘Saebyeolbe’ Park even had the honour of throwing the first pitch in a New York Mets baseball game.
Saebyeolbe throwing the first pitch at a Mets game isn’t the only way New York sports organisations and esports have crossed over in recent years. Earlier this year, the New York Red Bulls signed Mike LaBelle as their esports player for FIFA 18. And the Yankees are investing in esports through their partnership with Vision Esports.
Then there's Take-Two’s joint venture with the NBA for a franchised NBA 2K esports league. It led to a wonderful Cinderella-style story which saw Knicks Gaming going from barely scraping by to receiving a playoffs spot and then winning the whole season earlier this year.
Now, as fans descend upon the Barclays Arena, ESL is set to deliver an amazing weekend of CS:GO competition. ESL One New York is built upon the glowing history of esports in New York, and is poised to make itself a part of that same rich tradition.
