Comcast Plans $50 Million Esports Arena in Philadelphia

(Bloomberg) -- Comcast Corp. unveiled plans for a new $50 million arena in downtown Philadelphia designed specifically for competitive video game playing.

The 3,500-seat venue, dubbed the Fusion Arena, will have more than 2,000 square feet of LED screens, training facilities and private rooms so players can stream video to their fans. The project, a joint venture with Baltimore’s Cordish Companies, will be located near the same venues where the city’s other professional sports teams play.

“Beyond competitive gaming, it’s a stunning facility that will host a wide array of events,” Dave Scott, chief executive of Comcast Spectacor, the company’s stadium management business, said in a statement.

Comcast, the largest cable TV provider in the world, has been making a big move into esports in the past two years. The company was one of a dozen operators paying a $20 million franchise fee in the inaugural season of the Overwatch League, which plays the Activision Blizzard Inc. shooting title.

Last month, the company partnered with Korea’s SK Telecom Co. Ltd. to launch a business fielding teams playing Riot Games Inc.’s League of Legends, Epic Games Inc.’s Fortnite and other titles.

The arena is scheduled to open in January of 2021. Ten sky boxes will have screens where guests can choose their own views of the action. Club seats will include USB ports for high-speed Internet access, according to Brian Mirakian, lead architect for the project at Populous, a design firm in Kansas City, Missouri, creating an environment for esports fans “that’s never existed before.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Christopher Palmeri in Los Angeles at cpalmeri1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, Linus Chua, Shamim Adam

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.