Esports
The place in the UK to play, develop, host and watch Esports.
A predominantly digital experience with physical requirements and revenues, Esports, one of the world’s fastest-growing and most exciting new industries, is quickly finding its West European hub within the UK’s West Midlands.
The UK government recognises the region as the country’s fastest-growing technology sector and a hotbed for the video games industry.
West Midlands’ Esports sector data
The UK’s Esports sector
Exciting competitive gaming and the Esports sector are an excellent match for the UK and its natural national strengths in creative technology and entertainment. It is Europe’s leading video game market and the sixth-largest games market worldwide.
An established ecosystem of diverse and innovative businesses in UK Esports supports a global community of players and content creators, including professional teams, tournament operators, and dedicated venues.
With the UK making up 8% of the global Esports market with significant year-on-year growth, it’s quickly expanding through a great grassroots scene and major events and has all the essential factors to be a global Esports hub.
The West Midlands Esports sector
With one of the youngest major cities in Europe and a cluster of 130 video game companies, it’s no surprise that the West Midlands is a gaming and fast-growing esports hub within the UK and Europe. A region that includes Codemasters, Ubisoft, and Playground games, and represents 25% of the UK’s £7.16bn video games market.
Birmingham regularly hosts one of the most significant live Esports events, ESL One, where 2018’s event saw the largest Esports prize pool event held in the UK to date of $1m. The global demand for Esports is growing considerably, with the West Midlands ready to become a major player in this rapidly growing market.
It’s why we’ve signed a landmark ten-year deal with the Global Esports Federation on behalf of our region, making this youthful, multi-cultural and multi-city region the epicentre for Esports in the UK.
Teams and players
Beyond Fnatic, Endpoint and Excel’s international appeal, the pool of UK Esports teams and players aren’t as big as the US and China. A few UK teams lead the way in large tournaments and can win big. Still, it’s growing as more businesses and investors realise its potential returns.
Esports shares some characteristics with traditional sport and its structures, so it was only natural for West Midlands-based football club, Wolverhampton Wanderers, to enter the industry in 2018. Under the guidance of parent company Fosun Sports – one of the Esports leaders in China – Wolves Esports has committed heavily to the industry, with teams in the UK, Europe and China, as well as announcing last year a partnership with North American Esports giant Evil Geniuses.
Since entering the world of Esports, Wolves Esports has created rosters in FIFA, Rocket League and sim-racing whilst partnering with regional neighbours Epic Games for football-themed content for Fortnite.
Games companies
Studios across the region are working on AAA titles and renowned IPs with global reputations, employing a workforce of more than 3,000 video game professionals. The industry is centred at Leamington Spa, dubbed Silicon Spa, a national centre of excellence for producing computer games and games technology.
Alongside the presence of global players such as EA Games, which acquired Leamington-based Codemasters for $1.2bn early in 2021, and Ubisoft, which has two studios in Leamington, a core of medium-sized developers and publishers, such as Mediatonic and Kwalee, anchor the cluster.
Well-known Playground Games, developer of the AAA Forza Horizon series and new entries in the Fable franchise are finding success here. A BAFTA Game Award-winning studio, acquired by Microsoft Studios in 2018, undertakes all of its R&D activity at its base in Leamington Spa.
Likewise, Mediatonic, located in the heart of Leamington Spa, employing 60 people, is an indie developer of multiplayer games, including ‘Fall Guys’. After great success, the company was acquired in March 2021 by industry giant Epic Games.
Events, tournaments and dedicated venues
As part of a world-class hospitality offering, the West Midlands has dedicated Esports venues for tournaments and arenas and conference venues that can comfortably accommodate Esports events. The most well-known is NEC Group’s Arena Birmingham, which hosts ESL’s ESL One Birmingham Dota 2 event.
Birmingham’s International Convention Centre (ICC) recently hosted the Inaugural Commonwealth Esports Championships and The Commonwealth Esports Forum – a global convention of thought leaders and idea creators – to high praise from players, Member Federations, and fans. The championship, held over an August weekend, saw global teams and fans descend on Birmingham for two days of high-quality, competitive gaming.
Home to the annual major UK fighting game tournament VSFIGHTING, Birmingham’s Millennium Point venue offers unique and striking spaces. It boasts a former IMAX 354-seat auditorium with a breathtaking giant screen, perfect for capturing those nail-biting team fight or epic clutch wins. The venue also offers several smaller zones for green rooms, social spaces, and exhibition areas ideal for merchandise and sponsors.
The West Midlands also offers dedicated venues for small-scale and grassroots events and tournaments. Three Belong Gaming Arenas are located in the region, each equipped for 24 – 37 players, ideal for social community events and grassroots Esports tournaments in games like Overwatch and League of Legends.
Hotels and hospitality
No matter where an event is hosted in the region, you’ll find places to stay on its doorstep, from simple rooms to luxurious resorts. There are hundreds of hotels, serviced apartments, B&Bs, and self-catering accommodation options for all budgets across Birmingham and the West Midlands. View what’s on offer and perhaps plan a visit at VisitBirmingham.com.
UK Esports services, technology & equipment
Beyond the gaming and players, the UK has the services and infrastructure to deliver global Esports experiences, with super-fast fibre broadband, tournament platform operators and operation management services available in the West Midlands.
The 18 leading companies and organisations in the UK’s Esports services industry directly generated a GVA of £47m annually pre-pandemic.
Esports Gaming League (EGL) is a UK-based tournament platform operator, providing operation management services to clients and running its own tournaments and events on its proprietary online gaming platform.
London-headquartered FACEIT has produced some of the UK’s biggest Esports events and operates the world’s most active competitive platform for online multiplayer games. They enable organisers to create, distribute and manage their Esports events with innovative tools and technology, plus access to an established community of players at all levels.
The UK’s only multi-city 5G testbed and the site of the first 5G commercial accelerators, the region also has the best 5G network coverage of anywhere else in the country.
Esports streaming services in the UK
In the UK, Twitch, YouTube Gaming and Level Up Media (formerly DINGIT) are three of the leading streaming platforms for Esports, reportedly generating £7m in GVA annually pre-pandemic.
Creative talent, Esports training and education
The West Midlands Growth Company (WMGC) can help create strategic partnerships that are key to funding opportunities in the UK, improving status or global reach, and tapping into training and education programmes for specific talent.
WMGC partner, University of Warwick, has recently been named the UK Esports University of the Year for the fourth successive year, following significant investment in state-of-the-art facilities and talent. And it doesn’t stop there. A 51,000-strong tech employment base is accessible within 45 minutes of central Birmingham, boosted by an evergreen pipeline of 87,000 STEM subject students.
Through the many universities and regional expertise, there are plenty of opportunities to study the Esports industry in-depth and learn everything from video production or branding to game design and networking.
Looking beyond the West Midlands, The National University Esports League (NUEL) is the longest-running university tournament organiser in Europe, emphasising the developmental work taking place in Esports, the creation of communities and the establishment of pathways into the Esports sector.
Another grassroots initiative, the NSE, provides an excellent Esports experience to university students across the UK. They work with British Universities & Colleges Sport to build skills, employability, and community and provide competition between universities.
Esports technology research and development
The UK, in particular Birmingham and the West Midlands, is already home to some of the world’s leading digital and creative talent, with hot opportunities to use local R&D expertise to develop new immersive tech that could change how creative companies interact with their audiences. Utilise academics and innovators across creative and immersive technologies, data-driven content production and broadcast to develop and test new products and services with large-scale, diverse audiences.
We’re seeing UK Esports lead the way in creating newer, richer audience experiences with significant commercial potential through projects such as The Weavr Consortium, using data to develop personalised mixed-reality experiences for Esports fans.
The West Midlands is a really good place for esports because we’ve got close links to gaming sectors in areas like Leamington Spa.
We’ve got fantastic Expo halls in Birmingham, Coventry, as well as in Wolverhampton with a stadium and access to facilities like the University.
Free support services
We bring together a project team from relevant organisations across the region. This team includes property agents, recruitment consultants, public sector departments and universities. It delivers a comprehensive support package to quickly and easily help you establish and scale your business in the UK.
