South Korea’s Gwangju Esports Selects Ross Video for New Arena Build

The esports industry may have its roots online, but its growth and increasing popularity have given rise to a number of physical events that have packed out auditoriums and stadiums around the world. Up until 2020, end of season league and tournament events were regularly drawing crowds in the tens of thousands in-venue, complementing the millions watching online. While the pandemic has obviously forced esports to return to online gaming, many have been planning for a future that sees the return of physical events.

“We had previously experienced Ross equipment as part of our work completing other e-sports/corporate projects, and we were already familiar with the highly-efficient Ross workflow,” comments Sungwon Shin, Project Manager at CJ Olivenetworks, the company behind the design and commissioning of the Gwangju esports arena. “We had no hesitation in proposing Ross esports solution via the public tender process, and the experience has been extremely positive. Ross equipment offers very impressive levels of functionality at a very reasonable and accessible price point. The customer’s goal has always been to run visually impressive productions with only a modest number of people, and Ross is helping us to deliver the goal with technical support and operational training.”

South Korea has always been a hotbed for esports, and the government has been keen to support the building of new, dedicated esports venues to reflect the popularity of the industry. The city of Gwangju, in the south west of the country, recently completed the construction of its own esports arena, and Ross Video sits at the heart of the venue’s production workflow. A Carbonite switcher, Mira replay server and Tria storage all play their part in managing the arena’s video content, and the Ultrix AV processing platform and Ross openGear takes care of all routing and signal processing.

“The pandemic may be a bump in the road for esports, but there’s little doubt that its impressive popularity will continue to grow once live events return to our calendars,” says Mark Cooke, Director of Sales for Asia. “The City of Gwangju is showing great ambition and foresight by investing in this new venue, and we are delighted that Ross solutions have been chosen to power the arena’s productions. The challenges faced by esports content producers are often different to the problems faced by customers in more traditional broadcast or live event environments, but the impressive list of international esports brands that have partnered with Ross clearly shows we have the innovation, expertise and the experience to help the esports industry reach an even wider audience with even more exciting content.”