I went backstage at the world’s biggest Counter-Strike tournament and the studio is bigger than a football pitch

WHEN you think about or watch the biggest esports events, you don’t picture the 4.5k people that are working behind the scenes.

The amount of work and personnel at these events can match conventional sports like basketball, tennis and even football.

Team Spirit were able to take home the prize at the end of the dayCredit: GLHF

There can be even more difficulty in displaying esports events than regular sports, and battle royales have up to 100 players at once.

This means they need to be able to show 100 different points of view, something that far exceeds the complexity of traditional sports.

We went behind the scenes at IEM with ESL studios in Katowice and got a sneak peek at the facility on offer.

What surprised us the most was just how much space was back there, but that’s only natural, given how many people are working there.

The studio is larger than a football pitch, and the area is divided into different setups to accommodate all the different games.

Some of these have green screens in order to give viewers a better look at what’s going on.

Other setups are a lot more high-tech, with LED screens covering the floor showing cool animations.

With a peak viewership of 1.2million people simultaneously, the world of esports is here to stay.

If you want to read more about esports, check out our recap of IEM Katowice 2024.

Written by Georgina Young and Marin Angelov on behalf of GLHF.

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