‘Home of Giants’, a “reference” eSports center in southern Europe, opened in Malaga

Home of Giants, headquarters of the club where they will compete Vodafone Giants, will have professional eSports facilities located on Paris Street 77 in Malaga.

The inauguration of the headquarters was attended by the president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, and the mayor of the city of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre, among other authorities. Jose R. Diaz, CEO and co-owner of Giants, and Virginia Calvo, responsible for Institutional Relations and co-owner, have served as hosts at the opening ceremony of a modern venue that seeks to place Malaga and Andalusia at the center of the national gaming map.

Good Game Group, business group in which it is integrated Giants, has invested more than a million euros in the creation of this center, which has 1,000 square meters distribuidos en dos plantas. La construcción de este espacio ha sido a cargo de Bilba y el diseño del proyecto ha sido realizado por MLKT Design & Architecture.

Latest technologies

Home of Giants includes different stays for the comprehensive development of eSports: competition area and stands, training rooms, recording studio, shop, trophy room, cafeteria, restaurant and work offices. Vodafone, naming sponsor of the club and technological partner In these new facilities, it provides a connection of high speed with supervision and “minimum levels of latency”.

In the newly opened venue, the Giants Arena, the heart of the facility, which includes a stage with five gaming stations, a giant screen for the issuance of the games and a stands for fans. On the other hand, Home of Giants will include of the battle room for the analysis of the games and the training of professional players, which can also be used as spaces for the generation of content. For this purpose, it will help a recording studio integrated into the premises, which has all the necessary equipment to record, broadcast and generate any type of audiovisual material.

New business opportunities

Jose R. Diaz, CEO and co-owner of Giants, considers it essential that these facilities include space for fans. Thus, “they will be able to live the Giants experience from within and alongside our players.” For his part, the president of the regional government, Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, has been “proud as a Malaga and Andalusian” that the city is once again in the news for a project “with so much future”. “This high-performance center represents leadership, new business opportunities and, above all, wealth, employment and prosperity,” he applauded.

For its part, Virginia Calvo, head of institutional relations and co-owner of Giants, has been excited and proud: “to turn a dream from many years ago into reality and thus continue our path of business growth.” The interventions have been closed with the mayor Francisco de la Torre, who highlighted the longevity of the collaboration of Malaga City Council with the Vodafone Giants project. “The synergy between video games and competition is clear, and has a huge turnover development,” he indicated, while celebrating that the city is “at the forefront” in the eSports sector through Giants, the most successful club in Spain.

eSports, growing industry

In 2019, eSports in Spain managed to bill up to 35 million euros, achieving a growth of 140% in three years. There is more: although income in 2020 reached 27 million, in Spain jobs in this sector went from 600 a 800, according to figures from the latest yearbook of the Spanish Video Game Association (AEVI). This is 33% growth in jobs. Of those 800 professionals, 590 work in clubs and 270 are players. The Spanish market represents close to 4% of the global eSports market.

At a global level, according to data from Newzoo, last year they were invoiced 947 million dollars (777.34 million euros) and will reach 1.1 billion in 2021. In terms of number of viewers, the latest data from Newzoo indicate that in Spain there are already 2.9 million fans, placing it in twelfth position globally, with a mostly adult audience. The previously mentioned 2.9 million viewers reach 5.5 if occasional eSports consumers are added. Besides, Spain has the highest percentage of female fans in all of Europe, with 36% of the total.