More Info
The meaning of TenGIGJared Nixon says the name “TenGIG” has several layers of meaning. “GIG,” of course, refers to EPB’s 10-gig fiber network. “Ten,” though, has three connections: The 10-gig network, the state of “Ten”-nessee and the event’s running dates in October, the 10th month of the year.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga died with honor.
At least, that's what they say when you've been crushed like a beer can under Godzilla's foot.
Luckily, it wasn't a true death; swords and magic took the five-man team down during "League of Legends," one of most popular online video games in the world. The UTC team was slaughtered, game-speaking wise, by the team from Georgia Tech.
The loss, streamed worldwide over the web, was one of the early matches in the TenGIG Festival, a three-day event for online gaming - known as esports - that debuted in October in Memorial Auditorium. Only a few hundred people actually were inside the building for the festival, but it also streamed live on Twitch.com and more than 100,000 unique visitors clicked on its various offerings over over the weekend.
"No complaints," says Jared Nixon, one of the organizers.
The ability to launch TenGIG in Chattanooga is directly related to the capabilities of EPB's 10-gig fiber network, which Nixon says is unique, as well as partnerships with such companies as EPB, VaynerMedia and Next Generation esports. But there's a much-larger goal than simply hosting a popular gaming event.
Coupling the 10-gig network with Chattanooga's revitalization efforts, its dedication to technological innovation, the lure of its outdoors-friendly location and its low cost of living and you've got the foundation of an esports hub, Nixon said. By bringing in tournaments and conferences such as TenGIG, it could land the really big fish, luring ancillary businesses and entrepreneurs and their wealth of jobs and dollars.
"If you could get a game publisher to move here and develop their new game here, that's jobs. And that creates a bunch of different jobs. You have graphics; you have programming; you have marketing, all those sorts of things," says Nixon, dressed in a simple Army-green hoodie and blue jeans peppered with holes.
It works sort of like an avalanche. Get one rock rolling down the hill and it will impact others and soon you've got tons of rock on the roll.
"Compare it to the movie business. Why are so many films shot in LA? Because all the actors live there. All the infrastructure is there. Same thing," Nixon explains.
The buy-in from city leaders is key, he adds, a position echoed by Mayor Andy Berke.
Chattanooga is "a city that's focused on innovation and empowering people to lead the best life possible," Berke says.
TenGIG is a great business card for Chattanooga and its dedication to innovation, according to Hodgen Mainda, vice president of Community Development for EPB.
"TenGIG is our opportunity to showcase Chattanooga as America's premiere city for gaming and by extension for our nation's most innovative companies and talent," Mainda says. "In a place where every home and business has access to the fastest internet speeds with the lowest latency, you have a nearly instantaneous window on the world whether you're playing a shooter and need to get the drop on an opponent in New York or you're running a company and want an edge over your competition in Austin."
For those who don't know, esports is huge. Scratch that. More than huge. Gigantic.
This is far more than just your teenage son holed up in his bedroom, playing video games on his computer by himself. Every day, esports attract millions of gamers from all over the planet who go online to pit themselves against others in matches to the video death. It also attracts spectators who watch other gamers compete in matches to the video death.
About 300 million people worldwide tune in to esports on a regular basis and, in three years, that number is expected to be about 500 million. Those figures translate into massive dollar signs.
According to esports market researcher Newzoo, esports-related revenue hit $325 million worldwide in 2015 and is predicted to rise above $463 million this year. Goldman Sachs expects the industry to vault above $1 billion by 2020.
There even are professional esports teams; in August, Los Angeles Rams owners Stanley Kroenke and his son Josh paid about $20 million for an LA-based esports team.
Esports tournaments sell out Madison Square Garden in New York and the Staples Center in Los Angeles and also have hundreds of thousands of online spectators. These tournaments offer prize pools in the millions; the 2017 International Dota 2 championships had more than $20 million in prizes.
Nixon is convinced that Chattanooga can take a mouth-watering bite of that pie.
"You have to look at the infrastructure as a whole and, compared to what it would cost to do it somewhere else, the cost is drastically mitigated here.
"The quality of living here is extremely good. If I owned an esports team, for the cost it would take me to put five of them in one house, I could probably put all five of them in five houses, give them 10-gig speed and it would probably still cost me less than LA."
He and his partners have a three-year agreement to host TenGIG and that's plenty of time to judge whether esports will get a toehold in Chattanooga, Nixon says.
"From an infrastructure perspective, I don't know of another place I could go to, another city of this size that has as much going off in it and pull off an event like this."