Dallas Fort Worth Urban Forum

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/sports/Larg ... 53393.html

The eSports Stadium will open this fall in a portion of the current Arlington Convention Center. The article says it will be the biggest eSports venue in the US.

(Supposedly, eSports are basically glorified video game tournaments played between different teams. Recently, North TX was named the site of a pro team, the Dallas Fuel. The Fuel were not mentioned in the Arlington eSports stadium article.)

Guhhhhhh, another "sports" venue in Arlington. Doesn't the Dallas Convention Center have a formerly-primo venue that could have been used for this? Note: I have no idea where the Dallas Fuel play, so they could be planning to play somewhere in Dallas proper.

Yeah, why Arlington. I feel like this is a sport which doesn't (currently) need a big venue to house it either, so plenty of space to host in the city.

Still, I'm glad to see DFW is getting in on this early on. It's honestly not my cup of tea, but I do recognize it's a huge industry and will be massive in a decade or so.

exelone31 wrote:Guhhhhhh, another "sports" venue in Arlington. Doesn't the Dallas Convention Center have a formerly-primo venue that could have been used for this? Note: I have no idea where the Dallas Fuel play, so they could be planning to play somewhere in Dallas proper.

Yes, the Dallas Convention Center Municipal Auditorium has been all but forgotten and discarded by city decision makers. Sometime during Dwaine Caraway's first stent on the city council, he tried to 'champion' an $80 million renovation of the Auditorium, but I guess the fancy bridges and Great Recession buried that half-hearted attempt.

I'm still not sure why The Dallas Wings have not been courted to play in the Municipal Auditorium.

Fort Worth Convention Center suffers from similar tunnel vision in this regard. Landing the big trade shows and conventions is certainly still big business and relevant for tourist bureaus (possibly even reaching the break even point on municipal $ponsorship$), but it seems the bigger the CVB the less likely it is to understand the future.

I still don't understand why the Municipal Auditorium at the Convention Center hasn't been put on the list for upgrade and renovation.

Arlington loves to build sites for sports. if only they cared to do more to improve the quality of life that is the suburban hell scape that is their city.

tamtagon wrote:I still don't understand why the Municipal Auditorium at the Convention Center hasn't been put on the list for upgrade and renovation.

Priorities. Lets face it city council members and city staff have limited time to devote to all kinds of issues and pet projects. Spending millions renovating that arena isn't something that's been pushed by the press, community groups, or some sort of trade group so it ends up on the back list of a things we would love to do if we had the energy and focus to do. Council members spend their time on projects that fill up their inbox and knock on their doors to complain or push for. The reality is if most people are forgetting about the arena and I guaranty most Dallasites fail to know its existence then why would a council member devote their voter driven time on it. They want projects that will keep them in the seat and there is a long list of better projects to fill the agenda with than renovating a outdated arena.