British Esports has announced that its flagship gaming and esports arena in Sunderland is set to open in 2026.
Development of the venue has been given the green light after finances were approved by a leading High Street bank.
Work will begin on the arena in September 2025 and is then due to open sometime in Q1 2026.
The 15,000-square-foot arena will be the first of its kind in Europe, according to British Esports.
This new arena will sit next to the National Esports Performance Campus (NEPC) which received a £5.7m 5G boost in 2003.
Both will be located next to the Stadium of Light, the football stadium of the newly promoted Premier League team, Sunderland AFC.
The NEPC itself is a multi-site venue with gaming houses and bootcamp facilities that have hosted various esports organisations, including Esports World Cup winners Team Falcons and a national Great Britain Rocket League team.
The new esports arena will be custom-built for live events with a 200-seat theatre, a 17m-wide LEC screen, as well as content and editing studios.
It is also planned to be used as a training and education hub, to allow players to practise under tournament conditions by playing on stage.
This also may lead to more opportunities for up-and-coming esports casters, which are a rarity according to aspiring Scottish esports caster Leccyspec.
It will be a multi-use venue with plans to host music, games industry and esports community events as well as national tournaments and private bookings.
“This is our St George’s Park for esports,” says Andy Payne, OBE, Chair of British Esports.
“A national home with world-class performance spaces that will help train the next generation of esports talent and help grow the region to be a key leader in esports in the UK.
Payne believes the flexibility of the new venue will be key to its sustainability:
“We have designed our facility so that on any given day we could be a training and performance hub, running a global esports tournament, hosting a publisher game launch or hired out as a music venue.”
Payne also claims the venue will help generate new jobs and drive economic prosperity for the North East.
Cllr Michael Mordey, leader of Sunderland City Council, labelled the project as “one of the most ambitious regeneration schemes in the UK right now.”
“Billions of pounds of investment will see our city transformed in the coming years, with thousands of new homes, Grade A offices, a new Nissan electric vehicle hub and a plethora of new leisure developments rising from the ground, and the Gaming and Esports Arena is a fantastic addition to this mix,” Mordey added.
“It is a game-changing development which will cement Sunderland’s reputation as the home of esports in the UK, while providing a major boost to the regional economy, creating high-skilled jobs for local people and attracting visitors from across the globe to our transforming city.”
In my seven years of esports writing, I’ve introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I’m most proud of the latter.