Esports are coming to Calgary in a big way, as Bow Valley College heads towards the completion of a new esport arena to be located in the college’s downtown south campus.

The arena, which had its design renderings revealed on June 26, is set to provide the college their first-ever varsity sports team a home venue for play, along with a space for the college’s esport management program.

In total, there will be 30 stations for all types of esports competitions, a state-of-the-art professional broadcast suite, and full motion-rigged racing simulators.

“I think when we initially built it, we built it with esports and the [esports management] program in mind. But as I said to someone today, we’re going to have a similar broadcast to basically anywhere else in the world. So CBC or Global, for example, they run it out of the control room, and we’re going to have a control room for broadcast,” said Jeff Clemens, Associate Dean for Bow Valley College’s Centre for Entertainment Arts.

What that means for BVC, he said, was that students would have the opportunity to learn all aspects of the esports business, but also the broadcast industry.

The hope is that the arena serves as a draw for the college in the same way that other esports programs have been for institutions across Alberta.

“I know Fort Mac at Keyano [College], they have an esports team, and they were bringing in students from across Canada—students from moving from Montreal to Fort Mac, to play esports because they had a competitive team, and they had a system set up,” said Clemens.

“I feel like I speak for many people that I would rather move to Calgary than Fort Mac if I had a choice. So, the opportunity to be able to move to Calgary, come downtown, compete around the world in esports events, and actually be a part of a team: I mean, it’ll be super cool to be one of the first founding members of a team. You don’t get that very often.”

Keyano College opened its esports arena in January of 2024.

Play at the college, leave a business leader

Clemens said that there was another draw for students as well. Funding provided by the Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund will allow students to have a place to grow if they decide they want to form their own esports company.

“It’s such a great space for them to actually learn and then to actually see what areas that they might be running events in. They can literally go into the [esport business] accelerator. From that accelerator, they start their own company, and then they build the industry.”

The space will also offer opportunities for the college to branch beyond entertainment.

“If we’re running something out of our production hub space… we can have something recorded there, and we can broadcast it anywhere. So it’s it’s a lot more usable than I think even we initially thought. But as we build we started realizing, ‘hey, this can be used for more than just games,'” said Clemens.

An example he cited was the use of the racing simulators, which have seen similar use in Lethbridge to train police officers.

“It’s definitely something that we can look at for research is how we can use this space in ways beyond just the fun, and just the games, where we can actually use it for real full research,” Clemens said.

“Then the other cool thing about those sims is we’re going to be getting full accessibility accessories, so anybody will be able to use it.”

The arena, which is currently under construction, is set to be completed in the fall by November.