SuperDome esports event seemingly cancelled

27 August 2024

At the start of this year, we wrote an article about the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), a combined authority for the West Midlands metropolitan county (and part of the UK government), and the roughly £ 70 million underspend from the 2022 Commonwealth Games. At the time, the WMCA had just announced that they would be financially supporting various UK esports events and initiatives, including ESL One Birmingham and SuperDome. The first event received £ 145.000 in support and took place in April of this year, while SuperDome received £ 250.000. The problem is that now, it looks like SuperDome, which was planned for September 2024, will not be taking place after all.

SuperDome taken of UK esports calendar

At the moment of the WMCA’s announcement, not a lot of details were known about SuperDome. The organization published a date for the event, September 5th to September 8th 2024, but that was about it. It wasn’t even revealed yet which esports title would be featuring during the event, though rumour was that it was going to be VALORANT. That was mainly because, shortly before the proposed dates, the VALORANT Champions 2024 tournament would be played.

About seven months after the announcement of SuperDome and the funding it would receive from the West Midlands Combined Authority, it looks like the event will not be taking place after all. While no official announcements in its regard have been as of this moment, the event has disappeared from all major calendars for esports in the UK. That includes the official event calendar of the Resorts World Arena in Solihull, where SuperDome UK was supposed to be held later this year.

To add to the confusion, it has been reported that the previously mentioned funding has already been shared with the SuperDome tournament and its organisers. In other words, £ 250.000 has already been invested the event, which now seems to have been cancelled. We expect there to be some clarification as to what has happened to the event and the funding soon, but no indications of this have been provided yet.

Funding for esports and other events

As mentioned earlier, SuperDome wasn’t the only project to receive funding from the WMCA, though it was one of the biggest and most promising ones. The European Judo Union Junior Cup from earlier this year, for example, also received a nice chunk of cash from the organisation (£ 250.000), as did the Godiva Festival “Worldwide Welcome” that took place in Coventry earlier this summer.

“We saw during the 2022 Commonwealth Games – where record numbers of visitors and businesses came to the West Midlands – the hugely important role culture and sport play in our regional economy”, said Neil Rami, Chief Executive of the West Midlands Growth Company, when the funded projects were being announced, “The Commonwealth Games legacy funding is designed to enable the region to carry on that momentum. We received a healthy interest in the fund from applicants across the West Midlands and have selected an exciting calendar of inclusive and sustainable events set to engage our diverse communities and continue driving tourism and investment into the region over the coming years.”