I went backstage at the world's largest Counter-Strike tournament

WHEN you think about or watch the biggest esports events, you don't see the 4.5,000 people working behind the scenes.

The amount of work and personnel at these events can match conventional sports such as basketball, tennis and even football.

Team Spirit was allowed to take the prize home at the end of the dayCredit: GLHF

Esports events can be even more difficult to display than regular sports, and battle royales have a maximum of 100 players at a time.

This means that they must be able to show 100 different points of view, something that far exceeds the complexity of traditional sports.

We went behind the scenes at IEM with ESL studios in Katowice and got a taste of the facility on offer.

What surprised us most was how much space there was there, but that's only normal considering the number of people working there.

The studio is larger than a football field and the space is divided into different configurations to accommodate all the different games.

Some of these have green screens so viewers can better see what's going on.

Other setups are much more high-tech, with LED screens covering the floor and showing cool animations.

With a peak viewership of 1.2 million people at the same time, the world of esports is here to stay.

If you want to read more about esports, check out our recap of IEM Katowice 2024.

Written by Georgina Young and Marin Angelov on behalf of GLHF.

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