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<\/p>\nIt might not be an Olympic sport, but an event in Santa Monica happening quietly for years would overflow SoFi Stadium. <\/p>\n
A grassroots community event in the game \u201cWorld of Warcraft,\u201d the Race to World First is more of a marathon, sometimes lasting over a month. <\/p>\n
Liquid Guild \u2014 led by Max \u201cMaximum\u201d Smith \u2014 is tasked to play through the most difficult group content in gaming, he said. They race with other groups to be the first in the world to complete it. <\/p>\n
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\u201cIt is the regular season, the Super Bowl and the playoffs all at one time,\u201d Smith, 27, said. <\/p>\n
Liquid is the Dodgers of WoW esports. The L.A.-based team has won the last three races in a row, and mean to make this one their fourth. Winning requires not just the 20-man group playing the game \u2014 called a raid group \u2014 but dozens of analysts and support staff. <\/p>\n
There\u2019s no prize pool or gold medal to be won. In this race, a team of esports athletes stare forward at a screen instead of the starting line. Without each other, there\u2019s no hope of winning. <\/p>\n
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Team Liquid members Josh \u201cImfiredup\u201d Heiner, left, Brandyn \u201cHopeful\u201d Hahn and Kevin \u201cTHD\u201d Arean play \u201cWorld of Warcraft\u201d during the Race to World First at the Team Liquid Alienware Facility on March 26 in Santa Monica.<\/p>\n
(Kayla Bartkowski \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Smith\u2019s guild contracted with Team Liquid, an esports company, in 2021. They bring players from across the country to play from the Alienware Training Facility in Santa Monica around six to nine months, depending on when new game content is released. <\/p>\n
The race turns an ordinary office into an otherworldly production space. <\/p>\n
Dozens of computer setups line several rooms inside. Players only stop their 14-hour days to use the bathroom, eat and sleep. Even those breaks are all coordinated. <\/p>\n
The race is a full-time job for about 60 people for at least a month, if not longer. Players have been preparing for weeks, working with fans to funnel powerful items into their characters. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one of the few sports or esports where the community actively feels involved in helping prepare the team to compete,\u201d Smith said. He acts as an eagle eye, not playing the game himself, but watching and strategizing to give them the best chance. <\/p>\n
Most of the 20-man roster are fighting one of the raid tier\u2019s nine bosses \u2014 powerful monsters that act as roadblocks they must defeat to finish the race \u2014 and are too busy to be interviewed. <\/p>\n
They must kill each of the nine \u201cMythic\u201d difficulty bosses at least once to win. Each boss, which gets progressively harder, presents a strategic challenge that Liquid must create answers for. <\/p>\n
Raiders have to plan and execute pixel-perfect maneuvers to avoid dying, all while playing their characters perfectly. If they don\u2019t, they die and have to start that boss over again. <\/p>\n
The hardest bosses kill the guild hundreds of times. They must get up, reload and try again.<\/p>\n
During the course of the race, Liquid and other guilds raise tens of thousands of dollars for charities like UNICEF for Liquid and Games for Love for Echo, a European guild. But the lack of prize pool doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re throwing away money. <\/p>\n
During the last race, Liquid racked up 30 million hours watched across all platforms, Team Liquid co-chief executive Steve Arhancet said. <\/p>\n
Sponsors for gamers aren\u2019t lacking, either. Players drink Monster energy drinks instead of sports drinks. They use branded equipment like gaming chairs or pre-built computers instead of specialized shoes. <\/p>\n
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Team Liquid member Brandyn \u201cHopeful\u201d Hahn plays \u201cWorld of Warcraft.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Kayla Bartkowski \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Some players have taken their shoes off. A growing stack of empty energy drink cans sit on the livestream set\u2019s mantle. Laundry bags around the room are proof they\u2019ve been here for almost a week. <\/p>\n
There is laughter and coarse language expected of a large group of men in their 20s and 30s, but mostly quiet focus. A staffer shushes the Times journalists talking in the hallway. They shouldn\u2019t be distracted. <\/p>\n
In this world, a player like Omeed \u201cAtlas\u201d Atlaschi, 31, is a microbiologist in Orange County by day, and an elite gamer by night.<\/p>\n
During the race, he is a champion of the fictional planet Azeroth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are basically playing for bragging rights. We take a lot of pride in it. Saying you\u2019re the best in the world is really something,\u201d Atlaschi said. <\/p>\n
Many of his guildmates stream the game for a living and have played for over a decade. Others, like Atlaschi, who has played since he was 10, maintain their day jobs. His love for the game and his friends keeps him playing. <\/p>\n
It takes dedication, problem-solving skills and a lot of free time to be one of the best \u201cWoW\u201d players in the world, he said. But having their tight-knit group in the same building raises morale, even after weeks of play. <\/p>\n
Raiders kill the fifth boss after 52 attempts. There is no celebration. It is just a stepping stone to the real end of the race.<\/p>\n
A room over, dozens of production staffers work to upkeep a livestream set where popular \u201cWoW\u201d social media influencers act as play-by-play broadcasters, discussing strategy. <\/p>\n
A private chef cooks dinner nearby. Every meal will be prepared for the players so they can stay focused. <\/p>\n
There is a method to the madness. Players\u2019 biometric data are tracked alongside their gameplay so performance managers like Nata Hiron can keep track of their peak performance and recovery times. <\/p>\n
Players are not allowed to drink caffeine after 3 p.m., and are encouraged to get eight hours of sleep a day to promote better focus, a tactic that viewers often see as a mistake, Smith said. <\/p>\n
They\u2019re asking raiders to focus singlemindedly on the game for up to 16 hours a day, a task not many people are up for, Hiron said. \u201cThis is something that the average human is not very well equipped to do,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The same kind of measures are taken across the world at Liquid\u2019s main competitor, Echo Esports, in Cologne, Germany. <\/p>\n
In just over a week, Liquid and Echo will be neck and neck, both single percentage points away from winning the title.<\/p>\n
Published by Blizzard in 2004 before the company merged with Activision and was purchased by Microsoft,<\/a> \u201cWoW\u201d remains the crown jewel of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game genre, or MMORPG, where it has been for 22 years. <\/p>\n It\u2019s a pop culture monolith, spawning an Emmy-award winning South Park episode<\/a> and the Leeroy Jenkins meme.<\/a> <\/p>\n Few video games can match \u201cWoW\u2019s\u201d longevity, and even fewer can still provide meaningful game updates to 9 million players, according to 2025 estimates.<\/a> <\/p>\n
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