The Indiana General Assembly has passed House Bill 1608, or the “E-sports industry development study.” Authored by Representative Kyle Miller (D – District 82); co-authored by Representative Robert Morris (R – District 84) and Wendy Dant Chesser (D – District 71); and sponsored by State Senator Andy Zay (R – District 17); the bill calls for the Indiana Economic Development Corporation to “study methods and strategies to allow Indiana to become a leader in the development of the e-sports industry and to submit a report on the results of the study to the governor and the general assembly.”
The bill (which was passed on Feb. 11, in a roll call vote – 74 yays, 17 nays) was referred to the Committee on Commerce and Technology on March 3.
The bill’s author(s) hope that bringing different levels of esports into the state (tier-1, tier-2, collegiate) into the state will provide economic benefits into the state experienced by other cities, which includes increased tourism, which in turn leads to economic impact on local town and city from visitors such as hotel stays, sales to local merchants and restaurants, travel, ticket sales, and more.
Of course, this study aims to try and quantify if such impact is a still strong possibility; though it is important for us to note—based on our past reporting—that tier-1 events from publishers and organizer such as Riot Games, Ubisoft, and ESL FACEIT Group in cities around the world do have a quantifiable, seven-figure, short-term economic impacts on local economies. For example, the Worlds 2024 Finals had an economic impact of £12M GBP, or $15.5M USD, for the city of London; the 2023 LCS Spring Finals generated $2.74M in direct economic impact for Wake County, North Carolina (the event was held in Raleigh, North Carolina, where it had a local economic impact of $1.6M); and the 2023 edition of DreamHack San Diego generated an estimated $4.7M for the local economy.