Great success for South Dakota's first esports tournament

24 September 2024

Sioux Falls is the biggest city in South Dakota and a wonderful place to visit, but it’s not a name that comes up a lot when it comes to international esports. Until now, because last weekend, the first official esports tournament of South Dakota took place at the Sioux Falls Convention Center. The event, which was completely free to attend, featured six popular esports titles, including Fortnite, Mario Kart and Rocket League, and various leagues. The whole initiative is called SoDak Circuit and was powered by seventeen independent local telecommunications providers plus organizer SDN Communications.

Large-scale setup

The event at Sioux Falls Convention Center kicked off on Saturday, September 21st, at 07:30 AM and ran all day. As we wrote before, attendance to the tournaments was free and spectators could follow the action on more than thirty 55-inch televisions, a few 70-inch screens and a gigantic 16-by-10-foot viewing wall. SoDak Circuit 2024 was open to all ages and featured six different games:

• Fortnite
• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
• Racing Simulator*
• Rocket League
• VALORANT

*The racing simulator is open to all ages as well and the virtual vehicles were custom-made for SoDak Circuit 2024.
“It’s actually so cool, so you know there’s always the nerves that when you’re putting something together for the first time it’s like ‘Will anyone come to this event?’ and especially pouring so much time into planning it”, says Hannah Bouquet, Marketing Manager at SDN Communications, “And so really when we opened the doors and people started walking in it was like eyes were sparkling and twinkling and just jaws were dropping. You know with the lights and the sounds and the ambiance, the energy is so high that everybody is so excited to be here and get to have this for the first time, which is just super super cool.”

Cash prizes up for grabs

Even though fun was at the center of everything at SoDak Circuit 2024, there was some serious competition was well. The organization set up a total of eight different tournaments, each with a set of cash prizes for the best performers.

Ryan Dutton, VP of Sales and Marketing at SDN Communication: “We wanted to have an event that would showcase our network, our member-owner network as well because they’re all contributing to these types of events actually happening at the local level both in a formal, and even with our member companies, just residents and consumers who are doing gaming at home. So it was a great opportunity for us to showcase the reliability, speed and power of our network while also supporting a growing event.”