1,000 crew, 270 gaming PCs, 9 miles of fiber: Behind the scenes at IEM Katowice

The Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) tournament is one of the most prestigious esports on the planet. It sees the world’s top players of StarCraft 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and League of Legends come together to compete in Katowice, Poland for the prized cup. For season 11 this year, the tournament played host to 11,000 spectators a day over two successive weekends at the Spodek stadium, and millions of fans who streamed the event remotely (the organizers estimated 35 million viewers last year). The Spodek stadium in the small gaming-crazy town of Katowice (population: ~300,000) is the largest venue of all…

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