Georgia High School Debuts 500-Seat Esports Arena

  • By Matt Jones
  • 05/28/25

Cass High School in Bartow County, Ga., recently announced the opening of a new, 7,000-square-foot Esports Arena, according to a news release. The Bartow County School System partnered with Extron AV Technology on the project, which features higher-powered gaming computers; a professionally lit arena; seating for 500 spectators; and AV features including a 220-inch LED video wall and 56,000 watts of sound.

The arena will serve as competition grounds for Georgia High School Association- and PlayVS-sanctioned events. It will also provide a space for students to learn about game development, sports announcing, sound design, theatrical lighting, and more.

“The Extron team went above and beyond to ensure the success of the project,” said Dalton Jones, Director of Esports at PowerUpEDU, which handled the education technology elements of the project. “Extron’s extensive experience outfitting esports venues with effective AV systems smoothed the way for our project. NAV Pro AV over IP is working well in the Bartow County esports arena, providing reliable AV distribution and switching.”

Technology elements include a NAV Pro AV over IP network that distributes 4K video over 1 Gbps Ethernet with near-zero latency and no loss in visual quality, the news release reports. Other technological features include PCs and tracking PTZ cameras that feed content into the network through NAV E 121 compact encoders. NAV SD 101 scaling decoders send the footage from the AV over IP network to multiple displays, including the video wall and a streaming media processor that broadcasts it to the district’s YouTube channel. The audio system features a DMP 128 Plus audio DPS processor, and the whole system is controlled by touch-panels with custom user interfaces, according to the news release.

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

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