Romania Will Host The International Now

Romania Will Host The International Now

A beautiful country, but also probably a bad idea.

pocru by pocru on Jul 08, 2021 @ 03:20 AM (Staff Bios)
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A few weeks ago, Valve announced that their plans to host The International, the world’s largest esport event, had hit something of a snag when the Sweedish government decided that esports didn’t count as a real sport. Which meant that it didn’t qualify for the COVID-except status it would need to be held in front of a live audience. Valve said that they were going to look for a new country to host the games, and earlier today, they found one: Romania.

In a new blog post:
 

We are thrilled to announce The International 10 - Dota 2 Championships will be held this October in Bucharest, Romania, and the epic battle for the Aegis of Champions will fittingly unfold inside the country's largest stadium — Arena Nationala.

We are grateful for the partnership we have formed with Romania and the city of Bucharest, and very much look forward to gathering with the global Dota 2 community, both in-person and virtually, to celebrate the elite players and amazing fandom at The International. Prepare yourselves. At long last, the battle begins.


Now, here’s the caveat: speaking as someone who lives in Europe, I can say with some level of confidence that this is a bad idea. See, Romania has something of a… reputation. And one of those reputations, which is fairly well-deserved, is that the country has extremely bad health care and a strong anti-vax culture — in fact, less than a quarter of their population has even been vaccinated at this point. So while I can’t say I’m surprised they’d be willing to host such a huge event, I can also say that anyone attending may regret their decision.

Still, at least it’s being held, I guess. That’s good for DOTA and Esports fans everywhere, but do yourself a favor and stick to watching it digitally anyway, alright?

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