Working up a business plan for a gaming cafe / esports bar. Part of the location consideration is an active player base for several of the most popular online games. TBH I only play League, so I'm starting here. Is there a way to get numbers of players by city/region?
I would contact riot directly for that kind of information, that kind of data is probably not public. But going off of my knowledge base I would say any city with 2 or more universities would be a good idea, preferable in close contact to each other. I would probably avoid New York, mostly due to your overhead being too high. TBH gaming bars are doing pretty well in most areas as it is (at least the one in Vancouver i know of is doing well), so you could probably open one and do well, regardless of league activity, as long as you ensured you had the other major games available (hearthstone, CSGO, blah blah blah).
The better chance you have is to pick some middle size city that is not too far from other big city/states so that you can attract those players when you organize some kind of event. Something around the the Great Lake Zone or the North East could be the better options for that, probably (but I do not know American geography so well except for city with sports team in NBA/NFL, tbh)
