It may not be an Olympic Games, but an event that has been quietly brewing for years in Santa Monica will fill SoFi Stadium.
A grassroots community event in the game “World of Warcraft”, Race to World First is like a marathon, sometimes lasting more than a month.
That said, Liquid Guild, led by Max “Maximum” Smith, is tasked with playing through some of the toughest group content in gaming. They race with other groups to be the first in the world to complete it.
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“It’s the regular season, the Super Bowl and the playoffs all at the same time,” the 27-year-old Smith said.
Liquid is the Dodgers of WoW eSports. The LA-based team has won the last three races in a row, and is looking to make this its fourth. Winning requires not only a 20-member group playing the game – called the Red Group – but also dozens of analysts and support staff.
There is no prize pool or gold medal to win. In this race, a team of eSports athletes look ahead at the screen instead of at the starting line. There is no hope of winning without each other.
Team Liquid members Josh “ImfireUp” Henner, left, Brandin “Hopeful” Hahn and Kevin “THD” Arians play “World of Warcraft” during the World First race at Team Liquid’s Alienware facility in Santa Monica on March 26.
(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)
Smith’s guild signed a contract with Team Liquid, an esports company, in 2021. They bring players from across the country to play at the Alienware training facility in Santa Monica every six to nine months, depending on when new game content is released.
This race transforms an ordinary office into a supernatural production space.
Dozens of computer setups are installed in many rooms inside. Players stop their 14-hour day only to use the bathroom, eat and sleep. Even all those brakes are coordinated.
Racing is a full-time job for about 60 people at least a month, if not more. Players have been preparing for weeks, working with fans to add powerful items to their characters.
“It’s one of the few sports or e-sports where the community feels actively involved in preparing the team to compete,” Smith said. He doesn’t play the game himself, but watches and works with an eagle eye, strategizing to give them the best chance.
Most of the 20-member roster are fighting one of the nine bosses of the Red Tier – powerful monsters that act as obstacles they must defeat to complete the race – and are too busy to be interviewed.
They must kill each of the nine “Mythic” difficulty bosses at least once to win. Each boss, which becomes increasingly difficult, presents a strategic challenge to which Liquid must formulate answers.
Attackers must plan and execute pixel-perfect maneuvers to avoid dying, while playing their characters perfectly. If they don’t do this, they die and have to start that boss over again.
The hardest bosses kill the guild hundreds of times. They have to get up, reload and try again.
During the race, Liquid and other guilds raise thousands of dollars for charities such as UNICEF for Liquid and Games for Love for Eco, a European guild. But the lack of a prize pool doesn’t mean they’re wasting money.
Steve Arhanset, co-chief executive of Team Liquid, said the last race saw Liquid reach 30 million watch hours across all platforms.
There is no dearth of sponsors for gamers. Players drink Monster Energy Drink instead of sports drinks. They use branded equipment like gaming chairs or pre-built computers instead of special shoes.
Team Liquid member Brandin “Hopeful” Hahn plays “World of Warcraft”.
(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)
Some players have taken off their shoes. There’s a growing pile of empty energy drink cans on the mantle of the livestream set. The laundry bags around the room are evidence that they’ve been here for about a week.
Expect laughter and coarse language from a large group of men in their 20s and 30s, but mostly calm focus. An employee silences Times reporters talking in the hallway. Their attention should not be diverted.
In this world, a player like 31-year-old Omed “Atlas” Atlaschi is a microbiologist in Orange County by day and an elite gamer by night.
During the race, he is the champion of the fictional planet Azeroth.
Atlaski said, “We’re basically playing for bragging rights. We’re very proud of it. To say you’re the best in the world is really something.”
Many of his peers stream the game for a living and have been playing for over a decade. Others, like Atlaschi, who has been playing since age 10, maintain their day jobs. His love for sports and his friends motivates him to play.
Becoming one of the best “WoW” players in the world takes dedication, problem-solving skills and a lot of free time, he said. But having a united group of them in the same building boosts morale even after weeks of playing.
The attackers killed the fifth boss after 52 attempts. There is no celebration. This is just a step towards the real end of the race.
In one room, dozens of production staffers work to maintain a livestream set, where popular “wow” social media influencers act as play-by-play broadcasters discussing strategy.
A private chef cooks dinner nearby. Every meal will be prepared for the players so they can stay focused.
There is a method to the madness. Players’ biometric data is tracked along with their gameplay so that performance managers like Nata Hiron can keep track of their peak performance and recovery times.
Players are not allowed to drink caffeine after 3 p.m., Smith said, and are encouraged to get eight hours of sleep a day to promote better focus, a strategy that spectators often view as a mistake.
They’re asking attackers to concentrate on the game for up to 16 hours a day, Hiron said, a task many people aren’t prepared for. “It’s something the average human being is not very well equipped to do,” he said.
Similar measures are in place around the world at Liquid’s main rival, Echo Esports in Cologne, Germany.
In just over a week, Liquid and Echo will face off, with both one percentage point away from winning the title.
Published by Blizzard in 2004 before the company merged into Activision and was purchased by Microsoft, “WoW” remains the crown jewel of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game genre, or MMORPG, where it has been for 22 years.
It’s a pop culture monolith that spawned an Emmy-award winner south park episode and this Leroy Jenkins Mem.
Few video games can match the longevity of “WoW”, and even fewer still can provide meaningful game updates to 9 million players, according to 2025 estimate.
It’s a huge resurgence for the game, whose membership had dropped to 5.5 million In 2015.
As long as there’s been “Wow,” there’s been a race, “Wow” content creator Peyton “Tattles” Tettleton told The Times. But it doesn’t always happen on this scale.
Team Liquid trophies in a display case while team members play World of Warcraft during the Race to World First (RWF) at the Team Liquid Alienware facility on Thursday, March 26, 2026 in Santa Monica, CA. Top World of Warcraft guilds from around the world, including Team Liquid, are racing to be the first players to defeat the new, highest-difficulty Mythic Raid bosses.
(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)
At first, the race was done privately, with his boss posting it online after the fact. In 2018, a guild called Method livestreamed their efforts, won the tier, and kickstarted a niche esport they could monetize, Tettleton said.
Liquid – then called Limit – originated as a close-knit group of players challenging themselves, and has remained that way. He finished second during that race.
They later became the best in the world, and tried to prove it again.
The following weekend, on Easter Sunday, the level’s final boss – Lura, who is made of pure light corrupted by the void (though the audience calls it a wind chime) – is still alive.
Echo and Liquid, guilds separated by an eight-hour time difference, are attacking the boss at the same time, and both are close to killing him. Concurrent viewers on Echo’s stream reach 170,000.
In Fake-Out, Lura has a secret that activates when she reaches 0% health. Liquid reaches the new stage in front of over 100,000 spectators and believes he has won. The players jump up to celebrate, only to realize a few seconds later that the fight is not over.
The secret almost allows Echo to win, but in a surprise ending the next day, Liquid defeats the last boss after 474 attempts and secures its place as the best guild in the world.
Players and staff alike jump up and hug each other to celebrate their fourth consecutive victory.
“It’s a lot of hard work, but winning definitely helps prove how crazy it can be,” Smith said.
