The Pokémon North America International Championships is leaving New Orleans after three years and relocating to McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago starting in 2027. The announcement came during closing ceremonies of this year's tournament in Louisiana.
Chris Brown, Director of Global Esports and Events at The Pokémon Company, described Chicago as a natural upgrade for the rapidly expanding event. The company evaluates potential host cities based on three core criteria: geographical accessibility, capacity for growth, and overall appeal as a destination.
The accessibility gap between the two cities is substantial. While New Orleans offers direct flights from 55 airports across four countries, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport provides connections to 281 airports spanning 49 countries, according to FlightConnections.com data. For a tournament drawing international competitors and fans, that logistical advantage matters enormously. "We have 48 countries and regions represented this weekend, for example," Brown noted. "So having that accessibility is vital now for a show of this scale."
The championships have grown faster than anticipated. The tournament surpassed The Pokémon Company's three-year attendance projections in just two years, with attendance climbing more than 150 percent. This year, every entry badge category sold out.
Space constraints in New Orleans pushed the decision. The Ernest N. Morial Convention Center ranks among the world's largest facilities, but competing demands from other events made it difficult to secure enough simultaneous capacity. The Pokémon Company considered whether to compress the competitive tournament to expand fan programming in New Orleans, but ultimately prioritized the international championships format. Brown emphasized the goal now is balancing both audiences equally.
"Chicago lets us grow the space," Brown said. "We want to grow the competition, we want to grow our fan programming."
The company is already pursuing this dual-track approach elsewhere. Last year, The Pokémon Company paired a new PokémonXP fan celebration with the upcoming 2026 Pokémon World Championships in San Francisco. Brown declined to confirm whether Chicago would serve as the permanent home for the North America tournament, but noted that relocating the World Championships annually presents logistical headaches. Event organizers prefer stability: holding the same show in the same location at roughly the same time each year provides operational consistency.
Chicago already hosts other Pokémon draws. The city hosts Pokémon GO Fest every May and recently featured the Pokémon Fossil Museum, a temporary exhibition at the Field Museum. That exhibit is scheduled to close before the 2027 championships arrive.
Author Emily Chen: "The move makes pure sense on the numbers, but New Orleans proved Pokémon tournaments can thrive outside traditional esports hubs."
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