Battle by the Bay

B3: Battle by the Bay, the B4 Championships, and the B5 Championships were the first three instances of the open fighting game event that is now known as the annual Evolution Championship Series. B3 was created by Tom and Tony Cannon, Joey Cuellar, and Seth Killian, and was held in an arcade hall in Sunnyvale, California in 1996. B4 and B5 were held in Folsom, California in 2000 and 2001 respectively, and the tournament was renamed Evolution in 2002. The three tournaments were entirely focused on the Street Fighter and Capcom Versus video game franchises.

Though the Battle by the Bay mainly drew in competitors from the Street Fighter tournament scenes that had coalesced in various cities throughout the United States in the mid-1990s, the tournaments also attracted international challengers early on.