Blizzard Entertainment Takes Live Esports Broadcast to New Heights With Launch of Call of Duty League Huge show in Minneapolis kicks off months-long, continent-spanning production odyssey By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Tuesday, January 28, 2020 - 4:10 pm
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Esports has had the sports-video-production community's attention for some time now, with much of the hype built around mega championship-style events that pack major arenas: events like Fortnite World Cup, League of Legends World Championship, and many more. Now the question remains, can the format do it on a regular basis with a more formatted structure? The new Call of Duty League is the latest venture to take a swing at answering that question.
At the Call of Duty League Launch Weekend, the main broadcast was directed by Melissa Bricker from inside a Dome Productions mobile production unit.
This past weekend in Minneapolis, Activision Blizzard relaunched its esports competition series (previously known at the Call of Duty World League) based on the popular first-person shooter as a city-based franchise league comprising 12 teams (10 in North America, two in Europe). Each city will host live competitions leading up to a grand final expected to be held sometime in July.
It's a noted formalization of Blizzard's esports commitment to Call of Duty and promises to travel a wild production roadshow to major cities across the globe.
We like to deliver the unexpected, says Nick Vartanian, director, global broadcast, Call of Duty League, who came to the esports world in 2018 after a successful career in live event production at the NFL and The Walt Disney Co. We like to bring surprise and delight. Broadcast production is broadcast production. We're producing a show to entertain our guests and our viewers. We want to put on the best show possible, and that's true whether you are putting on traditional sports, esports, or whatever it might be.
Production Tools Power Integrated In-Venue, Broadcast Show
As anyone who has worked on a live esports production will tell, the most notable difference between an esports production and a traditional-sports production is that the in-venue and broadcast experiences not only need to completely complement each other but are fully integrated technologically.
Shoutcasters (on-air commentators) are heard by both the audience watching the stream at home and the fans at the venue. Most of what is seen on the screens in the venue is what is broadcast to the home. And it's all running off the same broadcast infrastructure.
The big thing in esports is that all workflows are connected, notes Pete Emminger, VP, global broadcast, Activision Blizzard Esports, who oversees all of Blizzard's esports competitions, including the popular Overwatch League. For example, our graphics systems are custom apps that trigger graphics in multiple systems. For us, the field-of-play elements are the stage, and they can't be separate from broadcast because the audience hears the same commentators and sees the same gameplay. We can't split because it would all clash. So we're way more integrated in terms of in-game presentation and broadcast.
Therefore, onsite production trucks (two Dome Productions units dedicated to the full season of Call of Duty League) house a team putting together a show designed to be seen both in the venue and on broadcast.
Nick Vartanian oversees broadcast production for Call of Duty League.
The league's Launch Weekend took over (and packed) The Armory in Downtown Minneapolis, a popular concert venue that was actually the home of the NBA's Lakers prior to their move to Los Angeles in 1960. The setup was a sizable one and comprised 25 cameras, a jib, multiple RF handhelds, and a Skycam. A multipurpose studio desk located toward the back of the venue was used both for host commentators and to spotlight 2v2 competitions, for which the desk would split in half and move on a track along the floor.
The primary competition space was placed on The Armory's main stage with theater-style seating for fans. Two competition desks were positioned facing the crowd. Since, again, the setup had to account for the in-venue experience as well, 277 lighting fixtures on 1,084 ft. of truss were brought into the building to bring a concert-like atmosphere to the venue. Support for nearly 1,000 LED video tiles of various kinds required approximately 2,100 amps of power. Those tiles displayed images at 1080p and surrounded 4,944 sq. ft. of staging.
Expanded Pool of Observers Aims for Deeper Storytelling
If you have been following the growth of esports as a production entity, you've read about the importance of a certain role unique to the esports format: observers. Observers are essentially in-game camera operators. While a traditional director and TD at the front bench cut the show to integrate shots of the human competitors, the on-air commentators, and/or the crowd, observers are responsible for showing all the action of the virtual game. They choose what angles the viewer sees in the field of play.
A major enhancement that Blizzard brings to the new Call of Duty League is expanding the field of observers on a live broadcast from one to a team of five. It's a major shift in the creative process and one that Blizzard hopes will take the art of telling the story of a Call of Duty match to the next level. Most Call of Duty esports competitions in the past toggled between POV views of all the competitors, since that's the way the game is largely seen by the players. Although it may be jarring at first, Blizzard is hoping that the ability to deploy more tools and place more camera angles in the virtual environment will paint a more compelling picture.
Each one of [the observers] has the capability to go fre
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Blizzard Entertainment Takes Live Esports Broadcast to New Heights With Launch of Call of Duty League Huge show in Minneapolis kicks off months-long, continent-spanning production odyssey By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
