Delivering the Broadcast Experience to esports

The global market for esports-professional video game competitions-reached more than 450 million viewers globally last year according to data from market research firm NewZoo. As esports continues to attract more young fans-who are picking up a controller instead of a ball-revenues are also on the rise, and are forecast to grow from $1.1 billion last year to $1.8 in 2022, which is why it is being taken seriously as one of the fastest growing sports worldwide.

The past few years have even seen purpose-built esports facilities, including the HyperX Esports Arena in the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas and the Blizzard Arena on the Burbank Studios lot outside Los Angeles. To ensure that the broadcast competitions can match the level of the NFL or the Olympics in presentation, esports promoters are turning to broadcast production vendors, while also hiring the right talent to pull it all together.

If I was in charge of an esports production company Id try to hire two people, said Cameron Reed, business development manager for esports at Ross Video. One is whoever produces ESPNs GameDay' and the other is whoever does Dancing with the Stars' and Id put them in a room together.

The complexity of esports cant be understated, as each competition brings the challenges equal to that of the Super Bowl as well as its half time show. A major esports competition can be described as equal parts sporting event, rock concert and action movie all in one.

Were seeing more facilities being built up for these events, but others are repurposing multi-use facilities, and each comes with challenges, added Reed. But the presentations all are the same, which is why were seeing production teams that include a combination of old time TV veterans-typically the engineer and technical director-along with kids who really know the games.

Cameron Reed, business development manager for esports, Ross Video (Image credit: Ross Video)LIGHTS, CAMERA, SO MUCH ACTIONEsports is unique from other sports in that the player/athlete isnt actually on a field but is rather static on a stage, while the action or gameplay occurs in a virtual/digital realm that is presented on massive monitors for the audience to view. While those players arent often animated, the in-game action can be, in a word intense, when combined with lighting effects that add to the immersion. The result can be sensory overload.

There are parallels to regular sports, but the rock concert analogy is very good, said Charles Conroy, vice president of gaming for The Switch, a production platform for live esports coverage. There isnt an actual field, so there are no boundaries.

While this opens the ability to capture the action in unique ways, it also presents challenges. For Super Bowl LIV, Fox Sports deployed 70 manned and robotic cameras, along with 30-plus lock-off and POV units. Esports can often require even more cameras on the stage, the players, the audience and all the virtual cameras that capture the in-game experience.

This is far more challenging than a regular sporting event, said Chris Merrill, director of product marketing at Grass Valley. There is the stage lighting and the audience is in shadows so there are no common light levels, while the LEDs have flicker that results in a strobing due to the refresh rate. You need to have the right tools to manage all those levels and do so without a shader that is constantly trying to address it. It is in fact a similar problem to a rock concert.

Given that the most important visuals are what the players see, it would be easy to think that corners could be cut with the cameras in the actual arena but this is far from the case.

Any lower end pro AV camera will pick up the strobing and there is no easy way to deal with it, added Merrill. You need consistency as these events are broadcast all over the world. Esports has evolved from being on Twitch and other online gaming channels. It is now on Fox and ESPN and you need to meet their high level of standards.

Charles Conroy, vice president of gaming for The Switch (Image credit: The Switch)Many of the facilities for esports werent designed with such competitions, but more are being built-and can thus address many of these lighting and camera challenges.

You will see more and more facilities built up over the next year, added Conroy. Esports are now being taken very seriously by the audience, and this is why the production teams must treat it like any other live event.

GAME CONTROLPulling all the various sources together involves its own magic, and this includes broadcast-quality switchers, comms and KVM tools. While these can too often be afterthoughts for smaller productions, for esports it can be crucial to have the right equipment to pull it together.

We do think of the switcher as the backbone of the production, said Ross Videos Reed. A powerful switcher and the right director are critical for the sole reason that-much like news-box effects are the name of the game.

Because it is impossible to cut away from the in-game action, having these effects can allow the viewers to see the player and/or crowd action. It is like a boxing match, added Reed. You have to keep the cameras trained on the action at all times-if you cut away from the action and miss that knockout it could be career suicide.

The switcher can also make it easier for a production to utilize graphics presentations that include stats from the game in real time. The game happens way too fast to have someone manually enter the stats, explained Reed. You need to have automated triggers and automated data that can be retrieved quickly. Ive seen events that are streamed in three languages, and with only one operator, we were able to take in data from the web API, and get the stats sent out to each feed.

While the field of play differs from other sports, the technical management of video di

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