Blizzard Entertainment Continues To Innovate in Year Two of Overwatch League

Blizzard Entertainment Continues To Innovate in Year Two of Overwatch League Enhanced OWL All-Access Pass, upcoming road shows highlight second season By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor

Friday, February 22, 2019 - 1:56 pm

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With the second season of the Overwatch League off and running, Blizzard Entertainment has debuted several technologies - both for the fan-viewing experience and in its broadcast infrastructure.

Blizzard is producing live pre/halftime/postgame shows inside Blizzard Arena for all matches (Photo: Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment)

In addition to an enhanced Command Center feature in Overwatch League All-Access Pass on Twitch allowing viewers to watch games from any player's first-person point of view, Blizzard is producing live pregame/halftime/postgame shows inside Blizzard Arena for all matches and will produce several Overwatch League (OWL) games in teams' home cities for the first time. In addition, Blizzard has launched a new media-asset-management (MAM) system and revamped its OWL transmission scheme to allow customized domestic and international feeds.

We have a lot of new things that are very cool this season from a technology perspective, says Pete Emminger, senior director, global broadcast, Blizzard Entertainment. From a content perspective, we are very excited about the new [features in the] Overwatch All-Access Pass product on Twitch and to be hosting our premium pre and post shows live this year. We had a lot of interest in the community for more content like this, and we want to keep creating more engaging content. We definitely learned a lot around the content ecosystem last year and are excited for an even better season this year.

Overwatch League All-Access Pass Boosts Command Center Features

All-Access Pass, priced at $14.99 for the season, grants access to the new and improved Command Center, which allows subscribers to select among feeds showing the in-game point of view for all 12 players, an overhead view, and the main broadcast view, along with real-time stats.

OWL All-Access Pass' new and improved Command Center allows subscribers to select among feeds showing the in-game point of view for all 12 players.

Users can also watch preset template views that combine player POV, overhead map, and main broadcast feeds into a multiview experience. Available on desktop and mobile devices, Command Center allows users to select up to four preset layouts for one-click or hotkey switching among their favorite viewpoints.

All-Access Pass [Command Center] is essentially a product where you can watch all the players' point of views on Twitch, so that added 12 feeds to our workflow [last year], says Emminger. This year, though, we have those 12 feeds available all the time as opposed to just switching between feeds. We had to put a lot of new workflows in place because there's a lot of nuanced complexities [in making] all that happen. For example, we also have to [deliver content] when the players are not playing, between games or during halftime, so we have some slates with some fresh content and stats up during those periods.

OWL commentators Mitch Uber' Leslie and Matt Mr X' Morello (Photo: Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment)

Although Blizzard Entertainment added a coordinating-producer position dedicated to the Command Center production, Emminger says the bulk of the production is automated and allows users to control their own experience.

It's also completely tied into our stats engine and updates in real time, he adds. In addition to running all those streams thorough our primary transmission [scheme], we had to pair everything up with the data. We have a pretty extensive data system, so it was a very direct merger downstream of all the video and all the data. It took a wide effort across Blizzard and our league's business to make this all come together.

Emminger notes that the broadcast team has simplified the control-room workflow for the producer to integrate stats into the broadcast. With a dedicated stats producer on staff, more stats than ever are likely to be in the main broadcast view in addition to the Command Center experience.

Homestand Weekend Series: Migrating Toward the Home-and-Away Model

Overwatch League will depart the friendly confines of Blizzard Arena for the first time this season, hitting the road for a trio of Homestand Weekend Series hosted by the Dallas Fuel (April 27-28 at Allen Event Center), Atlanta Reign (July 6-7), and Los Angeles Valiant (Aug. 24-25 at The Novo by Microsoft at LA Live). The move is part of a long-term vision for Overwatch League to move to a true home-and-away model.

Overwatch League will depart the friendly confines of Blizzard Arena (shown here) for the first time this season with a trio of Homestand Weekend Series (Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment)

Emminger and company have plenty of experience producing events on the road - including last year's Overwatch League Grand Finals at Barclays Center in Brooklyn and its massive annual BlizzCon production - but Blizzard hopes the Homestand Weekend Series will mark the beginning of a new chapter for OWL.

Obviously, across Blizzard, we have a lot of experience with on-the-road productions, so we're very excited about this, says Emminger. Just like in [traditional] sports, where the team owner and team stadium take on responsibility to host consistently high-quality games in their own market, we want [OWL] to do that as well. This is just an evolution of what we've already been doing - just with more-consistent cities. We're just trying to continue to track towards the home-and-away model, which is the league's long-term vision.

Pre/Postgame Goes Live: New Shows Benefit Streaming, In-Venue Fans

Last year, Blizzard Entertainment

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2019/02/22/blizzard-entertainment-continue...
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