Global Gaming League Melds Music and Sports Into Its Production Graphics and music create a purposeful emulation of early MTV for an esports hybrid By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Thursday, August 21, 2025 - 2:52 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The synergy between sports and entertainment will take a huge step forward on Saturday when the Global Gaming League s (GGL) first season of year-around competitions starts in Las Vegas. The event, titled SZN Zero, takes place at the Hyper X Arena in the Luxor Hotel & Casino and is backed by Show Creator/Executive Producer Clinton Sparks and Grammy-winning artist and rap icon T-Pain, director, strategy, GGL.
The GGL is the first-of-its-kind multi-title, live-action gaming entertainment league: professional gamers, influencers, and casual players compete side by side both in front of audiences in Las Vegas and globally on major platforms, including Twitch and YouTube, playing game titles ranging from Call of Duty and Rocket League to Tetris and Street-Fighter.
Call It Sportainment' The event leans heavily on music and celebrity team sponsorship; in addition to T-Pain, artists who have signed on as team owners include Grammy and BET Award-winners Jermaine Dupri, Bryce Hall, Ne-Yo, and Flavor Flav. But the media infrastructure would look familiar to any broadcast-sports producer. In fact, it might also seem familiar to anyone watching The Real World on MTV in the early 1990s, a look and feel that was intentional.
Dylan Marer: [GGL] is the WWE meets esports meets MTV halftime or Wild 'N Out, and there's a fashion component as well.
It's a combination of retro gaming along with current gaming, but, with the graphics and CG, we're also [emulating] the look and feel of that era, explains Co-Executive Producer Dylan Marer. We're bringing in the lower tickers and the pop-up-video-type stuff like you should see on [The Real World]. We're integrating some of that style with the way we're doing the broadcast graphics and the content that we create and the subject matter of the games. We modeled some graphics and things to be like pop-up video and some of the ticker having interesting facts, things that you used to see back in the '80s.
Marer shares EP duties with Michael Fuller on a team that also includes Director Morgan Tremaine, Creative Producer Matt Davis, and Technical Director Andrew Wagnitz.
Each event will feature two celebrity-owned teams of four players - high-profile influencers, actors, athletes, artists, and both professional and casual gamers - facing off in four-round matches covering four genres. Superstar hosts and halftime shows by major music artists will buttress the entertainment factor. SZN Zero events - there will be three episodes in the first part of the season - will take place in Las Vegas, building up to a championship match broadcast live from The Palms resort and casino there in November. Then the Global Gaming League will continue with SZN One into 2026.
Familiar Gear To get that vintage vibe, GGL is using very contemporary resources. The production emanates from Touring Video TV-3 production truck, which features a Sony MVS-7000x 6M/E HD switcher, a Stagetec Crescendo audio console, and a pair of Nexus Star 1024 1024 routers, with comms going through a Riedel Artist 64 intercom matrix frame. In the hybrid production, live action and virtual gameplay share the screen, along with typical videogame SFX bolstered by live crowd cheering and interspersed with short, live music performances sung to backing tracks. An extensive comms infrastructure is based on a Riedel Bolero system, and there is considerable RF wireless in the mix: all eight team competitors are wired for sound.
The GGL gaming entertainment league offers competition by professional gamers, influencers, and casual players in front of audiences in Las Vegas and streamed globally.
The entire 18-camera production, including overhead rail cams, is live, with audio mixed separately for the streamcast on the Stagetec desk by A1 Bob Wartinbee and submixer Arley Cervantes, and on a DiGiCo Quantum225 console live in the venue. To emphasize the parity of music and gaming, the production also brought in additional L-Acoustics audio components to bolster the venue's existing PA system with more low end. The audio is stereo, limited by the distribution channels' bandwidth but liberally sprinkled with custom SFX, for the many transitions that the production speeds through. Clips come through a 360 Systems Instant Replay 2 networked digital-audio clip player.
A League of Its Own This is the WWE meets esports meets MTV halftime or Wild 'N Out, and there's a fashion component as well, explains Marer. It's kind of its own category.
That's very much reflected in the production.
This is an entertainment show and a sporting event - call it sportainment, says Technical Producer and Touring Video President Doug Armstrong. We are merging the two, and so our crew is more entertainment-centric than they are sports-centric. It is almost [more like] a variety show than a sporting event. We're addressing it as more of a musical-entertainment show that has gaming as the catalyst to bring in the viewer and keep the engagement going.
Like MTV in its early years, GGL is just finding its way, looking to strike the right balance between sports and showbiz - something even conventional sports itself is increasingly trying to figure out lately.
What [GGL] wanted to accomplish is that MTV style, with the culture, the music, and fashion meeting entertainment and gaming, says Marer. They want to be in their own category, and they are.
North America Stories
23/08/2025
At IBC2025 (12-15 September, RAI Amsterdam, stand 1.B73), Imagine Communications is expanding its Selenio Network Processor (SNP) line with the launch of SNP-X...
23/08/2025
At IBC2025, TSL will introduce a series of workflow-driven enhancements across its control, audio monitoring, and power distribution solutions, engineered for i...
23/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - Lightware, industry leaders in signal management, have seen growing demand for their Taurus Smart Dock since its launch in Janu...
23/08/2025
PALO ALTO, Calif. The streaming technology solutions provider Wurl has named Dave Bernath as its new chief executive officer....
23/08/2025
WASHINGTON Newsmax founder and CEO Christopher Ruddy has come out against reducing broadcast ownership caps in a filing with the Federal Communications Commissi...
23/08/2025
$2.2 Million Donation Fuels Next Phase of Berklee Bridge The anonymous gift will amplify the impact of the student success initiative built to support student...
22/08/2025
Utah Scientific Releases NBOSS Software-Based NMOS Control Solution for Hybrid S...
22/08/2025
(L-R) Writer-director Alex Russell, Th odore Pellerin, Archie Madekwe, and Havana Rose Liu on stage for the premiere of Lurker at Eccles Theater in Park City....
22/08/2025
We recently spoke with MixedbyEL, a rising force in the world of audio engineering, celebrated for his dynamic work in rap, R&B, and pop. From his early days re...
22/08/2025
BitFire (bitfire.tv), a leader in software-defined live production and IP transmission, today announced the addition of cloud-based live master control capabili...
22/08/2025
Utah Scientific today announced NBOSS, a new software-based control solution designed to streamline the management of NMOS-compliant devices in hybrid SDI/IP en...
22/08/2025
Amagi, a cloud-based SaaS technology solutions provider for broadcast and streaming TV, today announced the release of its 15th Global FAST Report, offering ins...
22/08/2025
Hitomi Broadcast, the market leader in audio/video alignment and latency solutions, announces that ORF ( sterreichischer Rundfunk), Austria s national public br...
22/08/2025
This Berklee Program Turns Class Projects into Career Breakthroughs Experiential Design Lab students take on creative briefs from Red Bull, Disney, and more, ...
22/08/2025
NEW YORK Although FAST channels are becoming ever more omnipresent in the streaming universe, the vast majority of them will need to start providing more live c...
22/08/2025
NEW YORK Independent sell-side advertising company Magnite today announced an integration with Acxiom, the connected data and technology foundation of global ad...
22/08/2025
CINCINNATI The E.W. Scripps Company has announced that six of its channels are now streaming as part of Peacock's 24/7 channel offering and are available to...
22/08/2025
ESPN launched today its new direct-to-consumer streaming service and a set of new features on an enhanced ESPN App, making ESPN's full suite of 12 networks ...
22/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission is once again pressing the delete button as part of its Delete, Delete, Delete regulatory initiative to remov...
22/08/2025
OXFORD, U.K. Solid State Logic will unveil its System T plug-and-play IP-native MPL 16-8 stagebox offering cost-effective connectivity for touring flypack and i...
22/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corporation has officially launched Fox One, a new streaming service that brings together the full portfolio of Foxs sports, news a...
22/08/2025
As the latest member of the NVIDIA Blackwell architecture family, the NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPU builds on core innovations to accelerate training and AI reason...
22/08/2025
Little League Baseball World Series: As Championship Weekend Approaches, ESPN Re...
22/08/2025
AI reasoning, inference and networking will be top of mind for attendees of next...
21/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies Chair and CEO Christopher E. Kubasik speaks at the opening of the 94,000-square-foot satellite integration and test facility. The company ...
21/08/2025
DENVER At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Imagine Communications will introduce the SNP-XS, a versatile addition to its Selenio Network Processor (SN...
21/08/2025
HUDSON, Mass. BitFire, a provider of software-defined live production and IP transmission, today announced the addition of cloud-based live master control capab...
21/08/2025
ATLANTA Gray Media has laid out plans for launching a new cutting-edge, hyper-personalized streaming platform that will start going live in Grays markets in Jan...
21/08/2025
NEW YORK and ZURICH Chyron, a provider of broadcast graphics and live production solutions, has announced a partnership with Asport, a leading sports tech innov...
21/08/2025
NEW YORK swXtch.io has amplified its support for SRT workflows with a new specialized gateway solution primarily targeted at the live event market. To be introd...
21/08/2025
AMSTERDAM Rise Academy, the charity dedicated to delivering practical media technology experiences, careers resources and sharing work experience opportunities ...
21/08/2025
WASHINGTON FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced the appointment of Courtney Cowper as a special assistant in his office. As a special assistant in the Office of ...
21/08/2025
COLUMBUS, Ohio Live Media Group has launched its latest mobile production unit, the MU-28, which is a SMPTE 2110-7 IP-based truck built specifically for remote ...
21/08/2025
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. Sling TV has launched a new offering called Select that provides a package of cable channels for $19.99 a month....
21/08/2025
IRVINE, Calif. CTV and programmatic ad provider Viant Technology Inc. has announced a new integration of its DSP with Wurl that provides advertisers with scene...
21/08/2025
TORRANCE, Calif. Marshall Electronics will highlight several new products at IBC2025, including the CV612 PTZ camera, RCP Plus camera controller and VMV-402-3GS...
21/08/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spolight: MyCaseBuilder's Steve Holand on Creating Custom Ca...
21/08/2025
Back to All News
The Monster of Florence: Official Trailer and New Photos of th...
21/08/2025
Japan is once again building a landmark high-performance computing system - not ...
21/08/2025
Telos Alliance Highlights Advanced Dialog Intelligibility and Language Detectio...
21/08/2025
Building From the Back: Will AI Benefit European Football Production and Distrib...
21/08/2025
Ratings Roundup: NBC Sports Starts EPL Season With Most-Watched Opening Weekend;...
21/08/2025
Behind The Mic: Phil Simms Heads to NBC Sports' Big Ten College Football Boo...
21/08/2025
From Paris to Milan: How NBC Olympics Continues to Lead the Way in Media Managem...
21/08/2025
FloSports Deploys AI-Driven Virtual Pan and Zoom To Streamline Production of Mul...
21/08/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spolight: MyCaseBuilder's Steve Holland on Creating Custom C...
21/08/2025
Global Gaming League Melds Music and Sports Into Its Production Graphics and music create a purposeful emulation of early MTV for an esports hybrid By Dan Dale...
21/08/2025
From AI assistants doing deep research to autonomous vehicles making split-second navigation decisions, AI adoption is exploding across industries.
Behind ever...
21/08/2025
Across the globe, AI factories are rising - massive new data centers built not to serve up web pages or email, but to train and deploy intelligence itself. Inte...
Global Gaming League Melds Music and Sports Into Its Production Graphics and music create a purposeful emulation of early MTV for an esports hybrid By Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
