Fan-eye view: Riot Games on creating a superior viewer experience and taking fans forward in esports By Heather McLean
Tuesday, November 5, 2024 - 09:54
Print This Story
View inside the TOC at Riot Games' Dublin RBC for the League of Legends Championships Final 2024
Riot Games is all about meeting the fans where they are and creating a superior level of experience for those fans, whether they are dedicated obsessives of League of Legends or just peaking into a stream to see what is going on. At the League of Legends World Championship Finals 2024 in London on 2 November, Korea's T1 defeated China's BLG. We caught up with Riot Games' Sam Kordower Chaimson, senior manager of broadcast production, and executive broadcast producer for the Worlds, to discuss how esports has disrupted and influenced traditional live sports broadcasting, and how it is moving the fan experience forwards.
Do you think you've disrupted regular live sports broadcasts over the last few years, because you're using and doing cutting-edge stuff and the amount of money you're spending as well is pretty phenomenal?
SKC: I think obviously we draw a lot from traditional sports, and I am sure that folks are looking at us for the tech obviously, because we do some pretty cool things on that front. But I think ultimately what you're seeing a lot in the [sports broadcast] industry now is the storytelling is starting to learn from esports and more traditional video game mediums.
Read more Tech-eye view: Inside the epic remote production for Riot Games' League of Legends World Championships Finals 2024
You see now that the MLB, the NFL and a number of other major leagues around the world as well as for traditional events, are doing alternative broadcasts using alternative technologies or alternative storytelling. I think of the KayRod cast for baseball, with Michael Kay and Alex Rodriguez sitting around shooting the shit, talking about baseball, while a game is happening; sounds a whole lot like a Twitch stream to me, a whole lot like a streamer experience to me. And that's something gamers have been doing for a really long time.
Riot Games Dublin staff at its Remote Broadcast Centre watch last weekend's League of Legends Championships Final 2024
How do you plug into where and how your viewers are engaging with you?
SKC: I think traditional sports and traditional media are starting to clue into the fact that fans have different ways of engaging and at Riot we think it's worthwhile to support all those fans, wherever they are. Whether they're watching a more traditional sport editorial broadcast like some of our main language feeds using our traditional broadcast apparatuses, or they're watching one of our co-streamers, or they're watching in another language using a broadcaster that may have a little bit more irreverent content, fans are choosing to engage with our sport in the way they engage with everything else.
So we've rolled out over the last year a vertical feed, so we also produce a vertical world feed, which is a separate product designed for a 9:16 format. It's been in development for a good while longer than a year, but we've started using it on our major events over the last year and offering it as a world feed over the past couple of years after starting it only as a first party product.
Read more Producer-eye view: Getting the lowdown on the League of Legends World Championships Finals 2024
We've seen that take off in a number of parts of the world where the viewership not only is trending towards mobile rather than desktop or traditional set top box, but towards alternative formats like 9:16. So we're seeing not only TikTok of course, which is the obvious one, really grow in popularity, but people watching vertically on YouTube via YouTube shorts we've seen a huge explosion in East Asia on that as well as other platforms that are leaning into 9:16 like Instagram Live, etc. And that comes down to just meeting fans where they are, not just saying, hey, you have to watch our sport and enjoy our sport in the old school sports way that's appropriate for some viewers . We love that kind of storytelling, but we want to meet fans where they are.
What we do at Riot is about serving a core fan experience. And so it's about tailoring our content to resonate with them and to reward them and to validate their passion for what we do, rather than a build it and they will come approach where we just sit in the mountain and say, this is what League of Legends is , because it's never been that case with how we develop the game.
What always blows my mind about esports is the scale of what you have to capture, the number of things you're trying to well capture, but then to tell a story. So with the scale of this final, what are the challenges for you in doing this and how do you get the end result without crying?
SKC: Oh, there are tears! Don't worry, mostly tears of joy. To me, the unique advantage and the unique emotional hook of esports is how relatable it is. I'm never going to throw a 90 mile an hour fastball. I'm never going to make a buzzer-beater, half court shot. I'm never going to drive an F1 car in my life. I'm not going to understand what those experiences are like. But when I see a big play in League of Legends, when Faker [Lee Faker Sang-hyeok] makes an incredible play or we see Bin [Chen Bin Zebin] dominate his opponent, those are experiences I have had in the game one-to-one, maybe not with as much technical mastery of course, but it's something that really resonates with me as a player. I feel it in my soul because I've been there. I've had that similar heartbreak on the same field of battle, on the same court, the same pitch, the same scenario.
And so it'
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
07/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz and Greenerwave achieve precise and fast ESA antenna characteriz...
07/05/2026
Two multi-role L3Harris products - the Red Wolf launched effects vehicle and SK...
07/05/2026
L3Harris will be developing key features of a secure and resilient digital infra...
07/05/2026
Alysa Liu and Shohei Ohtani Help Drive Viewership as 91 of the Top 100 Broadcast...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Cobalt Digital Wins Two Future Best of Show Awards at 2026 NAB Show
Manufacturer Recognized by TV Tech and TVBEurope for Innovation in signal processing
Cobal...
07/05/2026
Software and hardware platforms, AI power and user-friendliness on show...
07/05/2026
Intinor will demonstrate its latest technical enhancements for the Direkt series at BroadcastAsia 2026. With a continued focus on reliable contribution and remo...
07/05/2026
Bitmovin has announced that MUBI has chosen Bitmovin as its cloud VOD encoding partner, replacing MUBI's legacy on premises encoding setup to improve scalab...
07/05/2026
Meet Graduates from Berklees Class of 2026 Members of this years graduating class reflect on their proudest moments at Berklee and look ahead to whats next.
...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
At BroadcastAsia 2026, Interra Systems will demonstrate its latest innovations in automated quality control (QC), real-time monitoring, and captioning. The comp...
07/05/2026
At this year's Broadcast Asia, PlayBox Neo is set to unveil recent innovations across its PlayBox Neo Suite and integrated range of broadcast media solution...
07/05/2026
Strategic three-year partnership marks delivery phase of BFBS' next-generation media vision
Media organisation and military charity BFBS (British Forces Br...
07/05/2026
Amagi, the agentic industry cloud platform for unified broadcast, streaming, and monetization, today announced the availability of its In-Content Ads offering v...
07/05/2026
Lightware Visual Engineering has developed Rack Taurus for rack-based environments such as education and corporate training spaces. It enables clean and simple ...
07/05/2026
Jigsaw24, the UK's leading media equipment supplier and systems integrator, will showcase its expanded end-to-end workflow capabilities at MPTS 2026, signal...
07/05/2026
Ease Live, an Evertz company, today announced that it has been granted a US Patent for its proprietary graphical overlay technology, the foundation for interact...
07/05/2026
Test & measurement innovator Leader Electronics of Europe will present an extensive range of Leader, PHABRIX and LeaderPhabrix test and measurement solutions at...
07/05/2026
At Broadcast Asia 2026 (Stand 5H3 8), LiveU is redefining live production with its most powerful IP-video EcoSystem to date built to help broadcasters and con...
07/05/2026
January 8, 2024
Colorfront (colorfront.com), a leader in high-performance, on-s...
07/05/2026
February 9, 2024
Colorfront (colorfront.com), the multi-award-winning pioneer i...
07/05/2026
March 20, 2024
NAB 2024, Las Vegas - Colorfront (colorfront.com), the multi-awa...
07/05/2026
April 1, 2025
CINEMACON, APRIL 1, 2025 - Colorfront (colorfront.com), the multi-award-winning developer of high-performance dailies/transcoding/streaming syste...
07/05/2026
June 15, 2025
Colorfront (colorfront.com), an Academy and Emmy Award-winning de...
07/05/2026
June 15, 2025
Colorfront participated in the ICTA Barcelona Cinema Technology Summit on Sunday, June 15, 2025. Held at The Phenomena Experience, the event feat...
07/05/2026
July 1, 2025
Colorfront (colorfront.com), the multi-award-winning developer of high-performance dailies/transcoding/streaming systems for motion pictures, OTT,...
07/05/2026
July 1, 2025
Passion and dedication will take you places. Come with us on a short trip to the heart of India, where Annapurna Studios is living-up to the inspi...
07/05/2026
July 3, 2025
Colorfront (colorfront.com), the multi-award-winning developer of high-performance dailies/transcoding/streaming systems for motion pictures, OTT,...
07/05/2026
September 1, 2025
IBC 2025, Amsterdam - Colorfront (colorfront.com) - the Acade...
07/05/2026
April 17, 2026
LOS ANGELES - April 17, 2026 - Colorfront today announced Colorf...
07/05/2026
April 23, 2026
NAB 2026, Las Vegas - the Academy and Emmy Award-winning develop...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Recreating the 1974 Doctor Who Time Tunnel in After Effects
Graham Quince May 6, 2026
0 Comments
The Time Tunnel from Doctor Who titles is one of th...
07/05/2026
Back to All News
Red Chillies Entertainment and Netflix Present the Trailer of ...
07/05/2026
Production sound mixer Dirk Sciarrotta has mixed Family Feud for 28 seasons. Thats up to 200 syndicated episodes per year, plus primetime celebrity specials - a...
07/05/2026
As audience expectations have evolved, Owen has stopped trying to hide microphones or excuse amplification. Instead, he treats sound as a fully immersive part o...
07/05/2026
Well known Irish faces pushed to the edge in new series of
Uncharted with Ray G...
07/05/2026
RT will premiere A Traveller Family, a compelling new documentary exploring the...
07/05/2026
Less typing, more tanking.
Faster logins mean more time in the gaming action - and this week provides GeForce NOW members with a smoother path straight into th...
06/05/2026
Gravity Media Chief RF Communications Engineer Glenn Willems uses Wisycom RF over Fiber and wireless solutions across major cycling events and international mar...
06/05/2026
A Sennheiser Spectera module is now available in Bitfocus Companion and Buttons, enabling direct integration of Spectera with the two software platforms. The mo...
06/05/2026
Ted Turner, the visionary media entrepreneur whose appetite for disruption helpe...
Fan-eye view: Riot Games on creating a superior viewer experience and taking fans forward in esports By Heather McLean 
