Riot Games Takes Esports Production Global With Project Stryker' Remote Broadcast Centers in Dublin, Seattle, APAC

Riot Games Takes Esports Production Global With Project Stryker' Remote Broadcast Centers in Dublin, Seattle, APAC Regional teams across the world will be able to access the technology from their home base By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor

Thursday, October 28, 2021 - 1:21 pm

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For more than a decade, Riot Games Esports has helped blaze the trail when it comes to remote-production workflows and centralized-production models. Now Riot is taking it to the next level with plans to launch three remote broadcast centers (RBCs) strategically located around the world to create a chase-the-sun broadcast-operations model. The first of these three facilities is set to open this year in Dublin, followed by one in the Seattle area in 2022 and an undetermined APAC location soon after.

Dubbed Project Stryker, the new centralized-production model is the result of years of planning and thousands of hours of R&D by Riot and its Esports Technology Group. With Riot Games expanding its slate of esports events and global footprint in recent years, this new model will allow its esports-production teams across the planet to create more content while also boosting quality and cost-efficiency.

Control rooms in the Dublin remote broadcast center are located in tiers around the atrium.

We knew we were going from a single-game esports company to a multigame future and there were going to be production challenges because what was built over the last 10 years wasn't going to carry us through the next 10, says Scott Adametz, senior manager, infrastructure engineering, Riot Games. We saw a freight train coming in terms of the amount of production that we would need to do, and we saw remote and centralized production as the best way to confront that.

The Stryker Concept: 24-Hour Esports-Production Operation Spanning the Globe In addition to providing a central production facility featuring multiple studios and control rooms for large international events, Project Stryker will also enable regional production teams across the world to tap into remote broadcast centers via control panels at their home bases, opening up state-of-the-art technology to even small regional events.

We are centralizing all of our technology into production centers so that we can have the best equipment, skilled labor, talent, and techniques possible and then create a follow-the-sun operations model, Adametz explains. We've also tapped into remote production so that, even though the gear is centralized at these facilities, the operators can be anywhere around the world. The facility, technology, and architecture support both modes simultaneously.

A cutaway view of Riot Games' new remote broadcast center in Dublin

Powered by the dedicated Riot Direct internet backbone, this trio of remote broadcast centers in Dublin, Seattle, and Asia will be located exactly eight hours apart. This will allow Riot to produce live content and provide support to anywhere in the world at any time of day, regardless of where the event is taking place.

Dublin's location satisfies the strategic goal for coverage around UTC time zone., Adametz notes, and then we'll add locations at plus-eight and minus-eight. Each facility will work a full shift and then shut down and throw control for the next productions to the next facility. We're not picking one facility and putting all our eggs in one basket, nor are we trying to have 20 facilities like we do today in regional esports, because we can't guarantee consistency, standardization, or efficiency.

In Dublin's Fair City: First Stryker Remote Broadcast Center Nears Completion First up on the Project Stryker roadmap is the facility in Dublin, which is already about 75% complete, according to Riot Games' Allyson Gormley, General Manager, Stryker.

Riot Games is taking over the 50,000-sq.-ft. building that was previously the Wright Venue, a well-known Dublin nightclub.

The 50,000-sq.-ft. building was previously the Wright Venue, a well-known Dublin nightclub located in Airside Retail Park in Swords that boasted the largest disco ball in Europe. Riot is transforming this unique space into its European Remote Broadcast Center - complete with six insert stages; six production-control rooms; six audio-control rooms; multiple bullpens for observers (in-game camera operators), graphics, replay, and editing; and a number of large collaborative spaces. And, of course, the disco ball.

The building has a large atrium dance-floor space and several tiers that are wrapped around that space, says Gormley. That creates a very natural environment for control rooms on both sides of the atrium looking down. Where there are double- and triple-height spaces, we've left them flexible to allow us to do further projects as necessary.

In addition to the Stryker production facility itself, Riot has erected a dedicated data center nearby to house the infrastructure and equipment supporting the RBC.

The Wright Venue boasted the largest disco ball in Europe - an element that will remain as part of Riot's Stryker Remote Broadcast Center in Dublin.

The Dublin facility will be capable of producing six concurrent live streams at any given time. At peak capacity, when all six production pods (studio/PCR/ACR) are live on a show day, roughly 150 crew members could be working inside the facility. Riot Games have partnered with NEP Ireland to provide technical production staffing and support at the facility, which will create 120+ jobs across broadcast engineering, production, control crew, and event production.

It's a gradual ramp-up, says Gormley, and it's safe to say that, by our first massive event of next year [the League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational (MSI)], we will be operating Stryker at [full capacity]. Physic

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2021/10/28/riot-games-takes-esports-produc...
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