Live from Paris: World-leading remote production for Riot Games' League of Legends Finals By Fergal Ringrose, Editorial Director, Europe
Thursday, November 14, 2019 - 17:04
Print This Story
The Finals of Riot Games' 2019 League of Legends World Championship were held on Sunday (10 November) at the AccorHotels Arena in Paris, with the winning Chinese FunPlus Phoenix team lifting the Summoner's Cup as 2019 World Champions and taking home more than US $2 million in prize money.
Riot Games chief executive Nicolo Laurent described the Finals as the biggest event in the history of esports, with an estimated 100 million people watching around the world.
The 2019 League of Legends World Championship is the ninth year for the tournament, arising from the competitive multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game developed by Riot Games. The Championship was held in Berlin, Madrid and Paris, with 24 teams from 13 regions competing for the tournament, having qualified from regionals circuits in China, Europe, North America, South Korea and South East Asia. More than 15,000 esports fans packed into the AccorHotels Arena to see the Finals match live last Sunday.
Technical complexity for the Finals is ramped up each year by the demands of the in-venue Opening Ceremony. In 2017 Riot Games deployed a virtual dragon flying through Beijing National Stadium.
LA is handling the World Feed and it is then given to our partners to add their own graphics and voice it themselves in their own language. Our show is streamed live in 19 different languages and we have over 40 distribution partners.
Last year AR was factored into the Opening Ceremony at Incheon Munhak Stadium in South Korea, allowing in-game band K/DA to be virtually inserted onstage into the opening musical performance alongside Madison Beer, Miyeon and Soyeon of (G)I-DLE, and Jaira Burns.
This year's Opening Ceremony featured hip-hop collective True Damage, along with League of Legends characters Qiyana, Akali, Senna, Ekko and Yasuo. The show featured four Holonets from Kaleida, giant hanging fine metal meshes that are highly reflective and also see-through giving the effect of being a hologram.
The meshes were positioned on either side of the stage, so the audience could see in front of and behind the talent on stage - with eight 4K screens positioned all around, each individually controlled.
The losing G2 Esports team from Berlin during the Finals. (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)
The Riot Games team has over the last few years evolved what may be the most sophisticated at-home production model in the world, seeking to produce the world feed show from its studio in Los Angeles no matter where its tournament event is being staged - and in the process dramatically reducing the number of trucks and production people required on-site.
This year, in addition to the world feed being produced in LA, the English language show was produced at Riot's European headquarters facility in Berlin. So, for 2019, the League of Legends World Finals featured not one but two remote productions.
And in the heat of battle, Riot Games' Esports Technology Group decided to innovate with the new JPEG XS compression format - realising what is probably the first trans-Atlantic remote production undertaken using JPEG XS.
All of which meant the Finals were produced and sent to 40 distribution partners around the globe with just one OB truck on-site at the Accor Hotels Arena in Paris. That was NEP Sweden's UHD 1, used to cut the Opening Ceremony segment of the show, the in-venue screens production and to provide infrastructure for comms, signal distribution and some camera shading.
NEP Sweden combined with fellow NEP company Creative Technology (CT) to provide the audio infrastructure for both broadcast and in-venue, built around a Riedel Mediornet network with 280 ports and Riedel Bolero comms with around 70 beltpacks. Creative Technology also provided Roe LED screens and Barco projectors for the in-venue stage show, working closely with Riot's long-time technical production services partner Concom.
At the Arena on Saturday evening NEP Sweden engineer-in-charge Linus Malmborg told SVG Europe, The first part of the show is the Opening Ceremony, which is produced and directed here in this truck. In parallel with that we have an in-house production doing the screen feeds.
Packed Arena in Paris for League of Legends World Finals (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)
And then when the Opening Ceremony is over we change to game mode. The producers for the game show will be here, but it will be cut and finalised in LA. That's mainly because all the servers for the observers [the computers providing the video of the game] and all the graphic elements are in LA and so it minimises delay and always keeps quality high. The end product is going out from LA.
The truck is basically a workplace and a huge stage box, which is linked to the huge stage box inside the venue provided by CT. Since this truck is based on Riedel's MediorNet we have extended all over the venue together with CT. Everything is on the same network.
We need to always bear latency in mind, which is why this solution was chosen rather than doing conventional signal distribution out from a hub. There is a fully redundant system here, so if LA goes down or fibre goes down there are game observers picking up here so we could do the show from here, said Malmborg.
Secret sauce: Riot Direct backbone
The core enabler for Riot Games production approach is its own Riot Direct network (the ISP used to service all LoL gameplay) to send feeds from tournament remotes back to the Los Angeles production facility. With multiple terabits of edge capacity, it's a resource they trust and leverage for the most reliable network. Riot sources local ISPs for the
North America Stories
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Riedel Communications today announced its return as a sponsor of the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games, where the company will serve as the Official Connectivity ...
08/05/2026
For the second straight year, Miri Technologies Inc. has been honored with a pair of coveted awards at the broadcast, media and entertainment industry's pre...
08/05/2026
Nine Alumni Nominated for Tony Awards More than 20 alumni contributed to this year's Tony-nominated productions.
May 7, 2026
By
Tori Donahue
Boston Co...
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Liberty University on why broadcast technology isn't just a technical invest...
08/05/2026
COW Jobs: UGC, On-Camera Video Content
Brie Clayton May 7, 2026
0 Comments
UGC, On-Camera Video Content
April 17, 2026Documentary Editor - US,......
07/05/2026
Multi-year partnership positions Victory+ as a free home for Dallas Cowboys orig...
07/05/2026
From sideline reporting to directing and producing, the talented sophomore is building a well-rounded foundation for a career in live sports production
In the ...
07/05/2026
Cobalt Digital has received two Future Best of Show awards at NAB Show 2026. The COBALT blueCORE platform was recognized by TV Tech, and the COBALT PACIFIC ULL-...
07/05/2026
ESPN analyst Mina Kimes will host the televised semifinals and finals of the 202...
07/05/2026
Bitmovin has announced that MUBI, the global film streaming platform, has selected Bitmovin as its cloud VOD encoding partner. Bitmovin's encoding infrastru...
07/05/2026
NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises and the U.S. Soccer Federation have announced...
07/05/2026
Angel City Football Club (ACFC) and Victory have announced a regional broadcast partnership bringing live match coverage to fans across the greater Los Angeles...
07/05/2026
Spiideo has announced the launch of AI Highlights inside Spiideo Play, its automated sports production platform. AI Highlights combines video, event data, audio...
07/05/2026
Leostream Corporation has announced a unified remote access ecosystem for high-p...
07/05/2026
The Atlanta Dream has partnered with Victory to stream all locally broadcast Dream games for free, expanding the team's digital distribution strategy and g...
07/05/2026
Riedel Communications has announced the appointment of Marc Engroff as Chief Fin...
07/05/2026
SES and ARD, Germany's largest public broadcasting network, have announced a long-term extension of their satellite distribution partnership through 2039. U...
07/05/2026
UpLight Technologies delivers a flexible video and lighting system for a new televised sportLaunching the Pro Cheer League required more than creating a compell...
07/05/2026
Full Day Productions and GSE Worldwide have announced Spikes Under the Lights, a...
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
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
AI will help build the energy it needs.
That's the case U.S. Energy Secreta...
07/05/2026
Back to All News
Red Chillies Entertainment and Netflix Present the Trailer of ...
Live from Paris: World-leading remote production for Riot Games' League of Legends Finals By Fergal Ringrose, Editorial Director, Europe 
