For the Championship Series broadcasts for the North American league, Riot Games is building out a TV studio where all of the regular season matches will be filmed and broadcast. Riot Games is working with Reality Check Systems, a production company that works with the NHL, NFL, MLB, Golf Channel, and NCAA Basketball on sporting events.
In this exclusive interview, Beck talks about the company’s vision for “leveling up” the entire eSports scene, which includes the creation of a new international pro league for League of Legends that will feature salaried pro teams from multiple countries, regular television-broadcast quality matches streamed across the Internet to Riot’s tens of millions of fans and a multi-million dollar prize pool.
Before we dove into questions about Riot’s eSports plans, Beck mentioned that he’d been up all night for something the company runs from time to time called the “Thunderdome.”
Can you explain what Thunderdome is at Riot Games and why gamers should be aware of this?
We do Thunderdome once a quarter. Essentially, people organize into groups of anywhere from three to ten Rioters. This quarter there were 25 teams. They all come up with some sort of interesting project or experiment that they want to work on. They have 30 hours from start to finish. The last two hours is like a science fair at the company, where you can walk around to any one of the teams and check out their exhibition of what they did and how it impacts the game. Then you can actually vote on it, and we have awards for the best ideas. It really gets people fired up.
Is there an example from a previous Thunderdome that actually made it into the game in some way?
Yeah. There is a new mode that was just added to the game called ARAM, which is an acronym for All Random All Mid. The first preliminary implementation of that happened at our last Thunderdome. It’s now a cool, popular game mode that players love. I think it was one of the highest rated projects at our last one.
Can you explain how you’re working with Reality Check Systems on the Championship Series?
We’re in Season 2 right now. In October, we’re going to have our World Championships for Season 2. Shortly after that, Season 3 will start. The Season 2 championship tournament is happening at the Nokia Theatre at LA Live, with the final match at USC’s sports arena, the Galen Center. In Season 3, we’re making some major upgrades and evolutionary steps for the sport. One of those steps is that we want to have multiple events weekly in each of the regions where the pro teams are going to compete in their respective leagues. We’re planning to hold those events at a ‘battle arena’ on multiple continents. So there will be a battle arena for the North American league. There will be arenas all over the world, and those events are going to be broadcast, always for free, in HD. The broader goal is to make sure that the caliber of the live event and the broadcast are approaching pro sports quality. The North American battle arena will be in Los Angeles.
They’re going to be built for live audiences. The streams get massive viewership, so the broadcast is the central component, but the sport is way more fun when there’s a backdrop of live fans. We’re very intent on making sure the venues feature different live audiences every time.
Is this new design to help alleviate travel schedules for the pro gamers?
Yeah. This will help solve that issue. First of all, the broadcast schedule will be published at the beginning of each part of the season, with regular season matches three times a week. This will be better for the pros, but it will be a better viewing experience, too. For Championship Series teams, there will likely be a bit less travel, and it will be far more predictable. There’s going to be some tournaments that are showcases all around the world that pro teams will be invited to. The majority of their events are going to be in this format. They will help contain travel a bit.
Who are you working with for the broadcast of these events?
We’re currently working with a variety of different partners to help the broadcast be as awesome as it can be. A lot of these guys have worked with sports like the NFL, MLB and NHL. We’ve specifically been collecting partners that have a bent towards high-end pro sports.
Groups like the MLG, ESL, and IPL are very important partners. We will still be participating in their tournaments, and pro teams will be showcased at their events throughout the year as well.
You got a lot of people’s attention when you announced the $5 million prize package this year. Is that number something that you’re going to stick with?
We haven’t figured out the exact numbers, but it’s going to be bigger than that number. It’s going to be bigger than last year, and we’re trying to go bigger across the board.
How important do you think that prize pool is to legitimize, not necessarily for the gamers themselves, but for people outside that still look at eSports as a niche, if they are even aware of it at all?
The numbers probably have some bearing on how serious the mainstream views the sport, because from some respect, those numbers are representative of how big the sport is. But I think our focus is more on making sure the players do really make a viable career out of being professional. We don’t want athletes that are going to have to hold a day job to pay their expenses; we want athletes that can dedicate all their time to practice and focusing on their game.
