This week in Esports: Sportradar partner with DOJO, beIN win broadcasting rights for e-Ligue 1 and huge Riot deal

18 November 2016

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It’s been another bustling week of news in esports, with new commercial partnerships dominating our weekly news roundup this week. 

The biggest story to report is what’s rumoured to be a partnership worth millions across the board. First, is this morning’s rumours of a $90 million (~£72 million) a year deal between Riot Games and MLB Advanced Media’s BAM Tech to stream League of Legends and “support Riot’s product development”. 

Other highlights include global sports data leader Sportradar with esports start-up DOJO ADNESS and beIN winning broadcasting rights (with Webedia) for the e-Ligue 1 that gets u30105105063_aa01a2ad34_knderway this weekend. 

Riot Games potential deal

It has been a heated week for Riot and League of Legends, with teams expressing their concern with the current esports ecosystem employed by Riot – who hold a lot almost full control over their esports.

There’s been concern about sustainable player salaries amongst other issues, and Riot have previously refused to commercialise their competitive offering. We’ve never really understood it, as they draw the largest viewer figures of any esports event worldwide with the World Championship Finals. The rumoured deal with MLB Advanced Media is estimated at a staggering $90 million (~£72 million) which is a huge figure by any standards. 

Nothing is confirmed as of yet, but the initial letter revealed by journalist Richard Lewis suggests that it may well happen. 

Read the full article here. 

DOJO MADNESS and Sportradar announce multi-million partnership

DOJO MADNESS and Sportradar yesterday announced their new partnership which aims to revolutionise esports in-play betting.

 cpa0vvexyaakte3It’s a partnership which merges Sportradar’s big data and betting expertise with DOJO’s specific esports know-how. The team behind DOJO’s data work are some of the sharpest minds in esports with often second-to-none knowledge of the industry. 

ESI caught up with Jens Hilgers, CEO of DOJO and published our first part of an extensive interview covering large data in esports, as well as the potential challenges faced by patches and new games entering the space. 

Sportradar will continue to leverage their relationship with ESL to bridge the “live data” problem and be able to provide truly reliable in-play odds for their clients to push out.

Read the first part of our interview here.

BeIN partnered with Webedia as e-Ligue 1 official broadcasters

The French football association (“LFP”) announced this week that beIN (partnered with Webedia) has won the broadcasting rights for new FIFA tournament e-Ligue 1

Mathieu Ficot, Economic Development Manager of LFP said:

“This partnership strengthens the links between the LFP and beIN SPORTS, already official broadcaster of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 for many seasons. We are also very pleased to have a new partner, Webedia who are very involved in eSports. This agreement will enable the e-Ligue 1 receive high exposure from launch with both football fans and gamer communities.

Furthermore, the schedule for the event which was previously unannounced has been revealed. Ultimately, the champion will be revealed at the end of the traditional football season. The play-offs to decide the winner will be held in May 2017 after a Winter Tournament and a Spring Tournament to be held late 2016 into the middle of 2017.

Read the full article here.

Esports Insider: The significance of the story with Riot Games is extremely important for the world of esports. Should it happen, it could set a precedent and we could see Twitch seemingly disappear as the platform for esports. We wouldn’t want to see it happen but if the world’s largest esports contest is being moved elsewhere it’s bound to have a knock-on effect.

The DOJO and Sportradar deal should be great as it will allow operators in the betting space to bridge the integrity issues surrounding the delay in data for live in-play betting. We’ll have to wait and see how their first product goes.