If you’re new to League of Legends and want to play, let me refer you. The focus of this article is to address a couple of broadcast issues I noticed in Season two that I hope will be addressed in time for Season three.

Season Two:

Riot and the season two play off teams did a great job and they truly accomplished something special with how well season two has closed out, bringing e-sports to the United States. NBC News covered the story, as well as Forbes; nice PR win there – someone deserves a raise. Finally e-sports is becoming a reality in the United States. Long story short, to all the people involved in the season two finale, you did great and you deserve a well earned break.

As Season three starts to ramp up, I would like to offer some constructive criticism which will hopefully address some issues and ideas which can make Season three even bigger, better and more successful.

Season Three:

I’m going to skip over the whole challenge with the display that was faced in the middle of the tournament. Riot solved that, the new stage looked great, it performed its function perfectly and was far better than the old one. The whole setup is fantastic, great solution.

In addition the whole gaming industry and your millions of players will discuss a billion different ideas and argue about them ceaselessly on internet forums in regards to how the game should play, so I’ll be skipping over that as well.

I want to critique the broadcast production, as I think there is ample room to improve and six simple solutions to consider for all pro-matches in season three. Millions of people gathered in their living rooms, around their computers, and around projectors with friends to watch the Season two Finale, content created by Riot Games, your content. Content that was streamed through Twitch.tv, the current medium for experiencing elite players facing off in our favorite game. Content however that we at home didn’t experience enough of. So here is what I would like to see improved on for season three.

Consideration One – Team Introductions:

Bluntly, the season two team introductions were too weak. Someone at Riot has had to have seen entertainment wrestling at some point in their life, and hopefully the show’s producer specifically. Look at this Video of the Rock being introduced  in the WWE.

Look at that stadium, that’s incredible, it’s electric! It’s beyond electric, its damn near thermo-nuclear. In part, listen to that introductory music, it’s custom, it’s made for The Rock character, the fans know it, and their excited to see their wrestler, the guy they are pulling for. Notice the video montage in the background, a highlight reel of the Rock winning his fights and performing his most signature moves.

Next season’s teams need this kind of introduction. This is how you introduce a champion. This is how you build some tension, some anticipation and some excitement about the ensuing battle. An introduction like this, it builds energy, it builds electricity and it builds hype about the match to come. The announcers for Riot did a great job commentating the matches, but the build up for the match was weaker than it should have been. Like professional wrestlers, these teams, need promo-videos, team music, and a build up as an introduction. Get the audience fired up to see their heroes play, with more than just a call to cheer for your team. Promo-videos do such a great job at this, because it let’s the audience see some of the phenomenal moves that those players perform and are known for and that gets people excited.

These players are someone’s heroes, granted within League of Legends, but heroes none the less. As fans we want to see our League Heroes as larger than life, because their play performance is larger than life. We’ve all played league of legends, and none of us have 400 damn Creep Score at 15 minutes in, but these guys do, and so we the fans respect that. Our League heroes need an introduction worthy of that respect. No one thinks Lance Armstrong just rides a bike. No one thinks Michael Jordan just plays with a 75 cm bouncy ball. No! That’s Lance Armstrong and Michael Jordan, iconic competitors of perfection in their respective sports, the professional teams of League are just as perfect. However they need introductions that respect that perfection and properly present them to their fans.

Consideration Two – Take Advantage of the Wider Reach:

Some number of players of League will log in to Twitch and watch the finals, these players stream someone constantly, they have 1800+ Elo,  and they know every player in the finals and their favorite champ. When you’ve got a big venue and event like the Championship, that is not who you should focus your content towards, those 5 million viewers would watch even if it was audience members recording the event via smart phone and uploading shaky videos to youtube.

With a big event like the championship, you have got to focus on the new 5 million people watching. The people that are at a friend’s house or haven’t heard of League of Legends; big events mean big opportunity. Big opportunity to attract new players because you’ll have greater distribution of your content. It’s during these times that you have to educate the newer audience, because that’s the time, and potentially the only time, the new audience is watching. This new audience isn’t leaving after the finale and watching a stream of one of their favorite players during the following week. However, they are watching this championship match, likely because it is on somewhere, where someone else is watching, and since 8 million other people are watching, they’ll watch too. You have to leverage this opportunity.

Steps need to be taken to educate the new audience on the game. Commentators need to explain some of the simpler points of the game. Between matches broadcast pre-recorded and edited videos which covers some of these points: how wards work, flashing over the wall, timers on Baron and Dragon, why dragon is important, what the buffs are, the importance of creep score, etc.

This ties in with another idea, give the commentators a break, they spoke almost non-stop, for hours, which is tiring for both them and the audience. They have great voices but everyone needs a change, even a small one from time to time. A three-minute bit, like the  pro-pick videos or pro-tips are what is needed. That will break things up a bit. Highlight reels, interviews, pro-picks, pro-tips, player back-story videos, coverage of the event itself, there are loads of content opportunities which could and should be leveraged to produce a more professional broadcast.

I’ll conclude this point with an example from season two. While I was watching the TPA champion select, the crowd erupted in cheers because TPA was able to choose Orianna, but unless you watch that player’s stream regularly, you wouldn’t know why that is exciting. However a promo-video of Toyz dominating with Orianna, or a highlight reel when the team’s are introduced goes a long way to indirectly show that Orianna is a dangerous non-ban for the other team. Which is a subtle way of educating your new audience members for the big event.

Consideration Three – Advertising:

I know I’m going to get a lot of hate for this one, but its just a fact of life and good business sense. The championship broadcast needs to attract more advertisers. Axe Body Spray, Smart Phone Companies, Software companies, anything to do with games, whatever it is that your viewing demographic is interested in buying, Mountain Dew, Red Bull, Doritios, the list goes on. Any moment the feed is showing still-frame art, is a waste. I know this could become complicated combined with the feed being managed by Twitch.tv but given your recent success and position in general I’m sure a business agreement can be worked out. Ideally Riot would stream the events themselves, directly on the LeagueOfLegends top page.

Riot had millions viewers, not including the overseas broadcasts and views from people that didn’t watch live but watched afterwards, take appropriate advantage of that leverage. There is an advantage for the fans here as well, more revenue facilitates hosting larger prize pools, and it looks more professional – increasing the respect that e-sports receives. How many football games broadcast by NBC show static place holder art? Don’t waste a moment of broadcast time, always fill it with content, proper content that is purposefully created and produced with quality in mind. Everyone watching, advertisers and audience members alike will appreciate it.

Consideration Four – The Wider Narrative:

All sports have pre and post match interviews and it is an accepted part of being a professional competitor. This goes hand in hand with player lead up stories and the wider narrative in general. Generally speaking, go watch some footage of the Olympics, what I am arguing for here is, for that personal back story about each player. That is what will make people care. Taipei Assassins just won Season two, and being a sports fan (e-sports or not) I have to like them, they are the best right now. Problem is, I barely know a damn thing about them. The extent of my knowledge was a very short comment by Riot co-founder, who stated, “they just showed up today”, proving my very point, not nearly enough is known about them, especially from a fan’s perspective.

Introduce us, the fans, to our League heroes, these are the people we want to play like and play with. We want to know their Elo, how many games they’ve played, how long they’ve been with the team, where the team is from, how often they play, how often they practice, how long they’ve been playing, who their favorite champions are, win/loss records, what champ they have been playing recently. Unlike boxing we don’t need to know height, weight and reach, but we do want to know the statistics that are meaningful to competition. If you are having a hard time thinking of what matters, go look at the back of a baseball card. Consider the statistics of a pro-player, in pro-play or the latest in the current competition. The average number of kills per game, assists, deaths, gold, creep score, plenty of statistics that matter, that we the fans want to know.

Consideration Five – Event Coverage:

This is best summed up by a link to penny-arcade.com, of course right. Just look at all this awesome cool stuff going on at the Galen center!! What the hell?!? That looks so damn fun, and completely awesome, so much so that I can’t believe I didn’t sell my excess organs to get a plane ticket and an event ticket so I could go!

What did the viewing audience at home see of all that? Not nearly enough! There was a decent boom cam that showed the audience, but what about the rest of the event coverage? There was all kinds of stuff going on. The next competition needs a reporter, Nikasaur for example, on the ground at the event, creating content. Short videos asking questions from the audience, who’s their favorite team, favorite champs, coverage of any other games going on at the event, coverage of cosplay, these events always have those kinds of activities; cover them, and broadcast that content, we want to see it. We want to be a part of it. During the event, Twitter feeds from various Riot folks were chalk full of cool side attractions and the incredible atmosphere around the event, but the viewing audience didn’t feel nearly that much atmosphere; the reason, it wasn’t accessible to the viewing audience, and it should be.

One example of what should have been, which by the way would make a good five minute video for between matches – as opposed to static art, the behind-the-scenes to the artists building one of the champion replicas. Those replicas are awesome! No one at home was likely even aware they existed.  An easy way to make that accessible to us viewers, record the “making of” during the month prior to the event, edit a short video together of the artists building the various pieces, broadcast that video and let the commentators take a break.

Final Consideration – Broadcast Video Director and Producer:

I’m not privy to this information but I’m sure someone was hired to direct and produce the video feed for the event. The problem, either A) it was someone new to the job, B) they were not given enough resources, C) they did not have the freedom they needed to do the job they way they wanted, or D) they did not have the infrastructure necessary to produce the show they could have.

This needs to be solved during the off-season. All sporting events, even and especially live ones, are editing footage from the event itself and showing short montage’s before commercial breaks, etc. Take a look at pro-football, U.S. that is, always before the game coverage breaks for half-time they broadcast a montage video of the highlights from the first half of the game. Those types of videos can be made with a proper production team and the e-sports of League needs a proper production team. Again, maybe there was a proper team, but either logistics, resources, or freedom prevented them from creating the product they wanted to or should have created. This goes hand in hand with camera counts, in general the Season two coverage had too few cameras, though I feel like I saw a number of camera-men whose camera footage I rarely saw. A director with the tools they need should be able to make better use of the cameras they have available. Again look at the Rock introduction video, there are 12 camera changes, in the first 20 seconds of video. That’s how you direct an exciting and energetic live event.

Conclusion:

All in all season two was a hell of a lot of fun to watch. Despite the challenges faced I really enjoyed it and I am impressed at how well Riot has been able to make e-sports a reality here in the U.S., well played. I look forward to Season three, especially with the big game changes Riot has in store. I hope that the production quality of the broadcasts, for all pro-matches, will match the quality of the game itself.