Esports Tournament Broadcast: Analyzing Proof of Concept
At NKT Productions, we strive to look into new ways to create content as well as finding new avenues to promote our brand. With the emergence of esports, NKT Productions ventured on 7–25–2020 to organize and broadcast their very first esports tournament. The full stream is below:
We used a web site called Battlefy for the tournament which allowed players to register online and would then seed the brackets for use on the day of the tournament. Organizing that part was its own challenge as this was an online-only tournament as opposed to a local area tournament.
I want to talk about the three main aspects that we focused on during the production: The Organization, the Broadcast, and the Hosting.
Organization
The tournament organization was a unique challenge due to the fact thatwe had to put it solely online due to social distancing requirements. Many of the participants in our first tournament were not from our local area. Some of them were not even from the United States! We created a community chat room using Discord, a free online chat app. Using various chat rooms in that, we were able to communicate with players prior to the tournament.
When the tournament started, we were able as admins to communicate with each match using the tools provided by Battlefy. After the bracket was seeded, each match on Battlefy had its own private chat room that we used to provide the online Arena Code for the matches played on stream.
After the initial broadcast, we sent out a survey to the players and commentators. The fact that we played each match one at a time was a big complaint, as it made it longer between games for some players. We did not consider that initially but plan on making a change for future broadcasts.
Production
On the day of the event, we broadcast the stream on both Twitch and YouTube. We used a Tricaster alongside NewBlue TitlerFX to switch between our inputs for the event.
The inputs that we considered were:
- Gameplay from the Nintendo Switch (HDMI)
- Camera for the Host (SDI)
- Remote Commentators via Discord (NDI)
- Screen Capture of the Battlefy Bracket (NDI)
- Background for the Host for Chroma Key (Videos)
Using NewTek’s NDI software, we utilized their “Virtual Input” and “Scan Converter” programs to pull the video feeds. It also provided the input for the Discord Video call so the announcers could commentate on the game with minimal delay (as opposed to watching the Twitch Stream).
We created graphics using NewBlue TitlerFX for Starting Soon and Be Right Back Screens for when we were on breaks as well as a scoreboard for in-game matches.
Hosting
Hosting provided an interesting challenge during the tournament. I hosted the broadcast, but I also sorted out the matches and ensured that the players were in the arena when they needed to be. Prior to the broadcast, I procured more announcers to ensure that there were always two more announcers on stream if I was pulled away.
A lot of the struggle in hosting mostly involved multitasking which could be avoided by having a separate person facilitating the matches off-stream.
Conclusion/Takeaways
The Twitch stream was a success, and not even 30 minutes after the stream, Twitch sent us out our statistics for the stream. Most of our viewers came through word of mouth. Averaging around 20 people the entire 5-hour stream is impressive from a Twitch streaming perspective especially starting out.
From this endeavor, I learned a few things:
- In an esports atmosphere or in live production in general, you want to keep dead air to a minimum.
- Note in the graphic below. Each of the dips in Average Viewers happens around the time of a break.
- Be flexible when challenges arise during production.
- Esports has potential as a broadcast, especially in a climate where people are stuck indoors.
Count on NKT Productions for your next production project. Contact us for live streaming, video production, social media management, and more!
