The first Esports World Cup is being hosted in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and will run through 25 August. While the event hosts thousands of visitors to witness the first gaming world cup, the event has also secured broadcast partnerships with 59 platforms.
These platforms include OTT streaming platforms, as well as traditional broadcast media channels. Coverage of the Esports World Cup is broadcast in over 30 languages around the world, providing a new opportunity to advertisers in the gaming industry.
Ralf Reichert, CEO of the Esports World Cup Foundation, shares insights with Campaign Middle East on how these broadcast partnerships are benefiting advertisers and viewers.
“EWC is meant to leapfrog the entire esports industry, and to bring esports and gaming to a truly global audience of 3.4 billion gamers like never before,” said Reichert.
“Firstly, we want to make esports accessible to fans who normally don’t get to enjoy this content on Twitch/YouTube by broadening the scope of where we make content available.
Secondly, traditional broadcast media itself is quickly catching on that the Esports World Cup – and esports as a whole – is a big sport in itself; we now have a chance to really be present in every household, just like football or cricket are,” Reichert explained.
Reichert also emphasises the prospect of advertising on conventional media as an additional point.
“Although we’re only in our first year, we can already see traditional media partners looking to bring their advertising partners over to the new (to them) and exciting frontier that is esports,” he said.
“This trend will continue and just like the advent of any new global sport, advertisers – especially in more traditional spaces – will want to place their brands next to esports, in particular, since we touch a very sought-after market demographic.”
Esports World Cup’s broadcast success so far
The strategy behind leveraging a diverse range of broadcast partners to bring the Esports World Cup to audiences far-and-wide is encouraged by delivering esports in a non-linear manner. “The Esports World Cup has already pushed the limits of what is considered possible in esports broadcasting,” said Reichert.
He also explains that the focus on the audience’s experience of the event was at the forefront of securing these broadcast partnerships. “Going beyond how we work with digital and OTT platforms to deliver an improved user experience,” said Reichert, explaining the need for diverse broadcasting.
“Esports World Cup wants to create an experience that allows users to express and share their fandom, support their team with platform purchases, and get special search hubs to keep track of all the action going down,” he said.
“We hope to replicate this further in the future with deeper integrations and possibilities for users to have a one-of-a-kind esports experience.”
Despite the success of both traditional and OTT broadcasting, Reichert confirms that OTT remains the stronger form of viewership. “Our core audience will always be found on OTT platforms, and a lot of our viewership will still be found on OTT.”
“Our goal is to enable traditional broadcast media to connect the Esports World Cup with a new range of fans and casual viewers,” said Reichert, who hopes this strategy can take esports to a whole new audience.
“We don’t see these as two competing modes of distribution but rather as two distinct opportunities we can explore with EWC,” he said.
Accessible viewership
While the success of the Esports World Cup is hard to argue with, the broadcast strategy of the event is not solely to achieve reach.
A viewer’s accessibility of how they can engage with the content they want is a big motivator of the platforms selected to broadcast the event.
Reichert said the strategy is to “firstly, allow our viewers, no matter which part of the world or which language they prefer, to have the best possible viewing experience.”
“In addition, by having such a far reaching distribution for the Esports World Cup, we ensure that fans get to follow the action the way they prefer rather than us making them hang on to a single version of the stream,” he said.
Partnership highlights
Reichert also reflects on the top activations to come from the Esport World Cup’s partnerships so far.
“Probably the most exciting would be our partnership with Amazon/Twitch, where we had a very unique opportunity to be plugged into Alexa and give users live updates, recaps and even a chance to join in on tournaments as they were happening,” he said.
“On top of that, we’ve partnered with MBC who are doing a total channel takeover of their MBC Action channel, turning it into a central hub for all things EWC with full, 24/7 coverage of the tournament.”
“It’s truly amazing how much we were able to make that happen given the tight deadlines we had this year,” Reichert concludes.
