Esports – Gravity Media

The Kings World Cup Nations is a 7-a-side football tournament that combines competitive excitement with spectacle, featuring prominent participants, including former football stars, influencers, and content creators. The event involves 16 national teams and is governed by unique rules derived from the original Kings League format.

The inaugural edition, and the first Kings League competition held in Italy, began on 1 January 2025 at the Kings League Arena in Via dei Missaglia, Milan. Italy made its debut against Japan in the opening match. The tournament continued until the final on 12 January at the Allianz Stadium in Turin, where the first Kings World Cup Nations trophy was awarded.

Anticipation is now building for the Italian Kings League championship, set to start on 3 February. Created two years ago by former footballer Gerard Piqué, the format primarily targets younger audiences, blending entertainment with sports competition. The KWCN achieved a record audience of 100 million viewers and 1.5 billion social media impressions.

Matches were streamed on platforms such as Twitch, YouTube, Kick, TikTok, and Facebook, and broadcast by traditional networks in over 60 countries. In Italy, they aired live on Sky Sport channels, including Sky Sport Max and TV8.

Unique Gameplay Features

The tournament’s rules are particularly innovative, with 40-minute matches, shootouts to resolve ties, “presidential” penalties, and special cards affecting gameplay, such as double-goal cards and temporary dismissals.

On the pitch, professional football veterans alternated with amateur players, while teams and national squads were led by influencers and streamers acting as team presidents.

EMG / Gravity Media Italy’s Role

EMG Italy, part of the EMG / Gravity Media group, provided all broadcast services for the Kings League Italy and the Kings World Cup Nations. This included live coverage and streaming distribution for the final at the Allianz Stadium and the upcoming Italian championship. A team of around 40 professionals managed all technical aspects, such as lighting and LED wall setups, to deliver an immersive experience for both in-person and remote audiences.

The visual design of the format stands out for its modern and engaging approach, elevating the event beyond traditional sports. The Kings League Arena was transformed into a “football theatre,” featuring meticulously crafted scenic setups.

The Kings League Arena

A dynamic lighting and LED wall system was used to create a vibrant, modern atmosphere. Lighting effects highlighted key moments like team entrances and goal celebrations, as well as sponsor messages. Large LED panels surrounded the pitch, displaying customised graphics, replays, exclusive content, scores, standings, and real-time interactive visuals, contributing to an immersive narrative.

The Kings League structure spans 6,000 sqm, featuring a detailed pitch surrounded by high borders, creating an “arena” effect reminiscent of American sports events. This setup also catered to online audiences, with innovative camera angles, a drone for aerial shots, and augmented reality enhancements during broadcasts. The stands accommodate approximately 400 spectators, offering an intimate and immersive experience for on-site audiences.

Interactive and Technological Experience

Francesco Donato, CTO of EMG Italy, explained: “We handled the technical setup and production, implementing about 200 sqm of scenic LED wall systems. The LED walls, controlled by a complex watch-out system, were used around the pitch perimeter, in the primary camera-facing area, and behind the goals to display sponsor content, scores, and additional show features. We also installed field lighting, delivering 1,200 lux uniformly distributed with LED technology, and several moving heads critical to the event’s visual success. The indoor audio system was separately managed for field coverage and audience diffusion, distinct from the broadcast system.”

Presidents and Social Streaming

Each team was represented by a president, a content creator with an established fanbase who streamed live commentary from pitch-side setups. EMG Italy equipped the main control room for managing audio, video, lighting, and LED walls in dedicated shelters outside the arena. Around 20 cameras were deployed for live production, providing feeds for presidents/streamers and international broadcasts in English, Italian, and Spanish. Two additional control rooms supported Italian and Spanish integration, with pre- and post-match commentary studios. Feeds were distributed to around 60 international takers via SRT streams.

Donato added: “The small pitch size significantly influenced the dynamics of camera placement, given the faster pace compared to traditional football. Besides broadcast-quality pitch cameras, we used micro-cameras behind goals, PTZ units, and a lightweight drone to achieve high-quality and dynamic images.”

Control Room, VAR, Team, and Setup

The permanent control room, also used for the regular season, coordinated a complex mix of entertainment and sports production. It featured camera, lighting, and LED wall control stations, a powerful mixer with three effect desks, four graphic stations, two super motion replay desks, and two dedicated VAR desks.

The production team expanded to over 40 professionals, including new roles for field activities such as Watch Out operators, lighting technicians, and a sound designer for arena and broadcast audio management. Dedicated microphone operators supported the presidents’ stations, while two mini-studios for Italian and Spanish unilateral feeds hosted pre- and post-match commentary.

Francesco Donato’s Final Comment

“We’re witnessing a significant shift in audiences and content distribution methods, making events accessible on the move and across a variety of devices, beyond traditional TV screens. The sold-out final on 12 January at Allianz Stadium embodied this new global entertainment model, featuring not only the Colombia vs Brazil match but also a Mahmood concert and a Legends vs Streamers special match to enhance the overall show experience. It’s fascinating to see how such an event has engaged a broader audience, attracting young people and families—a different demographic from traditional football stadiums.”

Gravity Media, the global provider of complex live creative production and media services, is thrilled to announce a momentous milestone as it embarks on its expanded partnership with the world-leading game publisher Riot Games.

The extended partnership will see Gravity Media provide a Managed Services solution at Riot Games’ brand new state-of-the-art Remote Broadcast Centre (RBC) Powered by AWS in the greater Seattle, Washington area set to open later this year.

At the beginning of 2023, Gravity Media announced its initial partnership with Riot Games, further bolstering its esports credentials where over the last ten months, the Gravity Media team has successfully delivered a Managed Services solution at Riot’s RBC in Dublin, Ireland. During this time, Gravity Media has successfully placed 40 talented individuals from Broadcast Engineering, TOC, EVS, Audio GFX and Media Asset Management.

Working in partnership with Riot Games, Gravity Media will recruit a dedicated team of more than 30 broadcast specialists across EVS, Engineering, Audio and Media Asset Management to the Seattle area RBC to contribute to Riot’s production of best-in-class live esports events for global audiences.

The 70,000-square foot production space located 16 miles south of Seattle is Riot’s second RBC strategically placed around the globe to support regional and global live esports events. The 2023 VALORANT Game Changers Championship taking place 28 November through 3 December from Riot’s esports studio in São Paulo, Brazil will be the first live global esports event supported by the Seattle area RBC.

Riot Games was founded in 2006 to develop, publish and support the most player-focused games in the world. In 2009, Riot released its debut title, League of Legends, to worldwide acclaim. League has gone on to be the most-played PC game globally and a key driver of the explosive growth of esports.

First launched under the codename “Project Stryker” in July 2022, Riot’s Remote Broadcast Centers represent an efficient new approach to live global production where broadcast feeds from live esports competitions happening around the world can be sent to the RBCs where content is produced, broadcast, and distributed in multiple languages to esports fans. The Seattle area Remote Broadcast Centre is equipped with a TOC, three remote casting insert stages, six production control rooms (PCRs), six audio control rooms (ACRs), multiple bullpens for observers (in-game camera operators), graphics, replay and editing.

The facility also features impressive global connectivity at 200 Gbps and over 40km of cabling carrying live event feeds to the production facility in about 1/10th of a second. Courtesy of Riot’s partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), six control rooms are outfitted with future-forward technology and cloud-based zero client computing enabling Riot to efficiently produce events even more virtually and remotely than before.

The RBC provides a great opportunity to attract the very best talent to join the future of esports based in Seattle. As part of the growing continued partnership Gravity Media will ensure remote production and engineering specialist talent work collaboratively to install and integrate the permanent studio facilities and production workflows as part of the growing facility.

“We are truly excited to expand our partnership with Gravity Media. Their extensive network of talent has been instrumental in building our RBC operation in Dublin, and we’re fortunate to have that same support to assemble another first-class production team at our greater Seattle RBC,” said Allyson Gormley, Global Operations Director, Project Stryker at Riot Games.

“Gravity Media has proven to be a valuable asset to our continued mission to deliver more live esports productions that build fandom to millions of viewers around the world.”

Eamonn Dowdall Gravity Media’s Executive Director says of the partnership:

“The world of esports continues to develop at a fast pace and is an ever-growing market for us as a business alongside our Managed Services solution. Gravity Media is delighted to be supporting Riot Games in Seattle, and developing our partnership further. As we venture into this new chapter of collaboration, this opportunity allows us to truly leverage and showcase our global esports credentials and world-leading broadcast talent. Working closely with Riot Games in Seattle, Gravity Media will build a team of highly skilled, motivated, and ambitious individuals who will support Riot Games as they continue to revolutionise esports broadcast productions worldwide.”

PRESS COVERAGE

Image credit: ESL Gaming I Helena Kristiansson

Gravity Media, the world’s leading global provider of complex live creative production and media services, today detailed a collaboration between Gravity Media France and Gravity Media Australia as they supported ESL, an ESL FACEIT Group brand, in delivering the global production for the esports event Intel® Extreme Masters Sydney 2023.

The Intel® Extreme Masters (IEM) is the longest-running global professional esports tournament circuit in the world. Started in 2006 by Intel® and ESL, the competition features the world’s best gamers in Counter-Strike and other esport titles. Approaching two decades of history and many record-breaking events in terms of viewership and stadium attendance, IEM is widely considered one of the most prestigious and traditional esports tournaments in the world.

This year, IEM returned to Sydney for the fourth time in history and for the first time since 2019. Commencing 16^th October, 2023, 16 top Counter-Strike teams faced off for the lion’s share of the US$250,000 total prize pool and one of six spots in the Playoffs which took place live at the Aware Super Theatre at ICC Sydney. Eventually, it was FaZe Clan who secured the coveted title and became the first ever Champions of Tier 1 Counter-Strike 2 – the new game iteration of the widely popular Counter-Strike franchise.

For more than two decades, ESL has been shaping the industry and leading esports and gaming innovation globally across various game titles. By offering a comprehensive ecosystem with opportunities for players to go from zero to hero and for fans to witness the best stories esports has to offer, ESL creates a world where everybody can be somebody.

The Gravity Media team from France joined forces with the team in Australia to deliver the esports tournament held at the ICC in Sydney. On site, the team deployed Outside Broadcast trucks HD 7 and RoVa to capture the all-important action.

Solène Zavagno, Gravity Media’s General Manager in France, commented:

“We are delighted to continue working with ESL on their prestigious events across the globe. The Intel Extreme Masters tournament provided us with another outstanding opportunity, on-site delivering yet another exciting esports tournament in collaboration with the team in Australia. We look forward to continue supporting ESL FACEIT Group with their international esports endeavours.”

Ben Madgwick, Director, Media Services and Facilities at Gravity Media Australia:

“Gravity Media Australia is delighted to have worked with our colleagues at Gravity Media France to bring ESL and Intel Extreme Masters Sydney to a global audience. We are thrilled to have played a key role in Gravity Media France’s delivery of a state-of-the-art esports event production in Sydney that meets ESL FACEIT Group’s complex and flexible requirements worldwide.”

PRESS COVERAGE

Photo credit: ESL FACEIT Group | Helena-Kristiansson

Following the partnership between ESL, an ESL FACEIT Group brand, and Gravity Media, announced in July 2022, Gravity Media’s passion for esports continues on-site at the Spodek Arena in Poland, capturing the next major esports tournament: Intel® Extreme Masters (IEM) Katowice.

With $1,000,000 up for grabs at the IEM Katowice tournament, the Gravity Media esports team facilitated the broadcast, providing the technical facilities on-site across two locations and successfully integrating them into ESL’s facilities. Ensuring the seamless broadcast of the Hall of Heroes, the talented Gravity Media team was on-site and responsible for the remote operations.

The legendary esports tournament commenced on February 1 and saw 24 of the world’s best Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) teams compete for the winning title, a share of the astonishing prize pool of $1,000,000, and a point in the Intel® Grand Slam.

The final, eye-gripping weekend of the tournament saw international fans gather to celebrate the premium CS:GO competition, where G2 Esports claimed the coveted Championship title and thereby had their names engraved on the iconic trophy.

Solène Zavagno, Gravity Media’s General Manager in France, commented:

“We are delighted to continue working with ESL on their prestigious events across the globe. The IEM Katowice tournament provided another fantastic opportunity, on-site delivering another thrilling esports tournament. We look forward to the next tournament later this month.”

The next stop sees the Gravity Media team head to Malta for the ESL Pro League tournament, taking place at the end of February. Stay tuned as Gravity Media brings you all the esports action from events across the globe!

PRESS COVERAGE

Gravity Media, the global provider of complex live creative production and media services, is proud to further bolster its esports credentials by partnering with the world-leading game publisher Riot Games, providing a Managed Services solution at their state-of-the-art remote broadcast centre (RBC) in Dublin, Ireland.

The appointment of Gravity Media as a broadcast Managed Services partner will further bolster and elevate the technical offering at the RBC for live esports broadcast production, which will see the team provide wider remote production support on all the ongoing global Riot Games esports events.

Gravity Media’s Managed Service offering has become an increasingly popular option over the past couple of years. Working in partnership with Riot Games, Gravity Media will enroll highly-skilled, motivated, and ambitious individuals, who will work in a combination of technical and operational roles producing the best-in-class live events for global audiences. These individuals will provide support at the Dublin-based remote broadcast centre operating under Project Stryker, Powered by AWS, Riot Games’ latest investment toward global live broadcast production.

The 50,000-square foot production space located in Swords is the first of Project Stryker’s three RBCs strategically placed around the globe to support regional and global live esports across Riot Games’ trio of esports titles: League of Legends Esports, VALORANT Esports and Wild Rift Esports. It stands as Riot’s second footprint in Dublin, joining its City Centre office with approximately 165 employees specialising in business operations, development, engineering, localization, and player support.

Project Stryker represents an efficient new approach to live global production where broadcast feeds from live esports competitions happening around the world can be sent to Riot RBCs where content is produced, broadcast and distributed in multiple languages to esports fans. The Dublin RBC is equipped with a TOC, six remote casting insert stages, six production control rooms (PCRs), six audio control rooms (ACRs), multiple bullpens for observers (in-game camera operators), graphics, replay and editing, allowing it to broadcast six live events at a time around the globe.

Project Stryker Dublin features impressive global connectivity at 200 Gbps and over 32km of cabling carrying live event feeds to the production facility in about 1/10th of a second. Courtesy of Riot’s partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), two control rooms are outfitted with future-forward technology and cloud-based zero client computing enabling Riot to efficiently produce events even more virtually and remotely than before.

Project Stryker provides a great opportunity to attract the best talent to join the future of esports based in Dublin.

As part of the partnership Gravity Media will ensure remote production and engineering specialist talent work collaboratively to install and integrate the permanent studio facilities and production workflows as part of the growing facility.

“We are excited to partner with Gravity Media and their extensive network of talent to attract the best and brightest minds in live broadcast production to Riot Games and Project Stryker,” said Allyson Gormley, Global Operations Director, Project Stryker at Riot Games. “Gravity Media has some of the best talent across broadcasting, production, and technology that will certainly be a valuable asset in our ambitious live esports productions that continuously attract millions of viewers around the world.”

Eamonn Dowdall Gravity Media’s Executive Director says of the partnership:

“We couldn’t be prouder to start 2023 by sharing the exciting news of our partnership with Riot Games.

This opportunity allows us to leverage and showcase our global esports credentials and world-leading broadcast talent, working closely with Riot Games at their European HQ, enabling us to service Riot Games globally in the delivery of the most engaging and immersive projects ever created.

Our Managed Services offering sees Gravity Media manage facilities, and produce content where we can support with idea generation and content creation ensuring post-production and distribution.

Gravity Media will further ensure that Riot Games remains the most player-focused game company in the world, which sees the brand revolutionise esports broadcast production worldwide.”

PRESS COVERAGE

Tuesday 13^th December 2022 – Following their work at several successful esports events, Gravity Media, has continued to work in partnership with ESL FACEIT Group, where they have now taken their production services to the next level of esports at the I ntel® Extreme Masters (I EM ) Rio Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) Major Championship.

In July 2022, it was announced that ESL , a part of ESL FACEIT Group, and Gravity Media partnered up to deliver the production services of ESL’s global esports events over the next three years.

The next stop saw the Gravity Media team head to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to capture all the action from the first CS:GO Major event in South America: IEM Rio Major 2022. The event consisted of 24 teams battling it out from Monday 31^st October to Sunday 13^th November across two arenas, Riocentro and Jeunesse Arena, to claim a share of the grand prize money of $1,250,000 and the coveted Championship title.

For the Rio event, a total of 40 crew members from Gravity Media’s teams from the UK and France joined ESL on site and teamed up to deliver another hugely popular esports event.

Involving a set-up at both venues, the IEM Fan Fest, and the live studio, Gravity Media deployed 32 cameras, lenses, two jibs, two Steadicams, six EVS systems, intercoms, and audios for over 60 players.

Ed Tischler, Gravity Media’s Managing Director, EMEA, says:

“The IEM Rio Major event provided another fantastic opportunity to be working alongside ESL with a joint Gravity Media team from the UK and France on site delivering another successful esports event. Esports continues to grow at a tremendous pace with new and exciting broadcasting approaching constantly evolving. We look forward to the next tournament coming early in 2023”.

With all the action streamed on Twitch, international viewers tuned in during the full two weeks, to eventually see Outsiders gain victory and win the IEM Rio Major. Stay tuned for the next esports tournament in 2023.

PRESS COVERAGE

Calling all gamers! Gravity Media’s Jamie Brewer, Head of Broadcast and Post Production Rental and Edward Dowdall, Business Development Manager are heading to ESI London’s esports Industry Festival held at Boxpark Wembley.

The event is set to welcome over 600 attendees, with over 60+ speakers across more than 14 live sessions. ESI London 2022 will also present a number of new additions including an Esports x Brands workshop, designed for brands interested in this growing area of esports.

Gravity Media was one of the first production companies to bring a game into a TV workflow including overcoming the challenge of region-specific encoding. Ever since, Gravity Media has been an integral part of this incredible success story, working with all the key players at some of the biggest live gaming events globally.

Gravity Media is currently in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for the Gamers8, the world’s biggest gaming and esports festival.

The event consists of six back-to-back tournament weeks made up of Rocket League, Dota 2, Fortnite, Rainbow Six: Siege, and PUBG Mobile mixed in with several high-profile music artists such as Axwell, DJ Snake, Marshmellow and Black Eyed Peas, as well as sponsor activation events.

In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the Gravity Media team continues the fourth week on air delivering Gamers8, which is streamed globally to thousands of viewers.

Gravity has deployed the broadcast facilities, including 20 cameras on site, including steady cam, techno-crane, PTZ, intercom, EVS XT3 and XT Via for the entire duration of the Gamers8 tournament (Thursday 14 July – Saturday 20 August).

The Riyadh Masters Dota 2 tournament resulted in China-based PSG LGD taking the victory 2-0 versus Team Spirit and thereby claiming $1.5m of the $4m overall prize pool. Check out the AR graphics of the various Game characters during one of the Draft rounds picks, which was powered by the Unreal Engine as part of our global broadcast.

Coincidentally, last week saw four days of competitive Fortnite action with teams from all over the world competing to take the glory and another multi-million dollar winnings.

Outside the Gaming arena and studios, themselves, various entertainment zones make up the entire Riyadh Boulevard City, including weekly spectacular fireworks and drone lighting displays.

This coming week ahead sees more global teams fly in this time to compete in Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six: Siege. All the action can be found on Twitch for free via this link where the live action resumes this Thursday.

Image: Gamers8

Cologne / New York / London / Paris – ESL Gaming, a part of ESL FACEIT Group, and Gravity Media are excited to announce a partnership delivering the production services of ESL Gaming’s global esports events over the next three years.

ESL Gaming will use Gravity Media as their exclusive service provider at some of the world’s largest multi-genre gaming and esports events, including Intel® Extreme Masters (IEM) Cologne in Germany, ESL One Malaysia in Malaysia, the IEM Rio Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championship in Brazil, DreamHack Atlanta in the US, and many more. Gravity Media are proud to have been chosen to provide their expertise, equipment, and specialized human resources to deliver state-of-the-art esports event productions that can serve ESL Gaming’s complex and flexible needs worldwide.

Tobias Grieser – ESL Gaming’s SVP Production, says:

“Having the best possible broadcast experience is fundamental to us, as this is how we can bring our most memorable and iconic moments to all of the fans around the globe. Partnering up with Gravity Media opens many new doors for us to deliver the action from the world’s biggest esports stages to anyone’s home. With their cutting-edge technology and global presence, we can ensure that fans can enjoy our events to the fullest from wherever they are located and that they can do so in the best possible quality.”

Ed Tischler – Gravity Media’s Managing Director, EMEA, says:

“The future for esports is bright, offering many opportunities for new and exciting broadcasting approaches to provide the perfect environment for companies to engage with their clients. Gravity Media is excited to be working alongside ESL Gaming on multiple prestigious esports events. This project marks another truly global team effort where Gravity Media looks forward to capturing more from the thrilling esports action taking place over the globe. Our teams and offices in America, Australia, Europe, and across the Middle-East are excited to join forces with ESL Gaming to offer our world-leading expertise and support”.

To learn more about ESL Gaming and Gravity Media, please visit their official websites:

www.eslgaming.com and staging.gravitymedia.kastage.co.uk

PRESS COVERAGE

Monday 25 July 2022 – Supercars has turned to Gravity Media for the third year running to produce and facilitate the Cash Converters Supercars Eseries, an esports competition that started back in 2020 during Covid lockdown.

The Eseries takes place on the iRacing platform, running over six weekly rounds from Wednesday 20th July through to Wednesday 24th August. The Cash Converters Eseries offers fans the perfect mix of Supercars main game drivers and elite sim racers.

Gravity Media’s Australian operation set up across its Production Centre in Sydney and Melbourne worked closely to fulfil Supercars’ requirements. Gravity’s Production Centre in Sydney houses a full control room for the Supercars production, which incorporates streaming the action live across multiple platforms. Elsewhere, Gravity Media integrated as many as 30 drivers from all over the world via a remote video platform. With a direct fibre link to the Production Centre in Melbourne, a camera in the green screen studio hosts the four talents, both on-air audio and a separate communications link. To create a more compelling experience, Gravity Media included: camera overlays, driver webcams, in-car camera graphics, driver audio feeds and lead Supercars Media commentators, to create an esports experience that is representative of what viewers would experience in the real world.

Adam Dodman, Studio Engineering Manager at Gravity Media Australia states:

“Since 2020 Gravity Media has been supporting Supercars to produce the Eseries for both OTT and Fox Sports. Leaning on our Melbourne and Sydney technical facilities, we were able to successfully deliver a turnkey operation for the weekly broadcast. Melbourne was used as the studio base for the hosts, in our green screen studio. The multiple camera feeds were sent to our Production Centre in Sydney via interconnected fibres. These fibres also carried the required communication and return video feeds. Sydney housed the main control room, including the iRacing team with their servers housed onsite to bring all the racers into the live broadcast. Zoom and Discord were used to integrate live audio/vision of the drivers to make the whole event feel more like the real thing.”

Two new Australian circuits and endurance races at some of Australia’s most historic tracks headline the return of Supercars’ Cash Converters Eseries in 2022, featuring two endurance events and one Fans’ Choice in the series that combines Supercars’ main game drivers and pro gamers. Those events are virtual races at the famous Mount Panorama circuit in Bathurst and for the first time, the historic Sandown circuit in Melbourne. Also joining the competition in 2022 is Victoria’s Winton circuit, which has recently been added to the iRacing online platform.

The hybrid framework model consists of two championships within the series: The Pro Series – with elite gamers representing Supercars teams and major brands, competing for a share of $26,000 in prize money. The All Stars Series also returns and consists of main game Supercars and Dunlop Super2 drivers. For the first time, Supercars teams compete each week for a $1,000 cash donation for the charity of their choice.

The Eseries is broadcast live on prime-time television and across social media platforms where Gravity Media provides seamless integration of multiple media streams which is essential in the fast-moving esports sector. Gravity Media’s Eseries package air through Fox Sports’ Foxtel channel, Kayo’s IP sports platform and Network 7’s IP service 7Plus. Gravity Media also encoded a live stream of the control room for feeds on Facebook, Twitch and YouTube.

“We are thrilled to be working with Gravity Media on this event. Gravity Media’s exceptional experience and expertise in delivering high-quality broadcast infrastructures ensure that we can produce a top-quality experience for our fans. Gravity Media’s ability to adapt and innovate with the evolution of our Eseries over the past three years has been a key factor to the success of this partnership,” said David Tunnicliffe, Head of Broadcast at Supercars Australia.

PRESS COVERAGE

Calling all gamers! As part of the HOST Esports Festival taking place this Friday 11^th March in Manchester, Gravity Media, the leading global provider of complex live broadcast facilities and production services to content owners, creators and distributors, will be teaming up with Esports Insider, the top esports business platform worldwide.

HOST will bring its inaugural Esports Festival to MediaCity for a full day of content which will kick off with an exclusive invitation-only ESI Breakfast Club supported and presented by Gravity Media.

The morning breakfast session will welcome a panel discussion featuring Andrew Haworth, Commissioner at BLAST Premier and Andy Miah from the University of Salford who will join Gravity Media’s Head of Broadcast & Post Production Rental, Jamie Brewer as they talk about what it takes to “Deliver an Esports spectacle in 2022”.

Gravity Media’s panellist Jamie Brewer has led live event and broadcast campaigns, working across esports, sports, video games, television productions, live music, cultural and major brand activations.

On speaking at the breakfast panel as part of the esports HOST Festival Jamie Brewer comments: “Having attended the ESI events in London, I am thrilled to be involved in the ESI event in Manchester. We are set for a great day focused on the ever-growing Esports sector and witnessing the continued convergence into mainstream sports. I’m looking forward to taking part in an interesting panel discussion on the importance of production within Esports. At Gravity Media, we are focused on playing a key part within the ever-growing community.”

The day will also feature speakers from ESL Gaming, Leeds United FC, WIGI, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Burnley FC and EPIC.LAN, among others.

Attendees can expect a day of engaging panels that cover a wide variety of topics such as how UK esports can attract AAA events, why carving out a space for women and non-binary community members is key to making esports more inclusive, the talent pipeline, as well as the benefits and opportunities esports offers to football clubs and players.

Moreover, attendees can partake in networking sessions throughout the day too, with lunch included. Attendance is free and those eager can register here with more details about the days agenda.

Gravity Media is known worldwide for supplying high-quality broadcast, production facilities and project management support for productions across a range of scales.

Gravity Media was one of the first production company’s to bring a game into a TV workflow including overcoming the challenge of region-specific encoding. Ever since, Gravity has been an integral part of this incredible success story, working with all the key players at some of the biggest live gaming events globally.

One of the recent Gravity Media Esports highlights includes working closely to bring to life the Cash Converters Supercars Eseries where Gravity Media’s Production Centres in Melbourne (PCM) and Sydney (PCS) serviced all the needs for the Eseries broadcast. Adding to such other stand out projects as: GFinity: Halo 3, Elite 3 Tournament, Forza & F1 Esports Series, ESL: Pringles Battle Couch & PGL Gaming Finals, FACEIT: ECS 7 2019 & 2018 London Major, Fortnite Summer Smash: Tennis Australia, Riot Games: League of Legends Tournament and Ubisoft: E3 Conference 2018 & 2019.

The HOST Esports Festival is one of three HOST-sponsored events taking place at the Digital City Festival 2022. The events will focus on three key themes – skills, technology, and innovation – all of which will be highlighted at the Cyber Summit, the India Pavilion (as part of the Digital City Expo) and its own esports festival.

Mo Isap, CEO of IN4 Group, operator of HOST, said: “We are excited to celebrate and host the esports festival in partnership with Esports Insider as part of the fantastic events happening at the Digital City Festival. The esports market is growing at a global scale and our ambition is for MediaCity to be a beacon for esports talent across the region and to provide the industry with its next generation of pro gaming talent.”

Sam Cooke, Esports Insider MD and co-founder, added: “There’s been an excellent reception to the event so far, and we’re expecting a strong turnout on the day. I’m also pleased that our first event of the year in the UK isn’t in London, but Greater Manchester. We want to ensure we recognise that UK esports isn’t London only, and in turn, we want to keep producing events further afield. We’re finally able to run an ESI event next to where Coronation Street is filmed too, a long time personal ambition of mine.”

Later in the year, Gravity Media will once again team up with Esports Insider to host a panel event at Gravity House, our Home for Post-Production in the heart of Soho. More information about which will follow via the Gravity Media website.

PRESS COVERAGE

On Thursday 21 October the Gravity Media UK team co-ordinated eight technical manager guarantees for a remote FIFA ’22 Challenger powered by Adidas event for EA Sports that was streamed on Twitch and YouTube.

The event has had 1.7m views since being broadcast on Twitch which saw a 2 v 2 tournament format promoting the new FIFA ’22 game matching pro football players with pro esports athletes across Europe, with football players from PSG, Juventus, Liverpool, Barcelona, Man City and Chelsea involved. The final saw Liverpool’s Jota and FNATIC’s Tekkz win 3-1 against Barcelona’s Pedri & Team DUX Gaming’s Jaime Alvarez.

The event was co-ordinated with crew and players in the broadcast beaming in from USA, UK, France, Italy and Spain making it a truly remote production! At Gravity Media, we’ve been active in esports since Day 1, having been the first production company ever to bring a game into a TV workflow, including overcoming the challenge of region-specific encoding. Ever since, we’ve been an integral part of this incredible success story, working with all the key tournament organisers & publishers at some of the biggest live events on the planet.

Find out more about our offerings in the esports market here and to see how we can help you with your next online or offline production, email enquiries@gravitymedia.com