Gravity Media Expands Riot Games Esports Production Partnership at Remote Broadcast Center Powered by AWS

Gravity Media announces that it is expanding its partnership with game publisher Riot Games.The extended partnership will see Gravity Media provide a Managed Services solution at Riot Games’ brand new 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, 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 individuals from Broadcast Engineering, TOC, EVS, Audio GFX and Media Asset Management.

Working in partnership with Riot Games, Gravity Media will recruit a 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 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. 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 a 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 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 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,” says 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.”