Riot Games partners with Gravity Media on remote broadcast centres

Gravity Media has partnered with game publisher Riot Games to provide managed services at Riot Games’ state-of-the-art remote broadcast centre (RBC) in Dublin, Ireland (pictured above).

The move will “further bolster and elevate the technical offering at the RBC for live esports broadcast production,” says Gravity Media. As well as taking on the managed services of the building, Gravity Media will also provide wider remote production support on all the ongoing global Riot Games esports events.

The managed services Gravity Media will provide to Riot Games will operate under the name Project Stryker. The 50,000-square foot production space in Dublin is the first of Project Stryker’s three RBCs 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.

Riot Games also has a city centre Dublin office with 165 employees, which focuses on business operations, development, engineering, localisation, and player support.

The company was founded in 2006 to develop, publish and support games, with its debut title, League of Legends, receiving worldwide acclaim and becoming a key driver of the explosive growth of esports.

Project Stryker is a new approach to live global production for Riot Games, 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 Television Operation Centre, six remote casting insert stages, six production control rooms, six audio control rooms, multiple bullpens for observers (in-game camera operators), graphics, replay and editing. It can broadcast six live events at a time around the globe.

Two control rooms are equipped with cloud-based ’zero client’ computing, through its partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), enabling Riot to efficiently produce events even more virtually and remotely than before.

Allyson Gormley, global operations director, Project Stryker at Riot Games, said: “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. 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, adds: “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.”