AUSTIN, Texas — Last December, gaming publisher Riot Games and BAMTech signed a landmark $300 million exclusive streaming rights deal. Major League Baseball’s technology services company would create the technical infrastructure to stream the League of Legends title through 2023.
On a recent South by Southwest Conference panel, Jarred Kennedy — who is the Co-Head of eSports, Merchandise and Licensing at Riot Games — said that while no announcement date has been set for the OTT platform, it will be “soon.”
Kennedy added that when Riot Games explored the marketplace looking for a live streaming partner, BAMTech was “one of the most flexible potential partners” the company found when it came to outlining a roadmap for the digital and commercial partnership.
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“I think it’s since BAM works on the digital side, they view the world as more open versus having a particular playbook. It was easier to say, ‘Hey, what if we tried this? Or, what if we tried that?’ … That was really exciting to us,” Kennedy said. “We weren’t necessarily coming in with a set playbook. We know that there are things that work in the marketplace and trust their expertise on those things, but we also know that the market is evolving. We want to be leaders and innovators like WWE was when they came into the market and helped shape it. We think it’s going to continue to change, and we found in BAM a partner that not only has the technical expertise but also on the monetization and commercialization side, they’re quite sophisticated.”
Kennedy stayed consistent with prior statements made by Riot Games, saying that the gaming publisher has “no intention of having a subscription service of any kind” for its OTT platform, which Kennedy said he hopes “will be the preferred way to access” League of Legends content. However, a premium offering in addition to the free service is a future possibility once the OTT platform is launched.
On the panel titled ‘The Future of Direct to Consumer/OTT’ was also Major League Baseball Advanced Media’s Kenny Gersh, Executive Vice President of Business. Gersh echoed Kennedy’s remarks, calling the deal with Riot Games a “hybrid” model.
“We’re a service provider for them and creating their content but the monetization of that particular content falls on us,” he said. “We’ll hopefully build it in a way that will attract eyeballs and sell advertising and sponsorship against it.”