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As of late, Bayes Esports has been expanding its data portfolio to include some of the leading esports events and tournaments – one such partnership has been with BLAST Premier, a league that specialises in delivering Counter-Strike: Global Offensive content.
Discussing this new collaboration, Bayes Esports Senior Director Public Relations Prof. Dr. Susanne Ardisson and VP Distribution & Programming at BLAST Alexander Lewin spoke with SBC News, outlining their expectations for the collaboration and how the two plan to make esports data more accessible to partners.
SBC: Susanne, Bayes recently announced that it would be partnering with BLAST Premier. How did this agreement come about? And why did you choose to partner with BLAST?
SA: As the leading source for official esports live data, we are always looking to secure partnerships with the top content rights-holders in esports and expand our exclusive data portfolio. BLAST Premier represents not only one of the world’s leading CS:GO Tournament series, they are one of the three largest content rights-holders in the industry.
They have established themselves as one of the premier tournament organisers in esports and are true leaders when it comes to creating best in class and memorable event series. Partnering with them was very high up on our priority list and we are very excited to be able to welcome BLAST into our existing network of exclusive partners.
SBC: Alexander, what was it about Bayes Esports that made you want to partner with the company?
AL: Bayes Esports is an industry leader in their respective field when it comes to data in gaming and esports and covers a large portion of leading esports titles, publishers and events.
Bayes proved to be a strong option for BLAST in helping us look to better utilise and intertwine such an important area of our business. Both brands also share a focus and passion for innovation, technology and ambition to take esports to the forefront of modern global entertainment.
SBC: What are your aims for this partnership?
SA: We’re here to support BLAST in supercharging their digital fan engagement and support them in terms of scaling across the globe by making their match data available ubiquitously. For us, it is about making official live data from all BLAST events available to our network of data customers, including over 100 betting operators and 450 data customers, on one hand, and working together with BLAST on data driven solutions to improve the overall fan experience on the other.
BLAST has done a tremendous job building a leading esports IP and knows how to set up premium and unforgettable esports events. We believe that together we can continue to build on each other’s expertise and develop new and exciting content creation and data visualisation solutions that will elevate esports to the next level.
AL: Data is a hugely important part of the esports industry, providing accurate and quick-time data allows us to elevate many parts of our business. The main goal for this partnership is to be able to maximise data in a competitive gaming landscape by making it more accessible to teams, players and fans through historic data access, statistics, and other visual representation. Data also plays a huge role in upholding the competitive integrity of competitions and events.
SBC: How will your partnership with BLAST help strengthen your existing content portfolio? And what benefits will this bring to your wider network of partners?
SA: With this partnership, we are now exclusively providing content impacting 80% of official live esports betting turnover. That is a massive share of official live data that we are making available to our partnered betting operators and data customers. It strengthens our position as industry leaders and enables our partners to expand their services to include even more matches from even more tournaments.
We’re further driving the unification of APIs by continuously channelling more exclusive content from us as well as from third party content on our platform. Thus, we are making even more data available through just one API for industry leading clients such as Google, Pinnacle, and GG.BET.
SBC: Can you both tell us, how will this partnership help to make data more accessible to esports teams and fans?
SA: We can look back at great past experiences working with Riot Games to set up the Data Portal for League of Legends. We are confident to be able to build on these experiences to set up similar solutions with BLAST Premier for CS:GO. How exactly these solutions are going to look like is something we are actively deliberating on.
AL: The importance of data can easily be overlooked, but in reality it is at the heart of all competitive entertainment products. For example, it helps bring to life player performance for viewers through in-game statistics, ensures competitive integrity is upheld and respected at all times and allows players and teams to better understand and prepare for future games and tournaments.
Our ambition with this partnership is to be able to collaborate with Bayes to work out how we can dive even deeper into data to provide unique insight and better understanding of esports in the future, which will in-turn elevate the entertainment experience.
SBC: How will your partnership with Bayes Esports enable BLAST Premier to “create outstanding esports entertainment”?
AL: We’re on a mission to take esports to the next level of global entertainment. We want to excite and invite billions of fans to join the esports revolution, through creating leading live and digital experiences – from tournaments that pack out major arenas around the world to highly engaging content.
At the centre of this ambition is a need for leading and high-end technology to underpin all of our production and broadcast needs. Real time and accurate data is a hugely-key component to this and will allow us to push the boundaries of what’s possible entertainment wise while ensuring we are maintaining the competitive integrity of our events and tournaments. We will be hosting our first BLAST.tv Major in Paris this May so ensuring we are creating the best entertainment experience and event possible is a huge focus for us, we will look to ensure data plays an important role within delivering on this ambition.
SBC: Susanne, tell us about Project V – what is this? And how will it facilitate the automation of content creation?
SA: Project V is a tool that allows for the automation of content creation. It synchronises video clips and data from esports matches, which essentially allows us to create a massive database of highlights that can be used to offer esports fans an engaging form of entertainment. Even the upload to various platforms, such as YouTube or Twitter, can be automated, preparing fans for upcoming matches by showing them special moments to enjoy and relive.
Whenever there is a match between two rival teams coming up, for example, Project V allows for highlights of past matches between those two teams to be uploaded automatically to hype up fans for their next clash. It’s a fantastic tool with tremendous potential that we are eager to dive further into with BLAST.
SBC: Upon the announcement of this partnership, Amir Mirzaee noted that “2023 promises to be an exciting year, not just for us, but for the entire esports industry” – can you tell us, what do the next 12 months have in store for the both of you?
SA: There are a lot more announcements to come from us. We see an increasing number of players particularly in the esports betting industry looking to move away from unofficial data and invest in official data instead. With long-term exclusive partnerships with the likes of BLAST Premier, EFG, and Riot Games secured, we are looking towards expanding our services and driving the development of data-based solutions related to esports.
AL: This year BLAST we will continue to look to elevate our entertainment offering, by working with leading game publishers around the world to create exceptional esports experiences. In 2023 alone, we have plans to deliver multiple events in leading locations around the world in popular esports titles such as Rainbow Six Siege, Fortnite and Counter-Strike.
Last year we launched our esports viewing platform called BLAST.tv, we are excited to further grow and innovate the viewing experience in competitive gaming. We also see a huge opportunity in the fantasy esports space, with the global fantasy sports market projected to be valued at $12m by 2028. There is a huge gap in the market to make esports fantasy an area of prosperity and community engagement in the future considering the digital nature of esports and gaming fans.
