MOBA League of Legends, LoL, has made a huge deal for its streaming rights.
Riot Games and BAMTech have announced a long-term partnership. BAMTech will pay at least 300 million US dollars by 2023 for the “exclusive rights to streams and the monetization of LoL competitions.
BAMTech is part of the “Major League Baseball’s media group,” so MLB, the Major Baseball League, is behind it. Also, Disney invested a billion in the company three months ago to acquire a third.
There are no “fees” planned to watch the eSports streams in the future. However, Riot reserves the right to charge for “premium content” in the future.
“Is eSports now going Pay Per View?” Tryndamere to the rescue
The fans on reddit were initially shocked by this news. There were concerns that the new company might offer LoL tournaments as “pay per view,” thus excluding many players.
An co-founder of Riot was immediately on reddit. Marc “Tryndamere” Merill pointed out, the deal is not “platform-exclusive.” An important detail. Then he participated in the discussion and agreed with a comment that emphasized how important it is for LoL that everyone can play the game and also can watch the tournaments.
The 300 million deal is seen as groundbreaking for eSports. The new partnership is expected to help Riot further increase revenue. Initial comments from English-speaking sites express hope that more of the money will also reach the actual eSports players. There have been some disturbing news in recent months about this.
Other companies are also closing major deals to earn more money with eSports in the future:
Activision Blizzard reportedly acquired eSports organization MLG for 46 million US dollars
