Customer Story · Global Esports Broadcast
Riot Games deployed Appear’s X Platform as a core component of its IP-based Remote Broadcast Center in Dublin — delivering high-density, low-latency AVC/HEVC contribution for League of Legends Esports and the VALORANT Champions Tour to millions of fans worldwide.
Riot Games produces live esports at enormous scale — its League of Legends Esports and VALORANT Champions Tour productions reach millions of viewers each year, in person and online. To level up, Riot built its first Remote Broadcast Center in Dublin and moved to a fully IP-based remote workflow.
Heading into an ambitious global broadcast expansion, Riot needed media processing that could deliver high-density AVC/HEVC contribution, integrate natively with its SMPTE 2110 network, and stay resilient across many different network types.
What Riot manages end-to-end
Riot Games adopted Appear’s X Platform as a common foundation for its remote productions. The impact shows up in native IP, quality and resilience.
SMPTE 2110 native connectivity — with SMPTE 2022-7 and NMOS support — lets feeds exchange directly on Riot’s IP network, removing an entire layer of IP gateway devices.
High-density AVC/HEVC encoding and decoding keeps feeds pristine and delay minimal, so millions of fans see the action as it happens across a global audience.
The X Platform encodes, packages and delivers across multiple network paths at once — TSoIP with FEC and SRT gateways — giving Riot the redundancy global broadcasts demand.
02 · Transport
A single platform lets Riot Games choose the optimal approach for each production — high-density AVC/HEVC over native SMPTE 2110 at the Remote Broadcast Center, with TSoIP over FEC and SRT gateways where different network types are needed — while keeping workflows consistent across events.
The first deployment began at Riot’s Dublin RBC and proved out at the 2023 League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational in London, watched by a peak audience of nearly 2.3 million. It is the opening phase of a broader global rollout, with a second Remote Broadcast Center in Greater Seattle — eight time-zone hours away — extending round-the-clock support for Riot’s worldwide esports calendar.
One platform now underpins Riot’s global esports contribution — and scales to a second Remote Broadcast Center as the rollout expands.
Native SMPTE 2110 removed an entire layer of IP gateway devices.
One less layer to manage
High-density HEVC encoding lowered power consumption at broadcast scale.
Dense and sustainable
Simultaneous multi-path delivery built in redundancy for global events.
Dublin + Greater Seattle next
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Appear was the ideal solution on the market that met our demanding requirements for high-density encoding and delivery of AVC/HEVC signals to and from our new, cutting-edge broadcast facilities. The native ability to exchange these feeds directly with our 2110 IP networks has allowed us to greatly simplify a workflow that previously required an additional layer of IP gateway devices.
See how Appear’s X Platform brings high density, low latency and end-to-end resilience to next-generation remote production.
