Although big esports events like Valve’s $23 million The International for Dota 2 and Activision’s Call of Duty World League Championship are being compared more often to traditional sports events—some are even held in sports arenas—there’s been a gap in the esports viewing experience. Real-time stats play a key role in watching everything from UFC to baseball to football. Startup Esports One wants to provide esports fans with the same depth of viewing experience as traditional sports fans currently have.
“While watching matches through the Esports One platform, you’ll have full control over how you watch the game,” Matthew Gunnin, founder of Esports One, told AListDaily. “We have modules that will track every data point you care about to the second. Want to ensure you never miss a single event in game? Our Objective Tracker and ChatBot modules show everything in-game from item purchases to player movements. We even have educational modules for users who are new to the game and want to learn while they watch.”
Esports One is an esports data and analytics company comprised of MIT engineers that hope to change the way fans watch and engage with esports. Using computer vision, real-time analysis and databases of historical information, the company creates modules updated to the second, which users can insert into an esports stream to show more detailed information.
“When our beta launches, you will be able to watch professional League of Legends matches on esports.one and customize the area around the stream,” Gunnin explained. “There will be panels to the right and bottom of the stream that you’ll be able to customize with modules containing whatever info you like.”
The platform embeds streams directly from Twitch, Facebook and YouTube with no degradation in quality or content. Chat functionality will be provided through a module that the user can add or remove as they choose.
“Social media plays a major part in the esports industry, but for the most part, it feels disconnected from the games themselves,” Gunnin said. “We want our users to be able to interact with each social media platform while not taking them away from the action. We’ll have separate modules for each service with a number of customizable features. As an example, there is a tremendous amount of information that occurs during a live broadcast, and being able to share it quickly with context can be near impossible. With our real-time data extraction tools, users will have a whole new avenue available to them to share their favorite moments with their friends.”
While Esports One is first and foremost a stats and data company, Gunnin sees the opportunity that this platform can provide for advertisers.
“In the NFL, it’s very common to see featured stats and key moments being sponsored,” Gunnin said. “Rotating sponsor logos have become such a commonplace for broadcasters that users very rarely even take notice anymore. You rarely see any type of real-time product activation during major esports game events, largely due to the fact that it requires manual input to activate. We capture hundreds of data points every second, allowing us to make an immediate call to this database to showcase various informative metrics surrounding in-game events.”
“User engagement is one of our core principles and is a driving force behind the Esports One platform,” Gunnin added.
One of the features available to sponsors is One Blueprints, which are page templates pre-configured with different modules depending on the objective of the page. One of the initial three Blueprints at launch will be educational and geared towards individuals that are new to a specific game or esports in general.
Now that the technology has been developed, Gunnin has turned his attention to connecting with endemic and non-endemic brands.
“We are currently working with two brands to incorporate elements of their guides into these pages that will trigger based off of real-time events (champion selection, item builds, skill choice, etc.),” Gunnin said.
