Riot Games has announced a long-term partnership with BAMTech, a subsidiary of MLB Advanced Media, for the monetization and commercialization of League of Legends esports. The two companies will be working together to “push the boundaries of the esports viewing experience” in League of Legends.

The deal carries a $50 million per year guarantee for Riot Games on average, and will run through to the 2023 season.

MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM) is a partnership of 30 Major League Baseball club owners that largely functions as the online and interactive branch of the league, operating the official MLB website and thirty MLB club sites. BAMTech is a subsidiary of MLBAM and is a streaming technology provider, with a portfolio of clients that includes Disney, the NHL, WWE, HBO, and the PGA Tour.

In an exclusive interview with Yahoo Esports, Riot Games co-head of esports Whalen Rozelle, co-head of esports and head of merchandising Jarred Kennedy, and BAMTech president of business and media Bob Bowman revealed more details about the deal.

Riot Games’ deal with MLB Advanced Media runs through 2023. (Jeremy Whacker) More

How it will impact Twitch, YouTube, television, and other live platforms

Riot Games confirmed that the deal will not be changing how the audience can watch League of Legends content in 2017.

“We first and foremost believe in making sure that the content is in places where the fans want to watch it, so that will continue to be the case… We believe in making content freely available, and it will continue to be freely available into the future. We have no plans to change that,” Kennedy said.

While Riot Games plans to keep HD streams and ensure that the “core esports experience remains as accessible as possible and free without paywall,” there is also the possibility that a premium experience will be offered later on.

“That’s not to say that we won’t innovate down the road. Maybe there is something super cool that we create that has to be behind a premium experience so that fans want to buy into it,” Rozelle added.

Highlight reels and similar content posted by fans to channels such as YouTube will remain unaffected and can continue to be produced.

$50 million per year is the minimum

The monetary value assigned to the deal may seem hefty, but BAMTech has expressed the intention of making more than the $50 million stipulated annually on average.

“I hope we’re going to do a lot more than that. That’s the minimum guarantee, and I hope we’re going to exceed that by a large margin. And I expect that we will,” Bowman said in the interview.

BAMTech’s reasoning behind this assigned value to the deal lies in the nature of League of Legends as a “digital-first” property. By comparison, traditional sports have been television-first before eventually going to digital.

“The amount of time that [Riot Games] has over the top for live events far eclipses any other sport in the world — not just esport, any other sport in the world,” Bowman said.

“So the monetization for that effort and those kind of events is going to be really exciting. But we think the world is ready for esports. The sponsors, the advertisers are ready for it. They’re dying for it. It’s a great audience and they spend a great deal of time with this content.”

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