After three years of hyping up their Home and Away era, Overwatch League is finally hitting the road. Over the first two weeks, Overwatch League hosted homestands in New York City, Arlington, and Philadelphia.

These events went really well overall, however there were some notable issues. Such as the stream from Philadelphia dropping for several minutes, some unexplained mistimed graphics, and several game pauses due to technology issues.

All of these difficulties are to be expected, as Overwatch League attempts to carry out high level broadcasts in a new venue every single week.

Not only is Activision Blizzard going on the road every single week for both Overwatch League and Call of Duty League, they are also using a revolutionary work flow which lets them centralize their production in California, regardless of where their events are being held. Some growing pains are to be expected.

Overwatch League’s broadcast workflow

Since the Overwatch League is changing venues every week, the broadcast team has adopted a revolutionary workflow. Blizzard’s senior technology manager did an interview with sportsvideo.org to talk about their broadcast technology.

“It’s very different from the traditional-style master-control workflow, but it works really well. We’ve been doing [cloud-based transmission] for a while, but were taking it to the next level this year because we think it’s the right fit to do the job. Our Technology Group has done a phenomenal job from the transmission perspective, and then our job is to put production technology together and interface to make sure it all works correctly.” Ryan Cole, Senior Technology Manager for Activision Blizzard Esports

To oversimplify, Blizzard’s on site broadcast team runs cameras and sends the broadcast feed through Amazon Web Services (AWS) to Blizzard’s transmission-operations center in Irvine, CA. The master-control is all executed from California before sending the OWL feed to YouTube and other regional distributors, also through AWS.

The productions are nothing to sneeze at either. For week 1, the OWL production team set up and operated 20 broadcast cameras from the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York. In total, OWL producers dealt with more than 30 channels of in-game, graphical, and live footage. Their operation is like a well-oiled machine, who sometimes puts Cheez-It ads in the middle of team fights.

Blizzard has a challenging workflow compared to other sports broadcasts. For example, ESPN broadcasts of the National Football League involve a production trailer with show producers directing the broadcast from the venue. The Overwatch League has opted for having a single team controlling the broadcast, with feeds being sent to them from all across the world via the internet. This ensures consistency and quality control for OWL broadcasts.

Knowing that the workflow is so complex and coordinated makes it really easy for me to forgive small snafus. That said, some of the broadcast issues have detracted from the excitement and smoothness of the first few events. I am hoping we see quick improvements on preventing unforced tech and broadcast errors at OWL events as the crew gets more used to the flow.

Esports technology has more sources of failure than traditional sports production

In traditional sports, the production crew handles their cameras, switchers, microphones etc. If you have ever paid attention to the pure number of cameras at an NFL game, it’s shocking how many sources of video they are managing. Esports broadcasters also deal with dozens of cameras, control panels, and live feed technologies. Unlike traditional sports broadcasts, they also have to handle the 12 computers on stage with all their peripherals, massive LED screens, and of course stage lights.

Every player has a headset, computer, mouse, and keyboard. If any of these things fail on any of the 12 people using them, the game comes to a screeching halt. The occasional technology failure, or the occasional player accidentally unplugging their mouse, is expected. However, with homestands there are a lot of variables that could go wrong, which makes it more likely that we will see unforced errors by the on-site broadcasting teams.

During OWL’s Season 3 homestand in Philly, there were several times when players had technical difficulties leading to extended pauses during matches. Unfortunately, many of those pauses came at inopportune times, to the point where it might have actually affected the outcome of some team fights.

We never received a full explanation of the technical issues, but from watching the footage it seems like some of the players were having problems with their headsets.

Increased likelihood of on-site tech failure is one of the main issues that comes with having a different venue every week. Rarely did Blizzard’s L.A. Arena have significant tech issues, since they used the same gear every time and it was always set up and didn’t have to be torn down every match. Quality control is a lot easier when you are only dealing with one venue.

There is no way around it. Homestands increase the likelihood of technical difficulties.

Homestands also increase the probability that the stream itself could black out. Black outs are not unique to homestand events, but there are more steps in the workflow where something could go wrong. The stream from the venue to Irvine could fuck up, or the stream from Irvine to YouTube could fuck up, or the stream from YouTube to us could fuck up. there are just more points of failure in Activision Blizzard’s production pipeline.

As a result, stream outages and black outs are probably going to be more common when most of the games are being done at new venues that the production teams haven’t used before. In 2019, for example, there was a regional power outage that caused the Dallas Homestand to go offline. There was literally nothing the local team could do to predict or prevent that event. The second week of OWL season 3 had at least one multiple minute stream outage, leading to several hundred F’s in the chat for the stream.

I doubt this will be the last one we see this season and that’s okay.

OWL broadcasts deal in too many unforced errors

We can’t expect everything to be perfect every week. The stream difficulties and tech problems are forgivable growing pains, especially considering how ambitious the OWL homestand project is. Unforced errors are less forgivable though.

During week 1, a Crunch time graphic covered the majority of a significant team fight between the London Spitfire and NYXL on Numbani.

This error continued for more than a minute, which is unacceptable. Did the director say to take the graphic? Did the technical director take the graphic without being told? Did someone spill coffee on the switch board? How does an error like this happen for more than a minute without anyone on the broadcast team noticing? That was a seriously notable fuck up.

The problems continued into half time, when the Watchpoint desk was interrupted several times by Cheez-it ads. I am starting to think Cheez-it was sabotaging OWL!

I am even more embittered by the mistakes because viewers have made Crunch Time into a meme and now spam Crunch Time in the chat constantly…

There were other notable errors.

Following the Paris v. Toronto game, a victory moment screen was displayed for at least 15 seconds while the stream waited in breathless anticipation for something to happen. Nothing ever did.

During week 2, The camera on the casters in Philly was sometimes focused on the background rather than on their faces.

During week 1, the broadcast would sometimes cut away from active fights to show the homestand crowd.

Throughout the first homestand weekend, the stream jumped back 10 seconds several times and forward at other times.

These errors are unforced and unnecessary. Season 3 of the Overwatch League definitely had a bit of a rough start from a production perspective.

These errors were definitely a black eye for the OWL production team, but I expect them to address these mistakes going forward. Maybe it’s the optimist in me, but I genuinely think that broadcast team is capable of not trashing their own stream with Cheez-it ads.

I believe, do you?