ELEAGUE, the esports brand from Turner Sports and IMG, has announced they’re set to engage “a collection of cutting-edge technologies” to enhance the upcoming CS:GO Premier. The tournament which kicks off September 8th, is set to work with a number of companies to provide new ways of viewing the tournament.
First, in partnership with their official PC Hardware provider Dell Gaming, they’re set to be bringing biometric analysis to fans. Using eye-tracking technology developed by Tobii, they’re set to be collecting data thanks to the micro projectors and sensors, to show the situational awareness and reaction times to show the audience how players operate at the top level of competition. Video examples of this in operation are available here.
Next up is virtual reality brought in from SLIVER.tv, a company already providing services to ESL and DreamHack in CS:GO. Taking the same technology from there, SLIVER allows the VR viewer to watch the game from any point in the map, as well as watching the standard audience stream as if you’re in the game.
Robert Occhialini, VP Esports Products and Technology for Turner Sports talked about the VR addition:
“We’re very proud of ELEAGUE’s 2D production. One of the great things about the SLIVER.tv experience is that you get all of the immersive VR experience but you still have the ability to enjoy our production. It made SLIVER.tv a fantastic fit for ELEAGUE. Their platform ubiquity – not just being available via one VR headset – is really remarkable. We like offering the ‘build-a-bear’ type of esports experience with respect to having ultimate viewer choice, but we also realize that many people like to lean back and enjoy the broadcast. What we have [with our 2D production being available inside the 3D rendering] is the sweet spot, the combination of those two.”
Finally ELEAGUE bring in Dojo Madness, to take advantage of their Shadow.GG platform. Their innovative platform allows ELEAGUE to show advanced data on the fly, from heatmaps to tactical and statistical replays. This will provide more data on how the teams operate at the highest level of competition.
Occhialini added for the use of Shadow.GG: “With traditional sports, the challenge with incorporating advanced analytics is data capture – so I was super intrigued to apply them to a sport that is built on data. A lot of the time in esports today, analysts or fans ask only ‘who won?’ There isn’t a lot of ‘why did they win?’ We see this as the beginning of getting into the ‘why’ teams won.”
Esports Insider says: Big new technologies to be taken advantage of by ELEAGUE here. The eye-tracking data is set to be an interesting addition here, allowing the commentary team to provide more details on how players use the screen space to play the game. Dojo Madness joining in through their platform to explain the statistics behind CS:GO is also a good move from Turner.