Last weekend, the playoff round of the North American LCS tournament was broadcast on ESPN, one of the giants of the sports media industry. It was thought to be a significant step by Riot Games to promote their beloved game to a broader audience, but it backfired as it failed to serve the loyal viewers of the tournament, the League of Legends players.
A Reddit post complaining about this issue received significant support from the community, with the poster claiming that too many ads were inserted during crucial phases of the match such as champion select and analysis, making viewers extremely uncomfortable.
I will never watch League of Legends on ESPN with that many ads
One of the main reasons TV is dying is that we frequently have to watch ads randomly, interrupting the emotions of the viewer, sometimes it lasts too long, making us forget what we were watching.
Currently, I’m watching live on YouTube, and Dash (the LCS commentator) tells everyone that they’ll be coming back from ads, but the analysis desk continues working. This means that anyone watching on ESPN will miss out on half of that analysis, and then a regular break lasting 5 minutes will occur when the music starts playing.
Why not postpone the ads until that 5-minute break? Instead, viewers on ESPN have to watch ads for up to 10 minutes. Then, when entering the second ban phase, Phreak announces that ads are coming, which means ESPN viewers miss half of the first ban/pick phase and don’t know which champions will be used, plus they also don’t understand why teams are banning and picking the way they do.
Ads keep running until we get into the game; no one wants to watch a match like that, especially those with YouTube on TV.
One thing that sets an Esports match apart from regular television shows is the seamlessness of the matches. Phases like champion select, hero swapping, and entering the game are designed to be tightly connected, each phase is important, and there is very little downtime. Therefore, trying to insert ads in a traditional TV style (around 5 minutes for an ad series) is extremely difficult, and if done, it will cause viewers to miss a lot of important information.
Another thing that few people notice is that the ads from the game’s sponsors (in this case, League of Legends and the LCS) differ from those of the television network (ESPN). We are too accustomed to seeing the neat beverage ads from the LPL or brands like MasterCard, Alienware, KIA… appearing cleanly on the game screen. In contrast, the lengthy commercials from TV channels only exhaust viewers.
In conclusion, gamers, especially during this pandemic season, just want to watch the tournaments they love without being bombarded by ads. The unreasonable scheduling has caused significant outrage among gamers, knowing that Riot aims to expand the audience and influence of League of Legends, but they need to ensure that the experience for their loyal fans is the best it can be.