Who broadcasts tournaments and how

Most of the major tenders for broadcasting tournaments (revenues from this segment in the eSports market, according to Newzoo, are about 25%), Kommersant’s interlocutors in the market say, two studios used to win: Russian RuHub and Ukrainian Maincast.

“Here, broadcasting works according to the same rules as in classical sports. There are tournament operators who want to sell the rights to a particular region to broadcast in the local language. Operators arrange tenders: which studio will offer the best conditions for coverage of the championship, that one will receive the rights to the tournament or a series of tournaments. The studios that win the tender earn by selling sponsorship packages,” explains Ivan Burachenko, head of eSports at the PARI betting company.

Kommersant’s source on the market says that the studio can pay about $10-11 million for a three-year contract to broadcast the tournament. Kommersant’s interlocutor, close to one of the clubs, adds that now buying media rights to ESL tournaments costs about $13 million a year . “Until 2022, buying media rights was cheaper and allowed studios to earn about $0.5–1 million from broadcasts. Since 2022, the cost of buying media rights, the source says, has increased significantly, and now the studios that buy the rights are still working at zero, counting on long-term profits.

In April 2022, Maincast announced that they were refusing to broadcast tournaments in Russian. According to one of the interlocutors, RuHub (part of ESforce) refused to participate in tenders, according to another, it began to lose them: “Ukrainians wrote letters to game owners, tournament operators, and so on. Because of this, the Russian structure could not win tenders.

Aleksey Kushnirenko, head of the tournament division of ESforce Holding, explained that, having assessed the market and its own capabilities, the company “adjusted its business model, focusing on domestic leagues and international competitions of Russian organizers.”