Graphics and music create a purposeful emulation of early MTV for an esports hybrid
Story Highlights
The synergy between sports and entertainment will take a huge step forward on Saturday when the Global Gaming League‘s (GGL) first season of year-around competitions starts in Las Vegas. The event, titled SZN Zero, takes place at the Hyper X Arena in the Luxor Hotel & Casino and is backed by Show Creator/Executive Producer Clinton Sparks and Grammy-winning artist and rap icon T-Pain, director, strategy, GGL.
The GGL is the first-of-its-kind multi-title, live-action gaming entertainment league: professional gamers, influencers, and casual players compete side by side both in front of audiences in Las Vegas and globally on major platforms, including Twitch and YouTube, playing game titles ranging from Call of Duty and Rocket League to Tetris and Street-Fighter.
‘Call It Sportainment’
The event leans heavily on music and celebrity team sponsorship; in addition to T-Pain, artists who have signed on as team owners include Grammy and BET Award–winners Jermaine Dupri, Bryce Hall, Ne-Yo, and Flavor Flav. But the media infrastructure would look familiar to any broadcast-sports producer. In fact, it might also seem familiar to anyone watching The Real World on MTV in the early 1990s, a look and feel that was intentional.
Dylan Marer: “[GGL] is the WWE meets esports meets MTV halftime or Wild ’N Out, and there’s a fashion component as well.”
“It’s a combination of retro gaming along with current gaming, but, with the graphics and CG, we’re also [emulating] the look and feel of that era,” explains Co-Executive Producer Dylan Marer. “We’re bringing in the lower tickers and the pop-up–video–type stuff like you should see on [The Real World]. We’re integrating some of that style with the way we’re doing the broadcast graphics and the content that we create and the subject matter of the games. We modeled some graphics and things to be like pop-up video and some of the ticker having interesting facts, things that you used to see back in the ’80s.”
Marer shares EP duties with Michael Fuller on a team that also includes Director Morgan Tremaine, Creative Producer Matt Davis, and Technical Director Andrew Wagnitz.
Each event will feature two celebrity-owned teams of four players — high-profile influencers, actors, athletes, artists, and both professional and casual gamers — facing off in four-round matches covering four genres. Superstar hosts and halftime shows by major music artists will buttress the entertainment factor. SZN Zero events — there will be three episodes in the first part of the season — will take place in Las Vegas, building up to a championship match broadcast live from The Palms resort and casino there in November. Then the Global Gaming League will continue with SZN One into 2026.
Familiar Gear
To get that vintage vibe, GGL is using very contemporary resources. The production emanates from Touring Video TV-3 production truck, which features a Sony MVS-7000x 6M/E HD switcher, a Stagetec Crescendo audio console, and a pair of Nexus Star 1024×1024 routers, with comms going through a Riedel Artist 64 intercom matrix frame. In the hybrid production, live action and virtual gameplay share the screen, along with typical videogame SFX bolstered by live crowd cheering and interspersed with short, live music performances sung to backing tracks. An extensive comms infrastructure is based on a Riedel Bolero system, and there is considerable RF wireless in the mix: all eight team competitors are wired for sound.
The GGL gaming entertainment league offers competition by professional gamers, influencers, and casual players in front of audiences in Las Vegas and streamed globally.
The entire 18-camera production, including overhead rail cams, is live, with audio mixed separately for the streamcast on the Stagetec desk by A1 Bob Wartinbee and submixer Arley Cervantes, and on a DiGiCo Quantum225 console live in the venue. To emphasize the parity of music and gaming, the production also brought in additional L-Acoustics audio components to bolster the venue’s existing PA system with more low end. The audio is stereo, limited by the distribution channels’ bandwidth but liberally sprinkled with custom SFX, for the many transitions that the production speeds through. Clips come through a 360 Systems Instant Replay 2 networked digital-audio clip player.
A League of Its Own
“This is the WWE meets esports meets MTV halftime or Wild ’N Out, and there’s a fashion component as well,” explains Marer. “It’s kind of its own category.”
That’s very much reflected in the production.
“This is an entertainment show and a sporting event — call it sportainment,” says Technical Producer and Touring Video President Doug Armstrong. “We are merging the two, and so our crew is more entertainment-centric than they are sports-centric. It is almost [more like] a variety show than a sporting event. We’re addressing it as more of a musical-entertainment show that has gaming as the catalyst to bring in the viewer and keep the engagement going.”
Like MTV in its early years, GGL is just finding its way, looking to strike the right balance between sports and showbiz — something even conventional sports itself is increasingly trying to figure out lately.
“What [GGL] wanted to accomplish is that MTV style, with the culture, the music, and fashion meeting entertainment and gaming,” says Marer. “They want to be in their own category, and they are.”
