Bayes Secures Data Distribution Rights from Riot

• Bayes awarded data distribution rights by Riot Games
• Move welcomed by the esports company
• Bayes will take data directly from Riot and possibly launch a free-to-use product

Bayes has signed as Riot Games’ first official data distributor for the company’s main competitive title, League of Legends.

Bayes Becomes First League of Legends Data Distributor

Data supplier Bayes Esports Solutions has become the first official data distribution partner, teaming up with Riot Games, a Tencent subsidiary and creator of one of the world’s largest games, League of Legends (LoL).

The deal marks an important shift in perception of betting on competitive video games. Created as a joint-venture by DOJO Madness and Sportradar, Bayes Esports Solutions will harvest data and then provide interested parties with relevant statistics in real time, whether that is media customers or data consumers.

While the financial side of the data is still unknown, Riot Games revealed that the deal will include North America, Europe and South Korea. As expected the partnership will cover both the World Championship as well the Mid-Season Invitational, two of the biggest events in the League of Legends competitive circuit.

Speaking about the agreement, Bayes CEO Martin Dachselt said:

“Especially for the small leagues, which need to be more visible for the world in viewership, this is a big chance.”

Bayes will have direct authentic access to data that would allow the company to offer in-play betting opportunities to esports fans. With a viewership peaking at 100 million, the World Championship are most certainly a time for esports betting action.

“We offered solutions that go beyond the monetization,” Mr. Dachselt told the The Esports Observer, a respected journal covering the business of competitive video gaming.

Optimizing Data Extraction from League of Legends

Bayes will be able to provide accurate information about games, replacing the conventional ways of extracting it – i.e. by following streams and using the metrics there, which was far from ideal. Now, Bayes will be fed the numbers directly by Riot, the same way commentators are.

There’s more to this deal. Riot is not only interested in monetizing the data and the company will be looking to help community projects by providing data free of charge.

While betting integrity is not part of the equation yet, Sportradar has already been chosen as Riot’s official integrity partner to monitor global betting activity globally for League of Legends

A Rush for Big Data

Data has become the currency of the esports world. Since Dota 2 made its debut, complex statistics have become more relevant to both the esports betting market and pro scene.

Marketing agency Newzoo has been tapping into big data to provide some of the most relevant and helpful trends for the sector for several years now. Meanwhile, ESCharts, another analyst website, have been keeping track of viewership of major tournaments.