INTERVIEW
CJ: It is and that’s why a lot of people in esports come to us, too,
ahead with the NFL draft in whatever way they could.
because they see the top-level expertise that we bring to some of these
We collaborated with The Famous Group and the NFL on a way to
more established leagues. We help to elevate the quality of these shows
bring fans in and virtualise them - and it’s all using cloud-based video
and, in a way, legitimise the projects. There’s a lot of conversion that
services, the media servers and all the technology we always use. We
they’re trying to make happen in terms of attracting fans to esports and
were ready to go ahead and attack the project as we’d already gone down
these projects definitely help.
that road somewhat – and that led to us helping to deliver the world’s largest, most-viewed virtual NFL draft ever, which was lots of fun. It
Scott: It’s also taken off in North America - the collegiate market, in
was 1,200 fans over two days and we were switching between all the
particular, where you don’t just have college basketball and football any
fans of each club. We were streaming right from our shop in DC; we had
more. There is now a huge opportunity in college esports. One of the
our full broadcast production switcher, all the media servers and so on
unique skills that we can offer is that we’re also an event company and
– and we were feeding that to ESPN and ABC, as well as right into Roger
these esports tournaments and matches are events. It’s about bringing
Goodell’s (Commissioner of the NFL) house.
that event mentality – and CJ touched on it earlier – the communication and knowledge when it comes to the technology that helps deliver and
I know we’ve briefly touched on it, but how are things going for
enhance the overall event.
Quince Imaging during this unprecedented global pandemic?
That has really morphed into analysis and expertise in remote
Scott: Well, that’s sort of a microcosm of what happened, because we
production, which is, of course, a huge part of the sporting industry in
had been well on the road to studying, designing and developing what
the current global environment. Everyone is pivoting towards remote
a master control system would be for virtual and remote production. It
production very quickly until stadiums can allow numerous people back
was a simple task for us to take that next little baby step and dive into
in again. It’s all about keeping fans engaged, which was the purpose
providing virtual production and remote production services at a high
behind our most recent venture in the NFL Draft.
level, helping our professional teams bring in their fans and engage. After all, even when things open up once again, there will still be a
036
CJ: We were already going down the road of looking into remote
virtual component that’s likely here to stay. Just because 50,000 fans
production and virtual production solutions to service the esports
can come into an arena or stadium, it doesn’t mean that you’re now
market - particularly in college to make it so thousands of colleges
going to ignore the opportunity to engage plenty of other fans remotely.
could play together and have a professional-looking broadcast without
So, that’s going to be a huge opportunity for these sports franchises
having to build multimillion-dollar studios. So, when COVID-19 hit and
and ownership groups to engage fans on a broader and wider level. And
everybody was forced to work from home, remote solutions became the
that’s what we’ve been working on, too. Also, we still have a number of
hot topic.
permanent integration projects that are in the various stages of work,
When it came to the NFL, we have to give full credit to them as they
with only a few having just tapped the brakes a little bit, but none have
were just clear – it was a case of ‘we’re the NFL and we put out the
been cancelled, which is really great news for everybody - it’s great news
greatest content no matter what’. So, they were definitely going to go
for us, them and the industry as a whole. We’re actively engaged with
WWW.MONDOSTADIA.COM