Background

Team Fordzilla - Ford Racing’s official esports team - were looking to create hype and presence at the 2021 Gamescom convention with a live broadcast and on-site esports experience, and they needed a partner with the specialist production and solutions architecture capacity, and an innate understanding of how to reach global esports audiences.

Opportunity

Following a successful partnership in 2020, Fordzilla were keen to partner with LPL once again. Despite being located in New Zealand, LPL worked with LA-based Manhattan Digital and London-based Team Fordzilla to facilitate remote input, integrate and deliver outgoing livestreams live in real time from GamesCom in Cologne, Germany.

Execution

The broadcast was distributed live from Auckland via Germany to Team Fordzilla’s Twitch page, Twitter and YouTube channel. It featured Fordzilla team captains from around the world, making this a truly global broadcast effort.

Fordzilla were giving away a Mustang to one lucky European viewer to drive for 3 months. LPL used Twitch Chat bot commands to create entry forms for viewers to enter, drawing a winner live on broadcast at the end of the show. Twitch moderators from LPL managed this competition aspect, with LPL broadcast communicating with both on-the-ground and remote staff via in-ear internet-powered comms.

Result

Team Fordzilla’s GamesCom 2021 broadcast reached over 200,000 viewers worldwide across Twitter, YouTube and Twitch. The broadcast was particularly popular in U.K and Europe, due to peak time zones, location of the convention, and the featured talent’s home countries.