The Calm Before the Storm: Prepping Data Operations for Esports Tournaments

Bayes Esports’ operations team is composed of the superstars behind the maintenance and curation of all match information. With thousands of matches covered each year, it takes a dedicated team and countless hours to transmit accurate data for every match. The esports industry is known for its dynamic and ever-changing atmosphere, from last-minute roster changes to fixture updates, and our operations team stays on top of it all.

I spoke with the operations team to understand how they navigate an esports tournament. Split into a three-part series, I hear from Sanja, Joy, Darren, Daria, and some of Bayes Esports’ global freelancers. First up, Part 1: the preparation! Stay tuned for the additional 2 articles to follow.

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Pre-Tournament Preparation

Before jumping into the arena, an esports tournament takes meticulous planning to ensure the successful delivery of the official data. Since Bayes Esports has exclusive data partnerships with some of the top esports tournament organizers, like ESL FACEIT Group, BLAST Premier, and others, our operations team gets access to the data directly from the feed itself.

At the beginning of the year, Bayes Esports’ partners will share a calendar with a forecast of the content and expected number of matches for the year. Once a communication channel is set up, the organizers can share the match schedule as the event approaches - the most essential tool when preparing.

Sanja, our Live Operations Specialist says, “The schedule should cover the following aspects: teams, rosters, number of matches, stages (qualifiers, groups, playoffs, tiebreakers, relegation), regions, match format, tournament format (fixed times or follow-as rules).” 

Setting a point of contact also ensures any schedule changes can be swiftly dealt with. “Rosters and teams can be delayed as teams can end up making decisions to swap or rearrange their roster at short notice.”

Once all the content is gathered, a master content calendar is created. Joy, our Sales Operations Representative reflects, “the content calendar is updated every week throughout the year according to the schedules sent by the organizer before every tournament. This calendar is used internally but also shared with our customers as well so they can stay on top of every match.” 

From there the technical preparation begins. Bayes Esports has created an internal tool that allows the team to fetch the data from the external system, translate it into our internal database, and flow to each client according to the contracts.

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Ensuring Accurate Data Delivery

The preparation requires a strong attention to detail and communication skills to stay on top of every piece of content but the work doesn’t stop there. To ensure everything runs smoothly, the operation team conducts extensive checks. 

‍Sanja says, “Our team goes through every detail, from verifying the roster accuracy and schedules to testing the stability of the live data feeds. These thorough checks are crucial because they help us deliver real-time, reliable data to our clients without any hiccups.”

While the tournament organizers are sharing the schedule directly, the operations team also cross-checks the data across a variety of sources, from an in-house database or alternatively, third-party sources. Tournament organizers have different operating processes so it requires adapting to each. 

‍Darren, our Junior Live Operations Specialist shares, “Through these means, we can mitigate the chances of any scheduling errors or issues. If we notice any discrepancies or anything that seems incorrect, we already have communication channels open with the relevant party for clarification.”

But despite all these checks, esports is never static, and last-minute changes are almost expected. Darren continues, “Many matches are played exclusively online and are therefore highly subject to all types of issues, from routine causes such as schedule conflicts, all the way to a player’s internet connection failing before or during a game. Offline (LAN events) are subject to their own technical issues in themselves.”

When schedules change, the operations team must think fast on their feet and advise the global freelancer teams of the changes. Matches have even popped up to begin within the hour. Darren praises the freelancers, “Thankfully, our excellent freelancer teams are extremely flexible and are capable of jumping in at short notice.” More to come in part 2 of this series.

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Ready for the games to begin?

So now that the operations team has all the correct information, is it time for the match to begin? Not yet. The team still needs to perform reliability tests to ensure they can avoid errors after a tournament starts. 

‍Darren walks us through the process: “We run through a checklist of items of concern in the lead-up to each event. Examples of this are: ensuring that an appropriate match and video stream test has been concluded, that fixtures are in place, rosters have been checked, relevant communication channels with tournament organizers have been established, and more.” 

As we know, esports is already unpredictable at the best of times, so anything that can be done to mitigate these risks is essential. Darren says, “Conducting due diligence to the highest possible level gives us the confidence that we will cover each tournament with minimal issues.”

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