Rogers targets gamers with new e-sports content, peering deals

Rogers Communications Inc. has begun marketing itself as the Internet service provider (ISP) of choice for gamers, acquiring exclusive e-sports content for its Sportsnet streaming service and entering into peering agreements with gaming platforms. Charlie Millar, Rogers’ senior director of product management and content acquisition, said in a phone interview Thursday that, looking at how many Canadians play video games, the company identified a “huge opportunity” in that market. It saw from Statistics Canada data that about half of Canadians identified as gamers on some level, “whether it be playing Candy Crush on the subway, all the way to participating in semi-pro leagues for Counter-Strike or League of Legends,” while people in more than two million homes within Rogers’ broadband footprint consider themselves active gamers, Millar said. The company announced in a press release Wednesday that it bought exclusive rights to esportsTV, a TV channel from Modern Times Group’s e-sport league ESL, which will be available on the Sportsnet Now platform in July. It will also broadcast “a weekly esports news, highlights and analysis program” on its Sportsnet 360 TV channel. The deal makes Rogers the first Canadian telecom to “secure exclusive rights to esports content,” it said in the release. E-sports and video game live streaming are a growing phenomenon, The Wire Report reported last year, with revenue that’s expected to double by 2021. Rogers is also reaching peering agreements with game platforms, including Valve Corp.’s Steam. Millar said that the company has deals with and is working on “many more,” but that he can’t identify the companies involved because they’re not “public relationships.” He said Rogers has optimized its Internet service “in a number of ways, through our technology and our peering agreements, to enhance the competitive edge for gamers.” Rogers’ website also touts its Internet service running on DOCSIS 3.1 and a modem compatible with the technology as a good fit for gamers, as well as offering a discount on Sony Corp.’s Playstation 4 Pro console with some Rogers bundles. Rogers’ relationship with the gaming community has been adversarial in the past. In 2011, an organization representing Canadian gamers filed complaints over the company throttling their Internet connections, a dispute that was settled the following year when Rogers promised to phase out throttling. In response to a question about how Rogers plans to appeal to gamers who might remember that conflict, Millar said “it’s something we take really seriously.” “Authenticity in this market is critical, and that’s why we’re announcing partnerships with leading gaming players in the industry,” he said in reference to the deals with ESL and Steam, which is “helping us illustrate the game play on our Internet service.” — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Charelle Evelyn at cevelyn@thewirereport.ca

Rogers targets gamers with new e-sports content, peering deals

News | May 25, 2017

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Rogers targets gamers with new e-sports content, peering deals

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