interview
Mark Balch
Bayes Esports Mark is an esport maven and has been in the betting industry for over a decade. At Bayes his expertise will drive the vision behind the company’s products, and he will be the go-to guy for those interested in both co-operations and partnerships. ark is an esport maven and has been in the betting industry for over a decade. At Bayes his expertise will drive the vision behind our products and be the go-to guy for cooperations and partnerships.
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The Esports Journal: You are a new company created by two big industry players – DOJO Madness and Sportradar. It must all be very new to you, but do you already have a clear purpose and strategy about your future growth and expansion? Mark Balch: Bayes provides media customers, betting companies, esports organizers and more with reliable data solutions, analytics, probabilities and visualizations – backed up by our very own machine learning algorithms. We want to be the One-Stop-Shop for Esports data – for right holders (tournament organisers), data
Mark Balch Head of Product & Partnerships
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consumers (bookmakers, media) and service providers. ESJ: The data distribution deal with Riot Games is certainly a landmark achievement. How do you think access to more data would help us regular fans, i.e. the people who tune in to watch for the sake of pleasure? MB:Bayes is transforming raw game data from League of Legends esports competitions into a common format and delivering them to data consumers. This partnership will revolutionise access to League of Legends esports data, enabling the community, betting companies and third-party operators to create a wide array of services and products, bolstering the sport ecosystem. ESJ: We don’t have the hard evidence to back the claim, but our impression is that esports betting doesn’t generate as much profit to sportsbooks. How do you feel about this
and do you see a growth trajectory where the wagers placed on esports could one day beat mainstream sports competitions, in terms of total sports handle that is. MB: Economically, esports runs off the promise of growth, just like many other industries. While it is obvious to say that esports cannot match traditional sport, 20 years ago it practically did not exist and is now a thriving multi-billion dollar industry. We strongly believe in the future of esports and competitive video games, and as the gaming population ages, we gain access to more wealth and better paying jobs, which will in turn increase the volume and profitability of the industry and especially betting. At Bayes, we want to be part of the solution to the data problems. Delayed livestream collection, fragmented exclusivity, latency issues, lack of transparency and quality all hold back the esports betting product. We see a future where betting companies and other businesses can create awesome new products and experiences.
