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Paul ‘ReDeYe’ Chaloner on why big esports events need two hosts

By Sameer Chandra

ReDeYe
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Paul ‘ReDeYe’ Chaloner, a famous name in the esports hosting department published an article on his Tumblr page laying emphasis on why big esports events like the International need two hosts. Let us take a look at some important points from his article.

ReDeYe explained how he forayed into the world of esports hosting with his humble beginnings at the Quakecon in 2005. He explained that they were given a small stand to broadcast their event to the audience on the internet.

"Our audience on site reached about 50 or so people over the course of the day and while Intel were kind enough to donate some space, I remember thinking: “They have no idea what the hell we are doing here”."

He even stated that they weren’t paid for casting the event and even had to struggle to obtain enough free tickets for everyone on their team to get in. He told that people like him reported the scores through IRC (Internet Relay Chat) instead of Twitter or other esports websites as they didn’t exist back then.

"Most of the early esports galleries are from me or Michal “Carmac” Blicharz as we were just two of a handful of people who even owned a camera! And we had no social media back then either, just mIRC to spread the word."

He later told that the esports scene has progressed a lot since then and praised veteran casters like 2GD, LD and SirScoots who helped a lot in improving the quality of the game as well as the pay conditions of the casters. He later came to the point that casters and hosts were working more than 18 hours a day and weren’t able to take rest.

"I racked up 93 hours at the recent CSGO Major in 7 days. It has not been uncommon to complete 13-18 hour days in many of the tournaments held this year."

Despite being given time for rest, he said that he would be watching a match, preparing questions for the analysts and that really doesn’t count as rest time. He said that this isn’t about the money and he would gladly take a pay cut if the events were jointly hosted.

"This is absolutely not about money either. In fact a few of us hosts have already discussed lowering our rates should we be able to do a joint hosting event."

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He said that it would cost more for the organisers to maintain 2 hosts but also said that players won’t be playing 7 back to back matches and the organisers would be saving a day of play.

"No longer those days of playing 7 back to back matches…"

Valve recently took the bold step of appointing two hosts for the upcoming International 7 tournament, thus fulfilling ReDeYe’s wish. Can this practice become a norm in the esports world? Leave your comments below!

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