Pictured: Charles Conroy, VP of Gaming at The Switch. Credit: The Switch
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The Switch, a managed private cloud service provider for the broadcast media industry, is heading into esports. With a broadcast track record that includes events like the Superbowl and the Academy Awards, it works at the highest tier of sport and entertainment broadcasting. But the company’s new head of gaming suggests esports already stacks up very well when compared to traditional sports.
Charles Conroy, the new vice president of gaming at The Switch, has a long history with esports. Starting his own competitive esports career back in the year 2000, he moved into team management and eventually became the chief development officer at Next Gen Tech, the parent company of Complexity Gaming 
, before its sale to the Dallas Cowboys.
As a business, The Switch is purely a backbone infrastructure operator, delivering venue uplinks around the world for broadcasters demanding high bandwidth output to worldwide audiences.
“We take the images from the stadium and camera feeds and we provide them to the broadcaster to then cut and choose what they want to use,” says Conroy. “We can send it to linear TV or to IP television. ESPN quality or straight to Twitch, whatever is needed.”
In Conroy’s new role he has been seeing the reactions of traditional sports executives to esports events, and finds that many long-time sports broadcast experts are deeply impressed by what esports has to offer.
“Pro sports owners come into esports venues and the number one comment they all have is that the commentating is so good. I don’t know if we appreciate that enough in esports,” says Conroy. “The commentators allow people that have never learned about esports before to understand the game. I think we’re killing that category.”
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Credit: The Switch
Conroy says that at a broader level, the production qualities of esports are now right at the same tier as traditional sports as a product. But he hopes the company he now works for can help improve the backend infrastructure side of event delivery.
“The tournaments today are amazing. The level of production is amazing. But signals should not be dropping. Fans shouldn’t have to complain about buffering,” says Conroy. “You don’t want to see a pass in the Superbowl happen two minutes later. It’s just not how the experience is supposed to work.”
Since last year The Switch has started to assist in productions such as BlizzCon and the 2018 Overwatch League finals, and most recently signing a year-long deal to provide services to BLAST Pro Series . Conroy consulted to The Switch for six months before formally joining the company in February 2019.
Ultimately, Conroy hopes most people, especially viewers, never learn all that much about The Switch. If it’s doing its job properly, it’s the silent partner behind the scenes helping to keep things running smoothly.
“You might never know that we’re there but hopefully you’ll never need to know we’re there because we’re doing a good job.”
