Saints Alumni Wins Emmy

Saints alum, and Windsor local, Nicolas Tesolin won his first-ever Sports Emmy Award  for Outstanding Esports Championship Coverage for the VALORANT Champions 2024 Grand Final broadcast.

Tesolin, better known in the esports world as “Yehty”, is an In-Game Director & Free Cam Observer for VALORANT.

Tesolin was part of a broadcast team of 88 members which produced the VALORANT Champions 2024 Grand Final event held in Seoul, South Korea. The event saw peak viewership of over 1.4 million.

The win was the first-ever Sports Emmy award for VALORANT in the category.

“It feels quite unreal,“ said Tesolin. “It shows how recognized esports is getting in the eyes of mainstream entertainment. The fact that there are categories dedicated to esports related projects is wonderful and I am so proud to be one of the first few people who have gotten to achieve that accomplishment within this industry.”

Prior to his Emmy win, Tesolin was a student in the Esports Administration & Entrepreneurship. He was part of the Saints Esports Broadcast team in 2019-20 where he cut his teeth observing many esports titles.

“I almost didn't expect it going into the industry that this could come about,” he adds.” Coming from film studies, if you asked me seven years ago if I was going to work towards an Emmy, I would've thought it would be in traditional television or film first and not something related to video games. But to say I won an Emmy because of a video game is quite a surreal statement”

Observing VALORANT has taken Tesolin across the world including Iceland, Germany, Denmark, Japan, Korea, China, Ireland, Brazil, Spain, Turkey, Thailand, and soon Paris, France for VALORANT Champions 2025 this September.