League of Legends occupies a leading position in the sphere of competitive gaming. The MOBA game is extremely popular around the globe which is not surprising at all: Riot Games put in a lot of work for the game to gain popularization and LoL matches appeal to both North America and South America.
Another important factor that allows League of Legends to win the sympathy race from Dota 2 is a developed esports ecosystem. To make sure of it, you just have to look at the timetable of LoL events for the next week: there are loads of tournaments of different scales and kinds.
The success of League of Legends did not appear from scratch. The tournament system of the game has been improving steadily but the level of the quality of held championships has been growing every day.
Talking about the main League of Legends esports tournaments and their organizers.
Main tournaments of the League of Legends series
The competitive League of Legends started to develop in parallel to the release of the game. The release of League of Legends happened in 2009 and then they started to hold the first LoL matches.
The matches, or the primal competitive League, were also similar to amateurs’ gatherings rather than something serious and promising. However, by 2011 the situation had changed dramatically.
In 2011, League of Legends had its first world championship – Season One World Championship. The tournament gathered the best representatives from different competitive regions for the first time and gave a start to the full-scale tournament ecosystem.
In the nearest future the competitive esports in LoL got the franchise form. Riot put teams into separate regions where they started to qualify for local tournaments in the league format.
Therefore, the authors of League of Legends solved a few problems. Firstly, they gave a push to development of the competitive environment to each region, and secondly, they placed an emphasis on these regions, giving teams a chance to grow both professionally and in media, without risking getting into shadows of major players of the stage.
List of the main regional leagues in League of Legends
● LCK – South Korea
● LPL – China
● LEC – Western Europe
● LCS – North America
● CBLOL – Brazil
● LJL – Japan
● LLA – Latin America
● VCS – Vietnam
● PCS – Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Southeast Asia
Each of the leagues has its own infrastructure which can include external events. For example, LEC is a part of the MENA structure where we can see regional leagues of France, Spain, Poland, and so on, and major regions like LCK and LCS have academic tournaments.
The structure of LoL is unique for esports but Riot’s approach to holding championships is even more unique. The company organizes and holds events in all regions on its own.
Riot Games is an engine of the esports League of Legends
Having formed the structure of the competitive League of Legends, Riot Games became the sole tournament operator of all regional events. For this reason, the company runs subdivisions in different countries.
Apart from regional tournaments, Riot Games host the main international tournaments. The studio broadcasts Mid-Season Invitational and Worlds.
Esports in League of Legends is monopolized but in the case of LoL, we cannot say it is a bad thing. Riot Games is trying to develop its product which results in good production of tournaments and leagues.
Live performances of top musicians at the opening ceremonies of Worlds take your breath away, and holding a full-scale world championship in the COVID-19 period in 2020 is worth special worth. However, there are negative examples: at the beginning of 2023, the community criticized Riot for its approach to the creation of the preview of the season.
Tiredness can be accumulated and it is OK when you create championships in different parts of the world adjusted for regional specifics. To avoid “overheating”, Riot gets help from third-party companies.
Garena
Gamers may know Garena thanks to the eponymous program that enables creating games on the local network “above the internet”. It was especially popular in the 2010s and still appeals to users from Asian regions.
Garena takes part in holding several series of League of Legends tournaments. The company involves the organization of VCS and PCS championships.
ESL
The well-known company that holds and organizes esports championships is present in League of Legends. To be frank, it has a very limited work area in LoL.
Riot manages all title championships with occasional help from third-party companies like Garen in Vietnam and Taiwan, the German TO forms the Tier-2 stage. The company runs a series of Meisterschaft, Go4LoL, Championnat National, and other local tournaments.
Overall, we see that we could use the phrase “one-man show” to describe LoL. Riot Games creates a competitive ecosystem in League of Legends by developing the product by adding new content.
The company manages to combine work spheres and present a positive experience for both fans of the esports component of the game and regular gamers.
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