This week Riot announced that the 2016 League of Legends World Championship prize pool has passed the $4m mark.
This means the original $2m pool has doubled to $4,145,000, after Riot allowed a percentage of in-game purchases to contribute towards the pool (like the Dota 2 International).
25% of every Championship Zed and Championship Ward sales are going directly to the Worlds prize pool this year. Plus, 30% of all team icon sales are being shared with the eSports teams taking part.
This is obviously brilliant news for the teams taking part and it got us thinking – why couldn’t we see something similar for regional tournaments around the world?
What if Riot gave a small percentage of in-game purchases towards a local prize pool, for example the ESL UK League of Legends Premiership? That currently stands at around £10,000. Or the UK Masters, which has a £20,000 pool.
So all purchases of champions, skins and other extras made by players in the UK could help fund and grow the local eSports scene, and help make it more sustainable.
It doesn’t even have to be 25% – I wouldn’t complain even if it was 5%, or hell, even 1% for a limited time. That would still be fantastic for the local scenes.
It would also help boost collegiate eSports scenes and other regional tournaments around the world, helping the best players and teams to acquire sufficient funding to continue improving and growing together.
Obviously those regional tournaments aren’t as big as Worlds. But if Riot really wants to help promote the amateur level and put more promising players on that ‘path to pro’ it regularly mentions, surely an extra 1% or so from in-game purchases wouldn’t hurt.
What do you reckon? It probably won’t happen, but damn, it certainly would be nice to see.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
