BBC Sport has announced that it will be broadcasting regular UK League of Legends action across its digital platforms over the next few months.
The BBC will air the mid-tier UK League Championship (UKLC) 2021 Spring Split, starting on Sunday January 17th from 5.30pm GMT and Monday January 18th at the same time.
Broadcast across BBC iPlayer, the BBC Sport website and app, eight teams will compete in the qualifiers every Sunday and Monday evening (5.30pm to 10pm) from January 17th to February 22nd.
Then the semi-finals will be broadcast on February 28th and grand final on March 1st, where one team will be crowned UKLC Champions.
This means BBC Sport will have live coverage from all 16 days of the League of Legends UK Championships.
Coverage will be available for 30 days for viewers to catch up.
The UKLC has £5,000 in prizes up for grabs and the following eight teams taking part:
- Barrage Academy
- Bulldog Esports
- Demise
- Enclave
- London Esports
- MNM Academy
- NVision Esports
- Resolve
The news comes as Bulldog beat NerdRage 3-0 tonight to take the vacant spot left by Munster Rugby Gaming, after their late payments scandal saw them drop out of the UKLC.
Bulldog founder Newts said: “It’s good to win, it’s nice to be back in the UKLC. My heart is still racing!
“Hopefully we do well and our mistakes from our last UKLC split don’t happen again. It’s going to be hard. But thanks everyone for the support.”
Munster were previously represented in the upper tier NLC by Phelan Gaming, who had acquired a license to represent the Irish rugby club in League of Legends.
After the payment issues, they were dropped to the UKLC, but were later removed from that entirely. Munster Rugby Gaming will now play in the lower-tier UKEL without Phelan’s involvement.
The BBC has been heavily supporting UK esports lately, having broadcast a five-part documentary on Excel Esports, titled ‘Fight For First’, the Rocket League Championship Series X (RLCS X) the UKLC and NLC last year.
Many of the UKEL, UKLC and NLC rosters have been revealed – we’ll be running one of our good old roster roundup articles on Esports News UK real soon.
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.
