Update (November 2022): Riot has apparently spoken about its intentionals for a League of Legends tournament with national teams once again.
According to this post on the LoL subreddit, Riot Games CEO Nicolo Laurent told L’Équipe Riot is working on a tournament and is in talks with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) about the potential to get involved with the Paris 2024 and Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
Original article (May 2021): Riot Games is open to organising an international League of Legends World Cup-style tournament in the future, where teams would represent their countries.
This has been a talking point since two showmatches took place between an all-star French team and a Spanish mix team, drawing hundreds of thousands of viewers. But could this kind of thing become an official Riot tournament in the future?
John Needham, global head of esports at Riot Games, said: “We’re always looking for new ways to engage with our fans and while a LoL World Cup would translate well around the world, making room in our crowded LoL esports schedule is super challenging.
“It’s a great idea, we talk about it a lot and it’s certainly something we want to do in some form in the future, but we don’t have hard plans to discuss today.”
“We’re always looking for new ways to engage with our fans and while a LoL World Cup would translate well around the world, making room in our crowded LoL esports schedule is super challenging.”
John Needham, Riot Games
John was speaking at a press conference ahead of the Mid-Season Invitational, which gets underway in Iceland today (May 6th) and sees the best teams from different regions around the world facing off against one another.
The question to Riot was sent in by L’equipe esports journalist Paul Arrivé, asking Riot if it has plans for international tournaments where teams represent their countries, like a League of Legends World Cup.
It’s not the first time Riot has thought about such an international competition. Back in 2017, Riot Games rep Ye Qiang said: “We have to think of some different kinds of international events. We are still considering what kind of event would be the most interesting for everyone. For example, can we do a World Cup-type tournament?
“We hope LoL events can be more diversified, can satisfy our audience and can give everyone a better player experience.”
Related interviews:
- MSI 2021 preview with LCK caster Chronicler and LPL caster Munchables
- MSI & VCT Masters interview with Ásbjörn Ásbjörnsson from the Icelandic Esports Association
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.
