League of Legends World Championships
|
|
| Tournament information | |
|---|---|
| Location | Rotating locations |
| Month played | October |
| Established | 2011 |
|
Number of
tournaments |
6 |
| Administrator(s) | Riot Games |
| Format |
Round-robin (group stage) Single-elimination (bracket stage) |
| Teams | 8 (2011), 12 (2012), 14 (2013), 16 (2014–) |
| Website | Official website |
| SK Telecom T1 | |
The League of Legends World Championship is the annual professional League of Legends world championship tournament hosted by Riot Games and is the culmination of each season. The first World Championship was held in 2011 at DreamHack Winter 2011 and was won by Fnatic. Teams compete for the champion title, the 70 pounds (32 kg) Summoner's Cup, and a US$1,000,000 champion prize. In 2016, the finals were watched by 43 million people, with a peak concurrent viewership of 14.7 million viewers, breaking 2015's finals' viewer records. The total cumulative daily unique impressions (the amount of unique viewers that tuned in every day via online and television channels) reached 396 million.
LA 2024, which is overseeing the Los Angeles bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics was inspired by the success of 2016 League of Legends World Championship and is considering to plan and include eSports in the Olympics games if they win the bid. Casey Wasserman, the chairman of LA 2024, suggested using technology used in certain segments of League of Legends Worlds such as augmented reality and virtual reality to make the Olympics more accessible to a younger demographic.
League of Legends World Championships have gained tremendous success and popularity, making it among the world's most prestigious and watched tournaments (challenging even Sports tournaments), as well as the most watched video game in the world. The 2016 League of Legends World Championship Finals attracted more viewership than 2016 NBA Finals. Due to the success of League of Legends, eSports scenes became prominent and widely seen as a potential Olympics event, it will also be included as a medal event in 2022 Asian Games.
South Korea's SK Telecom T1 currently holds the highest record of wins, with three world championship wins (2013, 2015, 2016).
Riot Games, which owns League of Legends, commissioned the winner's trophy known as the Summoner’s Cup. Riot specified that it should weigh 70 pounds, though the actual weight of the finished cup was reduced so it would not be too heavy to lift in victory. MacTavish, having already created the Season Two World Championship Cup in 2012, crafted the winners' trophy for the 2014 games.
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