We’ve all likely grown up playing or at least watching traditional “sports.” If you haven’t played baseball, basketball, football, or soccer, you know somebody who has and you’re likely familiar with them.

Not all of us have heard about sports that involve a computer, but esports are on the rise and have been growing in popularity since the internet enabled connectivity across the globe. While certainly not the newest or even the first of its genre, League of Legends is making big gains in terms of legitimizing esports.

League of Legends: eSports Structure

League of Legends is a PC video game in the shape of a multiplayer online battle arena. Riot Games, the owner of League of Legends, describes their game as “…a fast-paced, competitive online game that blends the speed and intensity of an RTS with RPG elements. Two teams of powerful champions, each with a unique design and playstyle, battle head-to-head across multiple battlefields and game modes.”

League of Legends isn’t just played by millions of people across the globe, it is also watched by millions. League of Legends is played in 5 major regions representing multiple countries, with a variety of competitions across the world.

The North American League of Legends Championship Series, NALCS, represents the United States and Canada.

The European LCS, EULCS, represents countries in the European Union.

The League of Legends Champions Korea, LCK, represents South Korea.

The League of Legends Pro League, LPL, represents China.

The League of Legends Masters Series, LMS, represents Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong.

Across these regions, multiple teams with salaried players compete for regular season rankings in order to secure a spot in the playoffs with the sole goal of earning Championship Points. These championships points give teams a chance to play in the League of Legends World Championship, where teams compete for the title of best team in the world and a share of $4.6 million.

League Play

Prior to the start of the 2018 NALCS season, teams could only guarantee continued membership in the league by doing well. The two bottom placed teams from one season had to fight for their right to participate in the league the following season with the top two teams from the challenger series, a “minor league.”  

The two winners of this tournament between these four teams were promoted back into the NALCS while the losing teams were relegated to the challenger series. Imagine a world where the Chicago Cubs were playing in a tournament for their place in the MLB year over year. That’s what was happening with the NALCS.

As of the start of the 2018 season, though, NALCS teams now have permanent membership in the league. They no longer have to compete for their chance to play in the league season after season, aligning them with a more traditional sports model.

World Championship

Think soccer and the World Cup. Just like the World Cup, League of Legends teams have to qualify from their region, which is known as the play-in stage. The League of Legends World Championship tournament follows a similar round-robin style of the World Cup. However, instead of 32 teams split into 8 groups, League of Legends has 16 teams split into 4 groups.

Similar to the World Cup’s group stage, each League of Legends team plays the other teams in their group twice before the top two teams in each group advance to the bracket tournament. The bracket tournament is single elimination, just like the World Cup’s knockout stage.

League of Legends: Viewership

In an interview with Polygon, Riot Games noted that their game has more than 100 million active players each month. This number was accurate as of 2016 and has likely risen since that time.

According to LoL Esports, the 2016 League of Legends World Championship had 43 million unique viewers and 14.7 million peak concurrent viewership.

In the same year, according to Nielsen, the Superbowl had roughly 111.9 million viewers. While a difference of 70 million viewers may seem like a significant amount, League of Legends was only 7 years old at that time.

LoL Esports shows that in 2017, a League of Legends World Championship semifinal had more than 80 million unique viewers. An increase of more than 100% in total viewership in the span of one year.

Again, in the same year, Nielsen has the 2017 Super Bowl viewers at 111.3 million viewers. While Super Bowl viewership is still substantial, there are signs that it’s peaking while League of Legends is seeing significant and sustained growth.

Of course, it’s important to note that League of Legends has global appeal, whereas the Super Bowl is pretty much only watched in the United States.

By comparison, the 2014 World Cup, a more global event similar to League of Legends, reached numbers in the billions. According to the FIFA, “Based on viewers watching a minimum of 20 consecutive minutes of coverage, the 2014 FIFA World Cup BrazilTM reached 2.1 billion viewers.”

Now the difference between League of Legends and World Cup viewership is fairly significant. However, the World Cup has 88 years of history compared to League of Legends at less than 10. If League of Legends’ viewership numbers continue to grow, then it isn’t outside the realm of possibility to see those numbers in the billions over the next decade.

League of Legends: eSports and Mainstream Adoption

While each of the League of Legends regions have seen investments from major corporations, 2018 brings the NALCS to the forefront when it comes to esports’ legitimacy and backing from the world of mainstream investors, including many associated with traditional sports.

While some NALCS teams saw backing from the world of traditional sports prior to 2018, now a majority of teams have some of that investment. In fact, 9 out of the 10 League of Legends teams have some sort of affiliation with traditional sports teams, organizations, or professional athletes.

Many of the investors for League of Legends teams are owners of traditional sports teams, and some of those investors are more widely known for their days as professional athletes. Joe Montana, Magic Johnson, and Rick Fox all have some sort of investment in League of Legends franchises. Rick Fox is taking a more hands-on approach and named his team, Echo Fox, after himself. You can even see him in the stands cheering loudly for his team every weekend.

The investment from the world of traditional sports shows that more and more people are starting to believe in the longevity and growth of League of Legends and esports in general. Of course, these investments are designed to make money. Since League of Legends requires smaller investments than a traditional sports teams, these investors are viewing its future potential and looking at esports as a big opportunity. According to a report by Newzoo, esports generated nearly $700 million in revenue for 2017 (year-over-year growth of 40%), and it projects that esports will generate $1.5 billion in revenue by 2020.

As the traditional sports world starts turning an eye towards esports, it will lead to even more exposure and adoptance. In addition to investment, sports media is beginning to increase coverage of League of Legends and esports. Chad Millman, editor in chief of ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com explained why they are aggressively targeting esports coverage: “We saw how responsive the fan base was, how tremendous the storytelling opportunities were and, for those of us not already immersed in the industry, how similar it was from a competitive standpoint to what we already cover.”  

League of Legends: League Infrastructure

Riot Games has recently made major changes to the infrastructure of their esports league, including revenue sharing, a player’s association, and an academy league.

Riot Games says that “In a healthy, long-term league, money generated by the ecosystem should be shared by the people who contribute to it. We also believe that the league is healthiest when teams, players, and Riot are all motivated to create a thriving, entertaining league that’s popular with fans.”

Just like in traditional sports, revenue sharing is designed to create a level of parity between teams as well as financial structure and incentives for professional players. The minimum salary for professional League of Legends players starts at $75,000. While this is far less than the minimum salary for professional athletes on traditional sports teams, which range around $400,000-$600,000 per year, it is now positioning the league as a viable esports career choice.

But top players, like in traditional sports, are already able to obtain lucrative professional contracts. Jacob Wolf, of ESPN, said in a podcast that Team Liquid’s Top Laner, one of five positions in League of Legends, “Impact” has a contract worth around $1 million a year.

Impact is a League of Legends World Champion, winning the title in 2013 with his former team, SKT T1 K, now known as SKT T1, a Korean League of Legends team. So, it’s safe to say his million dollar contract is much higher than the average. However, his contract is proof we are starting to blend the salary expectations of traditional sports with esports.

Teams are also encouraged to do better in the league as that will increase their share of the revenue as “…half [of the 32.5% share of the league revenue] will be split into allocations based on regular season finish and contribution to viewership/fan engagement.”

This healthy competition creates an environment where teams will want to put out more League of Legends promotional content and create awareness for their organization as well as the league overall.

Another major addition was the League of Legends Players Association (LOLPA), which  is designed to “…provide centralized representation for players in tri-party negotiations (Riot-Owners-Players); they also provide access to vetted resources (e.g. legal/financial advice) to help players planning out their careers.”

The language they use in the LOLPA is similar to that of the MLB, NBA, and NFL. It makes sense for the LOLPA to use similar language, though, as they likely look at traditional sports models for examples on how to structure their league for success.

As of 2018, Riot Games also implemented an academy league, which is designed to grow and manage talent for NALCS teams similar to other traditional sports organizations. Each team in the NALCS has an academy league team. Because these teams are affiliated with the NALCS teams, it provides an opportunity to develop promising players and add depth to their rosters just like baseball’s minor league and the NBA’s D League.

League of Legends: Into the Future

As these changes are implemented and developed over the coming years, the goal is to make League of Legends as popular and successful as traditional sports.

Basketball, football, and baseball have all pretty much looked and played the same since their inception. Some rules change and the games evolve a bit over time, but the core structure remains intact. League of Legends is the same. The game changes and adapts as Riot Games’ development team fixes issues and updates the game to be played in a more balanced environment.

Riot Games is designing League of Legends to enter mainstream sports entertainment. Americans have had decades to adapt to the NFL, MLB, and NBA, but League of Legends, alongside a few other esports, are starting to become much more popular and gain even more exposure and mainstream adoption.

NBA teams are even starting to promote their League of Legends teams at games

League of Legends has tremendous growth opportunity as the game can be viewed online free of charge. Watching the NALCS is likely easier than watching any other traditional sports game. If you have a computer, a phone, or other internet-connected  device, you can start watching League of Legends right now.

Perhaps the biggest issue with mainstream acceptance, though, is the initial learning curve for League of Legends. The game is fairly complicated, and it’s quite common to not understand what’s going on in the game if you’re unfamiliar with it. In many cases, you need someone to explain League of Legends to you as you watch the game in order to figure out what’s going on.

Unfortunately, Riot Games doesn’t really offer any “good” ways to get involved or learn about the game by watching. Since the game is fairly complex, you can’t just tune in and expect to know what’s happening. If Riot Games wants to help promote and grow League of Legends viewers and players, then they need to create some sort of way to explain the game easily to newcomers.

They used to have a “beginner friendly stream” that explained the game as it happened during the World Championship, but they don’t offer that stream anymore. They really should consider offering it weekly during the regular season considering the influx of investors and the greater variety of people watching the game now.

For now, though, you can tune into Twitch and watch former professional players, Scarra and Voyboy, among many others, who explain League of Legends well enough to start learning the game.

Right now is probably the best time to start watching. Find the League of Legends games on YouTube or Twitch and have a friend explain the game is it goes and before you know it you’ll be rooting for 100 Thieves, Echo Fox, or Team Liquid as they vie for playoff positioning.