Halloween night resulted in a treat for League of Legends fans as Riot Games awarded another Summoner’s Cup to Razer-sponsored Korean powerhouse SKTelecom T1 (SKT) to conclude the fifth season of the League Championship Series. SKT went 15-1 in Worlds (including a 14-0 run to start the tournament) to take home the top prize for the second time in three years (defeating Korean team KOO Tigers).
Whalen Rozelle, director of eSports at Riot Games, traveled across Europe (Paris, London, and Brussels) in October to ensure the $2.25 million Worlds ran smoothly and that the $1 million world championship in Berlin’s Mercedes-Benz Arena lived up to fan expectations.
Whalen Rozelle
How do you go about choosing where to host Worlds each year
We’ve seen strong growth in every region every year, but we love to spread the love around. We try not to hit the same region twice. Europe hadn’t been part of this since season one. And Europe is a major part of eSports. Once we’re in a region, we like to hit highly populated cities so international fans can easily make it to the events.
How has the size of the events changed since last year’s Asian Worlds
We actually scaled some things back this year to make the experience more intimate. We’ve increased the production value across the board, but we didn’t want to focus just on arenas. And we decided not to go with a World Cup soccer stadium with 40,000 fans.
What are your thoughts on Coke’s movie theater viewing parties for the world championship
It’s more than just a sports experience for people who attend. It’s community and social all rolled into one. Coke had over 90 viewing parties around the world and Riot is expanding that number out even more. We expect the movie theater experience of watching live events to grow.
What role do you see the League of Legends North American Collegiate Championship playing in the eSports ecosystem
In traditional sports, college is feeder system to the pro league. In our LCS ecosystem, it’s an alternative path because we have the Challenger series. The broader acceptance of League of Legends is a positive for teams, but in a more indirect way. If you’re a parent and you know your child can get a scholarship to college playing League of Legends, knowing they can go to school and learn the lessons of competitive team sports, that’s good for eSports in the long run. And that’s why we continue to support NACC.
What are your thoughts on random drug testing like we’ve seen ESL introduce with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
If drug use becomes an issue we’ll react appropriately to regulate it as we’ve done with other issues like minimum salaries, but it’s preemptive to jump into it now. We have a great relationship with our pro players and teams and we haven’t heard or seen anything relating to drug problems. There’s no need for us to do random drug testing and we hope there’s never a need for it.
What are your thoughts on the booming Fantasy ESports business now that both FanDuel and DraftKings are involved
Fantasy Esports, unlike betting, has a participatory interactive element that we like. It drives behaviors that are good for eSports because the more knowledge fans have about the players and teams, the more they enjoy the sport, and the more they watch games. We still think there’s a lot of positives around Daily Fantasy ESports despite some recent issues, as long as it’s done in moderation and in a healthy way, it’s a real big positive. It could become a major player in eSports just like it has become with real sports.
What went into the change for All-Stars
All-Stars had a split identity, where it was supposed to be fun and competitive at the same time. We introduced the Mid Season Invitational (MSI) for the competitive focus in spring. All-Stars will occur in the end after the season is over. It’ll be more fun and focused on the fans, who will have a say in the event. We’ll have more details soon on the event.