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League of Legends World Championship to be held in China for two consecutive years amid pandemic
- The tenth edition of the tournament will be held in Shanghai from September 25 to October 31, with the finals booked at the city’s Pudong Football Stadium
- A Chinese team, FunPlus Phoenix, won the championship last year in Paris
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The annual League of Legends World Championship, the e-sports industry’s most popular international tournament, will be staged for two consecutive years in China, where gamers outnumber the US population.
League of Legends video game developer Riot Games, the US-based organiser of the world championship, said on Saturday that the tenth edition of the tournament will be held in Shanghai from September 25 to October 31, with the finals booked at the city’s Pudong Football Stadium, according to a video announcement posted on Twitter by the company on Saturday. It said the world championship will return to China in 2021 with a nationwide tour.
“We've been closely monitoring the impact of Covid-19, partnering with local and national authorities, external risk and safety consultants, and continue to follow guidance from various health organisations around the world,” said Riot Games chief executive Nicolo Laurent in the video post, without providing details of public health measures for the tournament.
Riot Games said the world championship will be back in North America in 2022. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of internet giant Tencent Holdings, which runs the world’s largest video games business by revenue and China’s biggest social media platform WeChat.
Riot Games’ decision to hold the world championship in China further burnishes the credentials of the fast-growing domestic e-sports market. Data from iResearch Consulting Group showed this market is projected to rake in more than 165.1 billion yuan (US$23.7 billion) in revenue next year, up from around 100 billion yuan last year.
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