John Needham, right, is president of esports at Riot Games.
John Needham, right, is president of esports at Riot Games.
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Riot Games promotes John Needham to president of esports

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 6 min

Riot Games has promoted John Needham to president of esports in a move aimed at expanding the esports appeal of titles like League of Legends, Wild Rift, and Valorant.

In this new position at Los Angeles-based Riot Games, Needham will lead the organization under which all of Riot’s esports titles and operations will now be unified.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.