Two teams face off in the North American League of Legends Championship Series
Two teams face off in the North American League of Legends Championship Series Spring Finals.
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Riot Games moves to establish League of Legends as a lasting esport

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 10 min

The owners of League of Legends professional esports teams met in Miami recently, where they contemplated the future of esports based on the popular League of Legends franchise from Riot Games. Each team invested a reported $10 million to get a franchise slot in the North American League Championship Series (NA LCS). In return, they get better alignment of financial interests so that the teams can continue to invest for the long term in the esports league.

Team Liquid took the first-place prize in the NA LCS Spring Finals after a final match against 100 Thieves. The match took place at the Fillmore theater in Miami amid a crowd of fans and cosplayers. But the owners believe that the league and pro esports are just getting started. I spoke with a group of them recently and talked about the new franchise structure and how to make League of Legends into a lasting esport.

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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.