League of Legends is Coming to ESPN as Deal Struck with NA LCS

ESPN and the North American League of Legends Championship Series have agreed a multiyear, non-exclusive deal to broadcast LoL on streaming service ESPN+.

The NA LCS is the highest level of League of Legends competition in North America, with the biggest names in esports such as OpTic Gaming, Team Liquid and Cloud9 all participants.

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Recently franchised, the League no longer operates on a promotion and relegation system, meaning the teams currently competing are stable for the foreseeable future.

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This stability has helped strike broadcasting deals such as this latest with ESPN, which is already involved in coverage of LoL through its ESPN Esports section.

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This new deal is non-exclusive however, meaning there will be no interruption to other platforms which already hold rights to the NA LCS broadcasts, namely Twitch and YouTube.

As reported by ESPN, Riot Games sources say the new ESPN+ deal takes over from the previous agreement Riot held with BAMTech – a seven year, $300 million that was set to run until 2023.

BAMTech was recently acquired by Disney – also the parent company of ESPN, and so it looks like somewhat of a structural change has lead to this new ESPN+ deal.

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The NA LCS will begin to be streamed on ESPN+ starting with the Summer Split, which begins on June 16th.

ESPN+ is ESPN’s consumer streaming service, which users can subscribe to for a monthly or annual fee, and can watch a number of sports live including MLB, MLS, NHL, PGA TOUR Golf and more.

 

Source: ESPN