Mexico will host the League of Legends World Cup for the first time

Mexico will host the League of Legends World Cup for the first time in 2022, the year Riot Games, the video game developer, chose the United States and Canada to hold its first global tournament in North America.

“This will be the first time Riot Games will hold a multinational global tournament in North America and will be the first appearances for Mexico and Canada as World Cup locations,” the developer said in a press release issued Sunday.

Riot Games has revealed that Arena Artz, the headquarters of the Latin American League south of Mexico City, the Mexican capital, will host a “play-ins” tour, in which teams from lower-level regions must play to advance to the group stage. .

No team from Latin America has ever qualified for the group stage, which will be held in 2022 at the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York, United States, which will also host the quarter-finals.

The semi-finals will take place at the Scotiabank Arena, home of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team and one of the cathedrals of Canadian sports.

Riot Games chose Chase Center in San Francisco, home of the six-time NBA champion Golden State Warriors, as the home of the final.

The Chase Center already has experience hosting esports events as it is the home of the Golden Guardians, the Warriors of the American League of Legends.

“The momentum behind League of Legends has not stopped growing since we last held the Worlds Championship in the US in 2016. We are excited to bring the full scope of our eSport back to North America and if COVID-19 permits, welcome fans at our locations,” he explained. League of Legends Global Esports Manager Naz Aletaha.

The League of Legends World Cup brings together the top 24 teams in the video game owned leagues in 12 regions. In 2020, the tournament reached a peak of 45.95 million simultaneous viewers, with an average audience per minute of over 23.04 million.

In November 2021, China’s EDward team beat Korea’s DWG KIA in the final to win the final of the 11th edition of the League of Legends World Cup that was held in Iceland.