Building the Future of Sport at Riot Games

Why Riot Loves EsportsDuring the development of League of Legends, Riot’s founders admired the Intel Extreme Masters Series and games with esports like Starcraft and Counter Strike. Riot generally does not use esports as a way to acquire new game players. I see people watching LoL Esports who have never played the game, and they are absolutely baffled about what’s happening on screen. If you watch a Riot Games esports broadcast you’ll notice that we spend little time explaining the fundamentals of the game. An important distinction in the motivation to watch esports versus traditional sports is that ~60% of our viewers watch esports to get better at playing the game.