League of Legends has continually been one of the worlds biggest video games and esports titles for close to a decade.
Over the years, professional North American League of Legends has seen some investment from big names, major sports teams like the Golden State Warriors, and Cleveland Cavaliers partnered and invested in professional League of Legends teams in 2015, and cryptocurrency company “FTX” sponsored the League Championship Series (LCS) for the entirety of 2021. However, neither of these opportunities never went anywhere with most of the sports teams ending their sponsorships within a couple of years and the cryptocurrency company going bankrupt.
During the sponsorship era, player salaries skyrocketed with some reaching millions such as the notable “Swordart” contract which saw the professional player make $6 million over two years. LCS teams are still recovering from losing all this money and player contracts have gotten significantly smaller. This, combined with the regions lackluster performance internationally, has meant that we have started to see North American players move to Europe.
Over the games lifespan, North America has yet to win a World Championship and many fans are getting tired of watching their teams lose year after year, which has affected the popularity of the game, at least competitively.
Six time world champion “Faker”
Fans have often cited the lack of “NA talent,” or lack of the work ethic that is the difference between North America and the Asian countries like China and Korea who have won every World Championship since 2013. Mustafa “Randomcandy” Keskin, former player for the Western League of Legends team and current coach for the Fanshawe Fuel team says there are a lot of aspects that contribute to the gap in skill, but thinks a lack of infrastructure is a large factor.
“Compare it to the NBA right, its a pretty clear track to follow. You play in high school, get scouted for college, and then you get drafted… but with League it’s kind of like okay, he hit like top 5, maybe we can give him a tryout, but then it turns out oh he’s actually not great,” says Keskin.
Ijlaal “Scalar” Abdali, a former player for the Western league of legends team who is currently their coach, cites cultural differences on how people see gaming in general. “Kids aren’t shying away from trying to be competitive or really good at the game in eastern regions whereas in the west, it’s kind of looked down upon. And on top of that they get kids into it so soon, they have training facilities to make kids good at League of Legends,” says Abdali. He later mentions the player Kim “Peyz” Su-hwan, a Korean pro player who was born in 2005 and started playing pro when he hit seventeen.
So is League of Legends dying in North America? With teams constantly losing, native talent moving to different regions, and a generally negative reputation with players being described as “toxic,” it doesn’t seem like the game should be popular for much longer.
“My older brother doesn’t play any games. He’s never played any games his whole life. When Arcane came out, he watched it and asked is that the League of Legends game that you always play?” says Abdali.
In 2021, an animated series called “Arcane” was released that explored the lore and story of some of the game’s characters. The show was a massive hit, winning multiple awards and more importantly making people think League of Legends is “cool.”
When season two of the show came out Nov. 2024, the game saw a sharp spike in monthly players. More recently, popular twitch streamer “Ludwig” started
playing League of Legends in the summer, and the monthly players have once again gone up.
League of Legends isn’t going to magically become as popular as the NBA, NFL, or NHL, but to say the game is “dying” would be disingenuous. The way people treat the game is extremely similar to how someone would feel about their favourite sport, and maybe one day we’ll see esports in the same way.
