In an announcement released Wednesday, Riot Games revealed changes to the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) 2024 Spring Finals in North America. In a letter attributed to Carlos Antunes—head of League of Legends Esports – Americas—it was revealed that both the LCS and LLA (Liga Latinoamérica) would be reducing the number of roadshows and that the LCS Spring Finals will now take place March 30 – 31 at the Riot Games Arena in Los Angeles.
Riot held the 2023 LCS Spring Finals at the PNC Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina, where it had a major impact on the local economy ($2.74M USD in direct economic impact for Wake County and $1.6M in economic impact for the city of Raleigh).
Antunes says this adjusted schedule and hosting the event at Riot’s facility allows the company to refocus its investment on areas that are impactful for fans and players:
When deciding how to allocate our investment dollars across the season, our goal is to prioritize what is most impactful for fans and players. This year, we are hyper-focused on innovating around the viewing experience, making the show more entertaining than ever, and celebrating the best of our league. Fans can expect a roadshow for the Summer Finals, and we will share more on the location and activations later this year.
We believe that times of transition are also times with the most potential for innovation. In the span of a little over a month, our teams were able to bring the LCS back to weekends, launch Live Patch Play, create new workflows to reduce time between games, and refresh our live broadcast look. Innovation is core to our DNA here at the LCS, and we’ll continue to iterate and improve to meet, and hopefully exceed, the needs of the ecosystem and the community.
Of course, these changes to the LCS schedule come on the heels of Riot announcing that it would lay off 530 employees from its global workforce—some of whom did the heavy lifting in front of the camera and behind the scenes at LCS and LEC.