Photo Credit: Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games
Riot Games announced Monday a major haul to the global ecosystem for League of Legends esports in 2025, with one of the most dramatic changes being the reduction of leagues in the global ecosystem from the current eight down to five. This change will be achieved by combining leagues in some regions into a single entity.
At the end of Worlds 2023, Riot announced a reduction from 10 to eight teams in the LCS, and continuing on that path, it will further consolidate LCS and APAC to bring the number of global leagues to five.
Riot announced that it will consolidate North American and South American leagues in 2025. Under the new structure, North America and South America LoL leagues will fall under the new Americas League, divided into the North Conference and the South Conference.
Americas League North Conference will include North American LCS teams and Latin America North—teams from Liga Latinoamérica (LLA) that are closer to the United States. The North Conference will have a total of eight teams, with six existing teams from LCS; one team from LLA (northern LATAM), and one guest spot for a tier-2 guest team. Matches will be played out of the Riot Studios in Los Angeles.
The South Conference will have a total of eight teams; six existing teams from Campeonato Brasileiro de League of Legends (CBLoL) in Brazil, one team from Latin America South (LLA) that is in proximity to Brazil, and one tier-2 guest spot. The South Conference will play at the Riot Studios in São Paulo.
When asked which teams were in and which ones were essentially out—given that there are currently eight teams in each league (LLA, LCS, CBLoL)–a Riot spokesperson told TEA that it has briefed teams this week on the new model and will begin having conversations with them about whether they want to continue to participate in this new system or drop out. Some of those teams that do want to continue to participate will have to be pushed into the new tier-2 relegation/promotion system.
Riot admits that things will be a “little bit janky” as it figures out how to implement these new tier-2 relegation/promotion systems, but details on that will likely be ironed out before the 2025 season begins.
The new Tier-2 system will have teams within that ecosystem compete at the beginning of the season to secure the coveted spot, but at the end of the season, they will have to defend it to hold onto it for the next season, according to what Riot tells us. Details on that will be announced at a later date.
Under this new configuration, Americas League Splits will work this way in 2025:
During Split 1 teams will compete in their respective conferences with the top team in each conference qualifying for a cross-conference competition, where a single team will earn the single spot at a new global tournament taking place in March 2025. During Split 2, the top team from each conference would secure one slot, for a total of two Americas team slots for the Mid-Season Invitational. During Split 3, an Americas Regional Championship will determine three teams advancing to Worlds, with at least one team from each conference.
Learn more about the other changes coming to League of Legends Esports in 2025:
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