League of Legends NA LCS to Stream on ESPN+

A new multiyear media rights deal struck between ESPN and Riot Games will see the North American League Championship Series being broadcast on ESPN+. When the NA LCS reconvenes for the Summer Split in June, fans will be able to catch all the action on both the ESPN app and ESPN website, alongside the traditional viewing platforms of Twitch and YouTube.

Fans might remember a similar deal announced a few years ago between Riot Games and BAMTech, the streaming division of Major League Baseball, however as revealed in the announcement post on ESPN, “Two Riot Games sources said the new ESPN+ will replace the previous deal between BAMTech and Riot Games, which was a seven-year agreement beginning in Dec. 2016 in which BAMTech agreed to pay Riot $300 million through 2023. Riot will still use some of the technologies developed with BAMTech during the past two years, although the sources declined to go into further detail. The change follows a number of factors, including a 42 percent acquisition of BAMTech by The Walt Disney Company in August (making Disney, the parent company of ESPN, a 75 percent shareholder in BAMTech) and a change in Riot executive leadership, including former CEO Brandon Beck and president Marc Merrill stepping down in October to focus on game creation, rather than company leadership.”

According to ESPN, the matches featured on ESPN+ will include the NA LCS Summer Split, Summer Finals, North American Academy League, All-Star Event, Rift Rivals (Featuring North America), and the 2018 League of Legends World Championships. At this stage it is unclear whether matches from other regions will also appear on ESPN+, or whether we will see games being featured on ESPN’s more traditional cable television channels. For more news revolving around League of Legends, check out our breakdown of the Mid-Season Invitational being the most watched Esports event in history, here.