Riot Games and LVP reveal UK League Championship

LoL
24/01/2019
Melanie Hawthorne

Big news in the (UK) LoL world – after an already pretty exciting year last year, what with the Forge of Champions tournament alone, for example, 2019 aims to outdo last year by some margin. The first item in Riot’s box of tricks is a partnership with LVP.

London-based, this new partnership between Riot and LVP UK is going to start off pretty big – by building a brand new studio in London. In this new location, they will run a new tournament – the LVP UK League is going to feature nine different teams competing for the title.

Although not that many details are known so far – as a matter of fact, more are only expected to be released later this month. As for the nine teams – we do know them. Most notably, Fnatic’s academy is going to be part of it, along with UK esports brand Barrage esports, Bulldog esports, England-based DarkSpawn esports, Diabolus epsorts, UK-based Enclave Gaming, exceL gaming, MnM gaming and Irish brand Phelan gaming.

Actually, one of these teams – exceL gaming, has other news as well – the UK organisation is going to take place in the League of Legends European Championship this year. Said championship is going to begin on January 18th.

As far as UK esports news go, there’s more though – ESL One is going to return to Birmingham. The 2019 instalment of the Dota 2 tournament will be powered by Intel and feature a total prize pool of $300.000. If you want to attend, the event is going to take place from may 31st until June 2nd this year, at Arema Birmingham.

© DarkSpawnEsports

Sports games are going to have a great year in the UK as well – the UK’s football Premier League is launching the very first ePremier Leage or ePL esports tournament. All 20 Premier League teams will be fielding FIFA 19 competition teams – the whole thing is going to launch early this year.

Even on a national and political level, esports in the UK are making waves – as they are growing constantly, parliament has taken notice and last year, games industry trade bodie Ukie held the first (probably not last) all-party parliamentary group at the houses of parliament. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport has already formed a committee to explore the potential that esports has in the UK!