League of Legends Championship Series Commissioner Chris Greeley has confirmed that the 2022 League of Legends World Championships will be held in North America. Not only that, but the event will be spread across 4 different cities.
The event
In an interview with esports content creator, Travis Gafford, Riot Games' Head of North America & Oceanic Esports Chris Greeley confirmed the new location for the 2022 League of Legends World Championships.
They will be heading to North America. Back in 2018, Riot Games posted a roadmap for all of their major tournaments that reached up to 2021. In that time plenty of those events have been cancelled, postponed, or had their locations changed. Now, with the world potentially opening back up, it looks like they are confident to announce details about their future.
2022 will mark the fourth time that North America hosted the League of Legends World Championships. The last time the event was held there was in 2016 and it was spread across four US cities; San Francisco, CA hosted the Group Stage, Chicago, IL hosted the Quarterfinals, New York, NY hosted the Semi-finals, and the Finals were held in Los Angeles.
We don’t have any details about what cities might host the event in 2022. However, I am holding out some hope that Riot might decide to spread them out a bit farther. I would love to see portions of the event held in Canada and Mexico. They both fall in the North American region, and it could give the event an international feel without even leaving the region.
Other announcements
We also have new details about the League of Legends Championship Series. This is the premier League of Legends event in the North American region and one of the feeders for the World Championships.
Riot Games had plans to host a major LCS Championship event at the Prudential Centre in New Jersey. However, due to issues stemming from the ongoing pandemic, they had to cancel the event. However, they have confirmed that the finals of the 2023 LCS Championships will be heading back to New Jersey.
In the same interview, Greeley announced that the 2022 Mid-Season Showdown for the League of Legends Championship Series play-offs will be held at the NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas.
Potential changes
We should keep in mind that all of this news is subject to a huge amount of uncertainty. Honestly, who can predict what the world will look like at the end of 2022? We may have dealt with Covid-19 and the schedule will have gone off without a hitch, or we could be hiding in our bunkers waiting out the 50th new variant of the virus.
Everything is subject to change, but it does look like they are confirming their support for League of Legends in North America. It has been over five years since the Worlds were held there and I am sure that there are plenty of people looking forward to it.
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