Riot Video games announced Saturday that the ultimate two matches of the League of Legends US Championship Collection (LCS), that are slated for later this month, will not be held with followers on the Prudential Middle in Newark, New Jersey, “because of the rise of COVID-19 {cases} in the US.” The matches will as a substitute be held on the LCS Area in Los Angeles. Present ticket holders shall be issued full refunds.
“We scheduled the LCS Championship as a street present with followers and made the choice to maneuver ahead based mostly on the very promising roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine within the Spring,” Riot Video games mentioned in its announcement, including that it had been monitoring the current uptick in {cases}. “Given the present state of affairs, we can not in good conscience conduct a large fan occasion presently. After a lot consideration, it’s with excessive disappointment that we’ve elected to relocate the LCS Championship occasion from the Prudential Middle to the LCS Area.” The corporate didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Saturday.
In the course of the coronavirus pandemic, the league moved to an all-virtual format the place gamers competed on-line. It moved the spring championship occasion to in-person, holding the ultimate two matches of the April Midseason Showdown event on the Greek Theater in LA, however with out a reside viewers. For a lot of the summer time, gamers competed in-person on the LCS Area with no followers in attendance, however returned to distant play late in July due to Positive COVID checks related to individuals related to Immortals and an unnamed team.
Chris Greeley, Riot Video games’ head of esports for North America and Oceania and the LCS commissioner, told The Verge in July that whereas the league didn’t have a particular backup plan in case COVID {cases} spiked, it was able to make modifications if obligatory. “There’s no pandemic playbook, so it’s exhausting to begin to put these contingency plans in place as a result of there’s no recognized set of variables,” he mentioned on the time.
Riot mentioned in its announcement that it had hoped to reunite followers in a celebration of the sport. “Sadly, the persistence and speedy unfold of the COVID-19 delta variant has pressured us to desk that reunion for now. Our followers deserve nothing lower than a high-quality LCS occasion expertise full of pleasure, connectivity and pleasure. After assessing the dangers, no set of protocols or plans allowed us to ship that occasion with out jeopardizing the well being of our groups, workers and followers.”