It appears that Riot Games are cutting corners even more with League of Legends. They previously made their esport events smaller and now it appears the English-speaking casters will be in LA instead of Korea for World Championship 2018.
Technically, Riot Games didn't confirm nor deny whether they will fly a roster of English speaking broadcasters to Korea for World Championship 2018 but according to Vedius, one of the casters, that might not be the case.
During one of his streams, a viewer asked Vedius to Korea at which point he answered that the World Championship "is done from LA". This was partially Riot Games' practice for years, as casters would commentate on play-in games from EU or NA LCS studios instead of being on stage, provided the events weren't held in Europe or North America.
The crew would then be flown to the actual host country for the group and bracket stage later on, in order to cut costs. As far as World Championship 2018 goes, even the main event might actually be done from Los Angeles, California.
There are several potential reasons for Riot Games to do this, but the motivation behind each of them is the same - . It's possible Riot are not expecting that many viewers from English speaking regions to warrant accommodation for a full broadcast team due to time zone difference, which will result in games being played out of peak hours for Europe and North America.
But how expensive could it be, right? League of Legends is still making a killing. Well, this may or may not be the case, as Riot Games are investing heavily into the game's development, as well as new titles.
Riot Games
This could be the reason behind cutting the costs for the game's main event this year, even though League of Legends has estimated six to eight times the player base of Dota 2. And yet, Valve secured a prize pool over ten times larger for Dota 2's TI than Riot did for League of Legends' World Championship. Funding via skins or not, there is nothing stopping Riot Games from doing the same with their MOBA.
League of Legends - showcase of several champion splash arts
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