6,000 people will attend the finals of the 2020 League of Legends World Championship in Shanghai this Saturday (October 31). Chinese esports team Suning and South Korea’s Danwon Gaming will compete in the final at Pudong stadium.
The League of Legends World Championship is one of the world’s top esports events. Organisers held a ballot to select the 6,000 members from an audience of 3.2 million to attend the stadium, making it one of the most influential offline events to take place this year.
The event is co-organised by Riot Games and Tencent. The CEO of Riot Games Nicolo Lauren has heralded Shanghai as the “world’s capital of esports” as it plans to become an international esports centre and hold more major competitions.
League of Legends produces a campaign for every World Championship featuring a different artist from where the Pro League (LPL) is held. To commemorate the event, the game also added a new character, Seraphine, voiced by Lexie Liu. Her launch was accompanied with a new song from the League of Legends girl band “K/DA” which gained 8.5 million views in 23 hours.
China’s gaming industry has expanded rapidly in 2020 with the number of users hitting 660 million in July. Esports has become one of the most popular gaming genres in China and its revenue exceeded 100 billion RMB in 2019 and is expected to surpass 160 billion RMB in 2021.
Read more in our case study: Nike champions China’s fast-growing esports industry
