As is known, in 2025, Riot is expected to merge some areas, leaving only the 5 largest areas of League of Legends. In particular, CBLOL will become part of the Americas and VCS will be combined with PCS, LJL … to become Asia APAC. This format has been applied for a long time to Valorant. Riot's goal is to be more sustainable development, with the support budget taken to the right place, in the right place. In addition, Riot's goal is to improve the quality of MSI and Worlds tournaments when the teams will have to compete more fiercely to seek to attend international tournaments.
VCS can merge into APAC from next year
However, the international League of Legends community, especially in CBLOL, is not really excited, if not criticizing Riot for the policy of merging the region. Perhaps everyone knows, CBLOL is a potentially developed area in recent years. Although the international achievement is not high, but in return, the tournament in CBLOL is organized quite large, monumental with the audience is always very impressive. Maybe even compared to LOL Park of Korea.
CBLOL is a tournament that is very noticeable thanks to the investment, scale and enthusiasm of the audience even on par with the large areas even though League of Legends is still quite young.
The same thing applies to VCS, although there is no official gymnasium, the audience here is still very passionate about the tournament and the number of viewers online or participating in the viewing party is also very high. Typically, the live clip of the final of the 2024 VCS VCS between Esports and Vikings Esports up to more than 2.2 million views even though it was a difficult and volatile period of Vietnamese Legends.
The views of VCS live live matches are always quite high
If Riot merges in areas, there will be many teams that cannot compete in APAC/American qualifiers or even disappear. Worth mentioning, there are many viewers watching and supporting a team not only for achievements, but also for many objective and subjective reasons, such as the performance of the players or familiar names. Therefore, there are many concerns that the powerful communities such as CBLOL or VCS can completely be affected once merging with areas with less developed community.
HLV Collmer đang dẫn dắt Black Rock Esports ở giải NACL: “Thực sự khó chịu khi thấy mọi người hạ thấp fan BR/CBLOL và cố gắng thuyết phục họ vui mừng vì mất đi một nửa số đội tuyển. Tôi không hiểu tại sao người ta lại khó chấp nhận việc những fan hâm mộ cuồng nhiệt không muốn mất đi một nửa giải đấu chỉ vì những khó khăn của NA. Thật kỳ cục khi mọi người lại tỏ ra “cao hơn người khác” về vấn đề này”
For example, LCS, there are many teams that almost no fans in Vietnam or in large areas of the world. Or as in LJL, even in the land of the rising sun, LoL is not a game that is interested. Not to mention, it is because the community is almost impossible to develop, and Lo Lo League of Japan has still had to expect the elders like EVI and the average level of the player, stomping in place or … regretting over the years and no other young face stands out.
Before being involved in a series of dramas, SE is very popular, because the communication is good, there are many good players … but not really because of the achievement
Meanwhile, areas like LJL are almost unable to have a true League of Legends community or develop
In the past, there were teams, although there was no significant international achievement (not even participating in international tournaments) still had a large number of fans, with SBTC Esports as a typical example. But with Riot's policy, SE's case will probably not see too much, even can completely disappear if going to further future.