Following the news that CLG sold its LCS spot to NRG on April 6 and TSM is reportedly looking to leave the competition, fans discussed the biggest mistake the league made in the past.
In a Reddit post on April 6, fans claimed Riot Games’ decision to host the LCS in Los Angeles, California was one of the company’s biggest mistakes for a few crucial reasons.
The biggest issue is the location itself and fans agreed it would have been much better for the LCS to be held somewhere in the center of the U.S. or on the East Coast.
The author of the post claimed 47 percent of Americans and 61 percent of Canadians live in the EST time zone, while another 33 percent live in the Central time zone. Because of this, the location of the LCS is inconvenient to watch for the majority of the North American population.
Related: NRG officially acquires CLG, rejoins the LCS
Other aspects include the city and ping differences. League‘s servers are hosted in Chicago, leading to higher pings for players living in LA. To add onto that, New York’s population is much greater than LA’s and the LCS would likely be able to attract more on-site viewers if it was based in the Big Apple.
The high cost of living in California is also a factor. If the LCS was hosted elsewhere, there would surely be financial benefits to the organizations involved in the league.
Nonetheless, it makes sense why the LCS is hosted in LA from Riot’s point of view. The developer’s headquarters is based in the city and has been since the esports league’s inaugural season in 2013.
