Over the past few weeks, various authorities have suggested staying at home and practicing social distancing to limit the possible spread of COVID-19. As a result, Riot Games has made the decision to move the 2020 LCS Spring Finals online, the company announced today.
The event will still take place on Saturday, April 18 and Sunday, April 19. This news comes a couple of weeks after Riot decided to move the Spring Finals from its original planned venue in Texas to its studios in Los Angeles due to growing coronavirus concerns.
The global situation surrounding the disease has worsened, especially in the United States. In the state of California, there are more than 2,000 confirmed cases of the virus, with 50 deaths reported statewide. In Los Angeles County alone, there are 662 cases and 11 deaths, one of which was an 18-year-old.
The world is constantly given sobering reminders that this virus affects everyone and anyone. Maintaining the health and safety of all the League of Legends players, coaches, and fans has been Riot’s top priority.
As a result, there isn’t any other viable option to take, so teams will have to play out the finals at home. It’s unclear how Riot will present the finals without an actual offline venue or crowd, though. The audience has always played a huge part in the finals atmosphere and it’ll be hard to emulate that experience for both the players and fans next month.
We’ve seen relatively larger events take place completely online before, however. The Tyler1 Championship Series might not be the most technologically advanced event, but his fully-online tournament always manages to entertain viewerships of over 50,000 people on Twitch. Riot might want to consider bringing in some of these colorful personalities once the finals roll along.
