The unfortunate conclusion for the League of Legends esports scene has arrived. Over the past week, Riot Games has made broad changes to its plans for competitive League of Legends. Venues have been canceled, live audiences have been suspended, and big events have been canceled.
Riot did everything it could to avoid canceling the full Spring Split in both North America and Europe. Unfortunately, it became inevitable. Both the LCS and LEC Spring Splits have been suspended.
Riot made the announcement over the past 24 hours on its various social media channels. The LEC, the European league for League of Legends, made the announcement first. It confirmed that the rest of the Spring Split had been suspended due to concerns for the safety of players and staff. The LEC had already announced audiences would be removed from future matches. The announcement also revealed that a staff member may have been exposed to COVID-19, so the staff is taking extra precautions.
The LCS, the North American league, offered similar sentiment for why the Spring Split is being suspended. All LCS and Academy games are suspended for the immediate future. The LCS also confirmed that, if the Spring Split does come back, its finals are being moved from the planned location of Dallas, Texas to Los Angeles. This is due to regional restrictions regarding large-scale events.
Both the LCS and the LEC plan to monitor the global pandemic and reevaluate their decisions week-to-week. Regional circumstances may allow either the LCS or the LEC to restart their respective leagues in weeks or months. No one knows yet, due to the unpredictable situation with the coronavirus.
The LCS and the LEC aren't the only League of Legends leagues that have suspended their spring seasons, of course. The LCK, South Korea's official league, shut down on Monday earlier this week. The LPL, the official Chinese league, shut down offline games starting January 19. The teams organized an unofficial "Scrims League" in the meantime. League of Legends esports is currently on pause.
League of Legends and its esports scene are luckily successful enough that the delay, whether it's a few weeks or even months, isn't going to lead to serious issues. Riot Games will be able to either bring back the spring split or drop it entirely and start the summer split instead. There are definitely a lot of partners, including sponsors and advertisers, who will take issue, but that's why Riot being such a big company is valuable; it gives them leverage. Other games and their esports scenes aren't so lucky.
League of Legends is available now on PC.