With Worlds 2016 heading to NA, will the UK have an LCS event this year?

The League of Legends World Championship will take place in North America this year.
Riot Games is calling Worlds 2016 – which takes place from September 29th to October 29th – ‘the ultimate US road trip’.
eSports News UK understands Riot may be running some community events in the UK/London this year, rather than LCS specifically, but that’s just speculation at this stage.
Worlds’ Group Stage will kick off in San Francisco, the Quarter Finals will take place in Chicago and the Semi Finals will hit New York City. The final will go ahead at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Specific dates can be found on Riot’s news post.
Last year, Worlds took place around Europe and the Worlds 2015 Quarter Finals were played live in Wembley’s SSE Arena in London. In 2014, the EU LCS also stopped off in London during the summer.
It’s not been confirmed whether or not the LCS could come to the UK this year. We’ve reached out to Riot to ask, and will update this article when we hear back.
eSports News UK contributor Cameron Peberdy believes it will be a bad move if Riot decides not to hold a large-scale event here in the UK.
“I think it’d be bad doing this, because fans who do not have the money to go live abroad could go to an event nationally rather than internationally,” he said. “[Live events] create a great atmosphere for UK eSports and is really healthy not just for the scene but also the player base.
“In all honesty I believe this is a couple of steps back for the UK scene. UK players have grown to love one event a year whether it be a stage like Worlds of a weekend of LCS – events like these increase the natural competitive nature of a scene.”
Here’s a teaser video for Worlds 2016:

Dom Sacco

Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.

As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.