DreamHack and Riot Games to launch Northern League of Legends Championship

DreamHack has partnered with Riot Games to launch the Northern League of Legends Championship, a league covering Northern Europe.

The deal between DreamHack and Riot Games for the event will last for three years.

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The inaugural season of the Northern League of Legends Championship is slated to commence in June with the regular season being played online. The finals of the event, however, are set to take place at DreamHack Summer in Jönköping, Sweden in August.

Also referred to as NLC, the event is “supported by a new competitive ecosystem in Telia Esports Series.” The ecosystem is said to include national leagues in Finland, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, and the UKLC for the UK and Ireland.

Michael Van Driel, Chief Product Officer at DreamHack, spoke on the venture in a release: “DreamHack has been the leading esports organizer in the Nordics for a very long time and we are very excited to partner up with Riot on a long term basis to create a more stable ecosystem for players, fans, and teams around League of Legends. In partnership with 12 top team organizations from all of the different countries here, the NLC we believe is going to be the best regional esports competition out there.”

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Twelve organisations from across the aforementioned countries have confirmed their participation, including ENCE, Nordavind, Singularity, Excel Esports, Fnatic, and Barrage. The minimum prize pool for a season is 1 million SEK (£80,000).

Mo Fadl, Head of Publishing Nordics at Riot Games, added: “We have been working hard with DreamHack and Telia to really create something special for the Nordics’ best League of Legends players. There is now a much clearer path from the amateur leagues through to professional level and we’re excited to see what the talent here can do on the big stage.”

Esports Insider says: This appears to a great move for the involved countries as, perhaps, teams aren’t able to progress as much as they’d like by only competing against domestic rivals. DreamHack’s commitment to League of Legends with the recent pick-up of UKLC and now the NLC is interesting, especially with Riot Games controlling so much of the League of Legends esports ecosystem.

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