A series of announcements over the weekend confirmed that next year, both major international events for pro League of Legends will take place in North America.
One of the oldest rivalries in LoL - EU vs NA - has taken an interesting turn as Riot Games’ plans for its major offline events have to accommodate the pandemic situation. Earlier this month, issues with visas to China for multiple teams caused Riot Games to announce this year’s League of Legends World Championship will be held in Europe. Now, Riot has confirmed that in 2022, both the Mid-Season Invitational and the World Championship will take place in North America.
NRG Stadium Will Host MSI
We are excited to announce that the 2022 Mid-Season Showdown will be hosted at NRG Stadium in Houston, TX on April 23-24, 2022! #LCS
— LCS (@LCSOfficial) August 28, 2021
The announcement about MSI came on the evening of August 28th from the LCS official Twitter account. League’s second biggest international event will be hosted at the NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas. The venue, formerly called the Reliant Stadium, is a multi-purpose stadium used for matches in the NFL, many of the US national team's football matches, concerts, rodeo shows and other events. It can host over 72,000 people and can be expanded to accommodate over 80,000 for special occasions.
This decision may bring some cheer to NA fans let down by news that the summer finals would not be held in Newark’s Prudential Center due to the Covid-19 situation.
Worlds 2022 Split between 4 NA Cities
Things got even spicier when in an interview with Travis Gafford, Chris Greeley - Riot’s Commissioner and head of League Operations for the LCS - announced that in addition to the Mid-Season event in Houston, Worlds 2022 will take place in North America as well. Greeley stated that it would be spread over four cities that would be announced later.
Riot has officially OFFICIALLY re-confirmed that Worlds will take place in North America next year "across four cities" pic.twitter.com/Diw3qz9bvl
— Travis Gafford (@TravisGafford) August 28, 2021
This is of course subject to the pandemic situation next year. Still, barring any catastrophic issues, it looks like North America is set to host the major events next year. Whether NA teams will step up at these events remains to be seen - but hey, maybe 2022 will be NA’s year.
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