The highly anticipated Canada E – Sports League will soon commence. This year the CEL 2017 is featuring the online game League of Legends. It will be the largest non – professional E – Sports tournament and expo in Canada.
The first-round knockout will run from October and the tournament organisers are now asking for all teams interested in participating to come forwards. Team Recruitment requires that each team fill out a registration form and pay a fee of $25 per person for the six members of the team. The finals is set to take place on 19 November in the Westin Prince Hotel, Toronto, and not only pride but also a considerably sized cash-pot will be at stake, making the $25 entrance fee, if won, look like a fairly negligible price to pay.
The Rise of E-sports
The ‘League of Legends’ Spring championships in Vancouver, taking place in the Pacific Colliseum, with a capacity of around sixteen thousand, attracted around sixteen thousand spectators each day, filling the capacity of the former Olympic figure skating venue. With talk of E-sports soon being included in the Olympics, as soon as the Japan 2020 games, it looks like E-sports is only going to get more popular in the future, as the generation who grew up with games in their household comes of age and starts to run the world. It looks like ‘League of Legends’ championships might one day replace football world cups as the highest sources of revenue of any sports competitions, and advertisers with foresight, who keep one eye on the future, are already allying themselves with the E-sport phenomenon.
Why is ‘League of Legends’ so Popular?
Amongst the E-sports games, ‘League of Legends’ sits right at the top, garnering most audience and continuing to attract the most skilled, most serious e-gamers. What makes ‘League of Legends’ the king of E-sport games? First off, it’s free-to-play: though there are numerous micro-transactions within the game, ensuring that Riot, its makers, get plenty of money from it, ‘League of Legends’ was one of the first free-to-play Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) games. Given its mass appeal, especially in countries like Korea and Japan, but also in North America and Europe, ‘League of Legends’ E-sport championships attract the most viewers consistently, its star players, like Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok, almost household names in certain parts of the world.
Besides the fact that it’s free-to-play, ‘League of Legends’ is popular for a number of other reasons, these including its customisation options, keeping players interested and involved in the game, giving them an incentive to keep on playing, its free-for-all gameplay, which might seem manic from the outside, involving one encounter after another when played at the highest level, and its lively, full-voiced community. Because of these reasons, as well as a certain amount of luck, ‘League of Legends’ has become one of the most popular games in the world, with a monthly user number of over 100 million. This large number of users makes for a high level of competition, as, inevitably, the more people playing a game the more likely good players will emerge. If you want to watch some of the very best, or if you think you, yourself, and your friends are some of the best, and you live around the Toronto area, then make sure to get tickets to, or register for participation in, the upcoming 2017 E-Sports Canada League Championships. Just remember, legends don’t become legends by taking it easy. If you want to win, you’re going to have to get practising. I wish all those who register the best of luck.