Why Did Riot Jack Up the Prize Amount, and Where Did They Find the Funds?

In 2011, Riot Games hosted the first of their annual League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) and offered a prize pool of a whopping $100,000. That first tournament, hosted in Sweden, boasted a total viewership of 1.6 million.

If you don’t know how Riot’s doing nowadays, those numbers probably seem like a lot. (The things I could do with $100,000….) But that’s only if you don’t know how Riot’s doing nowadays.

Five years later in 2016, Riot has announced they will raise their prize pool from an already-impressive $2 million to a jaw-dropping $4 million. Cha-ching.

How Are They Making All That Dough, Though?

For several years, Riot Games has hosted the League of Legends World Championship Series, often referred to as "Worlds" for short.

Even though a total of 36 million viewers tuned into the LCS in 2015, the world of eSports is still relatively new and developing. Competitive gaming does not yet generate much of a profit for Riot—in part because much of their funding goes toward maximizing the LCS experience for players and viewers alike.

It is expensive to host huge audiences in high-tech arenas for several-days’-long scheduled events. Can you imagine the number of people Riot hires to make Worlds go off without a hitch?

But Riot has still managed to outdo itself—again. Here’s how they’re planning to increase the prize pool: a quarter of their Championship skin and Championship Ward sales; another quarter of the profits from Challenger skins’ addition to the Mid-Season Invitational prize-pool; and finally, the possibility of team-branded items for sale in-game, on which the players might be able to share the revenue.

Riven, a Champion from League of Legends, wearing her one of her “Championship” skins.

Here’s Why the Surge in Generosity

Simply put, because eSports is so new, people are still in the stages of trying to figure out how to profit from it. Rules in eSports can be a gray area, either too lax or too strict, making advertising—the typical source of revenue in a competitive entertainment scene—uncertain territory.

Since the scene is new and therefore not yet turning much of a profit, Riot has decided to step up its game. The $4 million prize pool should supplement players’ often average-to-poor salaries.

The people at Riot saw a need for their players and addressed it. To find out more about Riot Games and the World Championship Series, visit their website. Let’s all hope that Riot’s generosity and forward-thinking are contagious. The things I could do with $4 million…