AFTER ITS inaugural year, Wild Rift Esports is no more, as Riot Games has announced it’s taking a new step in the mobile game's esports scene.
In a blog posted earlier today, John Needham, president of esports for Riot Games, announced that they will double down on where League of Legends: Wild Rift is strongest by establishing a centralized league in in Asia.
“In 2023, we will centralize the operation and focus of Wild Rift Esports in Asia, the biggest and most active mobile esports market in the world. The new Wild Rift league in Asia will be the first Riot cross-regional professional mobile esports league and will replace the original Wild Rift Esports (WRE) in April of 2023,” the post stated.
According to the post, the new league will consist of 12 teams from the current WRL in China as well as eight teams from the other 2022 Asian regions. The new league will have two splits, similar to League of Legends esports.
It is also unclear if the league will fall under the franchise model or similar to the current Wild Rift Championship SEA series.
More details about the new league will be shared in early 2023.
Wild Rift Esports relinquishes leagues outside of Asia
The new league also came at a cost for the rest of the world as Riot has announced that they will no longer be directly operating Wild Rift Esports leagues in the rest of the world.
“As part of the new plan, outside of Asia, we will no longer directly operate Wild Rift esports leagues and instead unlock the opportunity for third parties to host events — so that we will have our priority and focus on the upcoming Wild Rift Asia League,” the post said.
Currently, Riot is holding an off-season tournament with the Wild Rift Circuit invitations simultaneously happening in North America, South America, Europe, and APAC.
Riot’s move of pulling out direct control of Wild Rift Esports in the rest of the world is a massive gamble for the otherwise young scene. Icons 2022 did see talents from Brazil take games from APAC and Korean teams, but most of the tournament saw China and APAC dominate the rest of the world.
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