Riot and ESPN both dismiss rumors about broadcast deal for LCS.
“The story is inaccurate — no active talks with ESPN at the moment,” – Riot Games
One of this week’s biggest Esports dealership rumors was quickly shutdown by both of the supposedly involved parties, ESPN and Riot Games. In a report made by PVPLive.com, the USD 500 Million deal between ESPN and Riot Games is for the Television Broadcast of the League of Legends Championship Series, a regional professional tournament for League of Legends that is hosted and broadcasted by Riot Games themselves that garners an average of 20 Million viewers worldwide through official online broadcast channels.
Spokespeople from both ESPN and Riot has claimed that the news is false and there are no ongoing talks nor planned deals between the 2 companies for the television broadcast of the LCS. While ESPN is not new to the realm of Electronic Sports, having broadcasted a few major Esports events themselves such as Valve’s the The International Dota 2 Championships and even creating their own Esports Coverage division, they insists that “The story is false. We do not have a deal with Riot Games to broadcast League of Legends”.
Should it be true though, this might have been one of the biggest Esports-to-Traditional-Media deals made by any Esports and Television or Cable companies.