With less than a month away from its most important event of the year, Riot Games announced its largest League of Legends World Championship broadcasting crew in the event’s history today.
That crew will be watched by a huge audience. More than 11.2 million concurrent viewers tuned into last year’s tournament, a large portion of which tuned into Riot’s English-language broadcast. With major media companies such as ESPN moving into esports—last year’s finals was broadcast on ESPN3—those numbers could very well be even bigger this year.
Fans were surprised at one of the faces in today’s announcement. Eric “DoA” Lonquist—the long-time casting partner of industry favorite Christopher “MonteCristo” Mykles—tweeted in August that he had been informed he wouldn’t be a part of the broadcasting team at Worlds:
I’ve been informed that I won’t be casting Worlds this year. Sorry guys.
— erik lonnquist (@ggDoA) August 9, 2015
The community reacted angrily, but Riot Games stayed mum on the issue—until today’s announcement.
The broadcasting crew from the west includes very familiar faces. European League Championship Series host Eefje “Sjokz” Depoortere will host the event as a whole. The North American talent lineup includes Rivington Bisland III, Sam “Kobe” Hartman-Kenzler, Joshua “Jatt” Leesman, and David “Phreak” Turley. And from Europe, veterans Trevor “Quickshot” Henry and Martin “Deficio” Lynge are joined by newcomers Devin “PiraTechnics” Younge and Mitch “Krepo” Voorspoels.
The last two casters for the event are Julian “PastryTime” Carr and Max “Atlus” Anderson. Both are an integral part of Riot’s LPL broadcast and recently casted the International Wildcard Tournament.
Over the past few years, Voorspoels, Counter Logic Gaming’s Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng, and Renegades’ Alberto “Crumbz” Rengifo have been regulars on Riot’s analyst desk. Rengifo is set to return for this year’s group of analysts, but now—with Voorspoels attending as a caster and Peng competing with his team on the Worlds stage for the first time—he’ll be joined by ROCCAT head coach Jakob “YamatoCannon” Mebdi.
The panel will be rounded out by Riot staffers James “Dash” Patterson, Aidan “Zirene” Moon, and Jake “Spawn” Tiberi.
The group stage desk will be remotely broadcasted from Los Angeles, but the crew will be joining the rest of the staff for the remainder of the event starting in Brussels, Belgium.
The event kicks off on Oct. 1 at Le Dock Pullman in Paris, France. As it advances into the playoff bracket, the tournament will travel to the SSE Arena Wembley in London, the Brussels Expo in Brussels, and the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin.
