[League of Legends teams in the U.S.
lag behind their competitors in Asia, so they recruit the world’s best players
by offering huge salaries.]
The setting was Shanghai, and the
championship was for League of Legends, a video game. The enraptured crowd of
thousands treated the frantic mouse-clicking with the same gravitas given to a
traditional sport.
At the center of it all was Hu
Shuo-Chieh, a decorated Taiwanese superstar who soon followed up his standout
moment (his team would fall short in the finals) with an even more surprising
move. In November, Mr. Hu, known in gaming as SwordArt, announced that he was
leaving his base in China, the hub of global e-sports, for a backwater in the
world of competitive League of Legends: the United States.
America is accustomed to dominance
in global sports, but in League of Legends, the highest-profile video game
played by professionals, U.S. teams lag far behind their counterparts in Asia,
where e-sports are a way of life. In countries like China and South Korea,
gamers start competing as children, and professionals train up to 18 hours a
day.
To keep up, U.S. teams have dangled
increasingly large salaries in front of these superstars, akin to Major League
Soccer’s luring famous European footballers stateside. Aided by an influx of
cash and big-name sponsors, these teams have recruited at least 40 players from
Asia since 2016, according to a New York Times analysis, and a similar number
from Europe.
Many professional gamers are simply
looking for a big paycheck, fueling the perception that the United States
serves as a retirement community for players who are past their prime. Others
are drawn to a comfortable lifestyle in places like Los Angeles. And some claim
to be the player who will finally put America on the map by winning the first
world championship for the continent.
“They can be the hero for an entire
region,” said Chris Greeley, the commissioner of League of Legends’ North
American region, called the League Championship Series. “They can be onstage
and lift that trophy and deliver that to a region that’s superhungry for it.”
Mr. Hu, who signed a
record-breaking two-year, $6 million contract with TSM, a U.S. team, said a
sense of adventure had drawn him to the United States.
“I’m not a person who wants to feel
very comfortable every day — I want to challenge myself,” Mr. Hu, 24, said in
an interview.
Just like traditional sports,
professional leagues devoted to video games like League of Legends, Overwatch
and Call of Duty feature teams vying for coveted championship trophies, rabid
fans shelling out money for jerseys and multimillionaire players searching for
glory.
Competitions are strategic,
five-on-five cage matches, in which players match wits and mouse-clicking
speeds as they guide their avatars through a colorful jungle, slaying
fantastical monsters and rushing to destroy the opponent’s base. International
competitions began in 2011 and are operated by Riot Games, which is owned by
the Chinese internet giant Tencent.
Interest in e-sports leagues surged
among U.S. audiences in recent years. In 2015, 38.2 million people in North
America watched at least one e-sports event, according to Newzoo, a gaming
analytics firm. By 2020, that number had jumped to 57.2 million.
League of Legends, a team-based
title released by Riot in 2009, dwarfs its competitors in viewership. Nearly 46
million people watched at least part of the world championship event in
October.
Despite League of Legends’ growth
in the United States, North American teams are still routinely outclassed by
their competitors in Asia, where ubiquitous internet cafes in many countries
make playing computer games cheap and easy. Nine of the 10 annual world
championships have been won by a Chinese, South Korean or Taiwanese team.
“When I was really young, I would
look up to the top pro players — I wanted to be the same as these guys,” said
Jo Yong-in, 26, a South Korean-born League of Legends player known as CoreJJ.
When he was growing up on the
island of Hwado, “there was nothing else to do except play games,” said Mr. Jo,
who moved to Los Angeles in 2019 and now competes in the United States for Team
Liquid.
Mr. Hu, considered one of the most
charismatic, vocal leaders in a sport where communication is paramount, said
maintaining the high standards he set for himself and his teammates would be
key in the United States. With Suning, his Chinese team, he often practiced
from noon to 5 a.m.
“I’m not a person to want to hide
something,” he said. “Sometimes, a very kind team can’t improve. You need to
fight, talk a lot, and then your team can improve.”
But until a U.S. team earns
worldwide acclaim, questions will persist about whether importing players can
lead to success. Riot has tried to foster homegrown talent by expanding American
developmental leagues and tightening rules governing how many players per team
can be from other countries. Even so, stars from Asia — and from European
countries like Denmark and Spain — still abound in the League Championship
Series, as they have since competition began in 2013.
“There have been other players of
comparable stature who have come to America with similar intentions who have
amounted to nothing,” said Jacob Wolf, a former ESPN reporter who writes
for Dot Esports.
Some foreign stars struggle to assimilate, encounter insurmountable language
barriers or leave before their contracts are up because of homesickness, he
said.
Still, athletes from other
countries enjoy perks in the United States, players said. They can live in
sunny, multicultural Los Angeles and practice in state-of-the-art facilities
like TSM’s. That sleek, $13 million, 25,000-square-foot training center offers access to the same chefs and
physical therapists as the city’s two National Basketball Association teams.
And salaries are growing in North
America. The average for a player in a team’s starting five has climbed to
$460,000 from $300,000 since 2018, Mr. Greeley said. The highest-paid players
in the United States, Mr. Wolf said, might make up to $500,000 more than their
elite counterparts in a country like South Korea.
Many of the League Championship
Series’ 10 teams are backed by billionaires who also own traditional U.S.
sports teams. But the sport has not yet become a cash cow. To get in on League
of Legends, teams had to pay Riot $10 million to $13 million.
Riot declined to say how much it
made from League of Legends, and analysts do not think it is profiting directly
from e-sports. But SuperData, a research company, estimated that the game
itself brought in more than $1.8 billion in revenue last year.
Just a few blocks from Riot’s
headquarters in western Los Angeles — where matches are normally played — is
Sawtelle Boulevard, where e-sports stars frequent ramen restaurants and boba
shops. Korean transplants often spend their weekends in Koreatown, where they
can find food that reminds them of home, said Genie Doi, an e-sports
immigration lawyer.
The work-life balance in the United
States is another draw for players who are weary of putting in 18-hour practice
days and even developing wrist injuries, said Kang Jun-hyeok, a South
Korean-born League of Legends player who has been Team Liquid’s coach and
general manager. Though South Korea and China have made strides in recent
years, he said, the culture is that of “working hard, grinding until you
collapse,” Mr. Kang, 31, said.
North American teams pitch these
benefits to prospective players as they engage in a delicate courtship to woo
the best free agents before other teams do. Once a player decides to sign a
contract, Ms. Doi helps the team apply for a visa, which she said was usually
granted despite the unusual profession.
She said the arrival of so many
international stars aligned perfectly with the continent’s history of
immigration.
“It’s just really fitting that
North American e-sports is this melting pot of global cultures,” Ms. Doi said.
“I think that’s what’s eventually going to make North America a strong
contender.”