Riot Games Expands Co-Streaming Program for LCS Spring 2023

Riot Games has made the announcement that it would expand its watch party program in advance of the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) Spring 2023 tournament to feature more creators and more matchups.

The developer stated that it took the learnings from the first two years of the watch party program and decided to open up applications “to influencers in the larger League of Legends community” after calls for more creators to be given the opportunity to co-stream matches. This decision was made after the developer heard calls for more creators to be given the opportunity to co-stream matches.

The watch party program was first presented by Riot Games in May 2021, just in time for that year’s Summer split. It featured a roster of fan-favorite personalities, including as Nick ‘LS’ De Cesare, Yiliang ‘Doublelift’ Peng, and Christian ‘IWDominate’ Rivera.

Riot made various changes to the program in 2022, including limiting watch parties to “certain sections of the season,” such as Lock In, Super Weeks, and Playoffs. These changes were made in 2022. These continued to be invitation-only events, which drew criticism from the League community due to the fact that it excluded a large number of content makers and influencers.

Riot is Expanding League of Legends Watch Party Service

Riot Games announced in a blog post published on the official League of Legends esports website that it will grant permission to a select group of content creators to co-stream each match of the 2023 LCS Spring split on either their Twitch or their YouTube channel.

The developer mentioned that there will be a restricted number of available seats and that content makers will be required to go by the watch party program policy, which will continue to feature the three-strike system from the previous splits.

The application form for the watch party program can be found here, and creators have until January 23 at 10 p.m

. Pacific Time to fill it out and submit it. However, content producers that want to co-stream the first week of matches, which are slated to take place on January 26-27, need to submit their applications no later than January 18 at 10 p.m. Pacific Time.

Whether or not it was a coincidence, Riot’s decision to expand the watch party program comes at a time when the League community is being quite critical of the program. The developer has been criticized for relocating the League of Legends Championship Series matches from the weekend primetime slots to the Thursdays and Fridays primetime slots and for moving on from the well-liked desk host and commentator James “Dash” Patterson.

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