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The ''League of Legends'' Championship Series (LCS), formerly known as the Riot Championship Series, is the name of two professional ''League of Legends'' esports leagues run by Riot Games. Twenty teams compete in two separate competitions in North America and Europe, with ten teams per continent. Each annual season of play is divided into two splits, spring and summer, both consisting of ten weeks of round-robin tournament play, which then conclude with play-off tournaments between the top six teams from each region. At the end of the season, the highest placing three teams in each league qualify for the annual League of Legends World Championships. The LCS represents the highest level of ''League of Legends'' play in Europe and North America. The LCS has a promotion and relegation system; the bottom teams in the LCS from each split compete with the top teams from the Challenger Series (CS) to compete for spots in the next split of the LCS. The Challenger Series in each continent is composed of six teams: three teams which failed to advance in the previous promotion tournament, one team from the previous CS split, and the top two teams from ranked ladder play in the respective public ''League of Legends'' online game server. With the exception of some touring events, all games of the LCS are played live at Riot Games' studios in Los Angeles, California, United States and Berlin, Germany. In addition to a small studio audience, all games are streamed live in several languages on Twitch.tv, YouTube and Azubu, with broadcasts regularly attracting over 300,000 viewers. The popularity and success of the LCS has attracted significant media attention. The US government has begun to grant athlete visas for LCS competitors. The LCS has also attracted sponsorships from Coca-Cola and American Express. League of Legends Championship Series is a Delaware limited liability company. ==History== Riot Games launched League of Legends in October 2009 and rapidly attracted attention from the competitive gaming community. The first two seasons of competitive play consisted of a series of tournaments mostly organized by third parties, such as Major League Gaming in North America, and Intel Extreme Masters in Europe, capped by a world championship tournament hosted by Riot Games.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://lol.esportspedia.com/wiki/Portal:Tournaments )〕 Riot Games announced the formation of the LCS on 6 August 2012,〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.riotgames.com/sites/default/files/uploads/120806_NEWS_lol_champseriesannounce.pdf )〕 creating a fully professional league run by the company with a regular schedule and guaranteed salaries for players, featuring eight teams in both North America and Europe. Since the LCS was only launched in the third year of professional play, it was immediately dubbed "Season 3". The top three finishers in both the Riot Games North American and European regional championships held in August 2012 automatically qualified, with the remaining five teams being decided in qualifier tournaments held in January 2013. Each LCS season is divided into two splits for spring and summer; the first games of the first spring split took place on 7 February 2013 in North America and on 9 February 2013 in Europe. Season 3 of the LCS finished with the summer split playoffs, held on 30 August to 1 September 2013 in North America〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://lol.esportspedia.com/wiki/Riot_League_Championship_Series/North_America/Season_3/Summer_Playoffs )〕 and 23 to 25 August in Europe.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://lol.esportspedia.com/wiki/Riot_League_Championship_Series/Europe/Season_3/Summer_Playoffs )〕 In North America, Cloud9 finished first, with Team SoloMid placing second and Team Vulcun placing third. In Europe, the top three finishers were Fnatic, Lemondogs and Gambit Gaming. The top three teams from each continent advanced to the Season 3 World Championships. Riot Games changed naming conventions in 2014, calling the season the "2014 Season" instead of "Season 4". The Challenger Series was created for this season, creating a second tier of competition for promotion and relegation and a clear pathway for players to become professionals. At the end of the 2014 season, an expansion tournament was held in both North America and Europe that added two teams in region, giving the LCS a total of 10 teams per region for the start of the 2015 Season. Additionally, Riot introduced the concept of "Championship points", which teams would earn based on performance across both splits and playoffs in order to qualify for the World Championship. A new sale of sponsorship rule was instated for the 2015 season. As a result, several teams were forced to rebrand and leave their respective parent organizations. North America's Evil Geniuses and Europe's Alliance are both owned by GoodGame Inc. CEO Alex Garfield, and thus their ''League of Legends'' teams left and became Winterfox and Elements, respectively. Curse Inc. could no longer sponsor LCS team Team Curse, thus the entire esports organization merged into Team Liquid. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「League of Legends Championship Series」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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