Milo W. February 23, 2019
Riot Games’ official LCS store is now live, coinciding with the ongoing 2019 LCS Spring Split.
The store was developed by esports merchandising company We Are Nations, who first partnered with the LCS in 2018. The shop’s stock includes LCS-branded shirts and hoodies as well as team jerseys. Customers can choose from either a team’s general jersey, a specific player’s jersey, or a custom lettered jersey with the purchaser’s chosen name and team of choice.
Plans to create an LCS merch store began back in mid-2018 and production started towards the end of the year. We Are Nations CEO Patrick Mahoney expressed his enthusiasm about this new line of esports merchandise.
“It was a really enjoyable process and working with those guys through different scenarios and iterations of deal structure certainly demonstrated to us that they wanted to create a long-term future-proof merchandising program with real equity for the league, the teams, and most importantly the fans,” Mahoney said.
The store’s launch has been met with a generally positive reception from the League of Legends community, although some fans expressed concern over the lack of variety in merchandise on offer. Current products available are comprised entirely of wearable tops, and are lacking miscellaneous goods such as hats, bags, or keychains. In the comments section of a Reddit post regarding the store’s launch, user Kirbington, a member of the team behind the shop, responded to fans’ concerns.
“There's a lot of stuff that we want to do also, and agree that we should offer more than tops. This was what we could provide at launch, but the team has been really excited exploring the other stuff we can do this year,” said Kirbington.
Riot Games has stated that additional products will be released as the year continues and encouraged fans to stay tune for upcoming announcements.