LoL Worlds 2020 finals headed to Shanghai Stadium

The finals to next year’s League of Legends World Championship will be played in China.

After a quick LoL Worlds 2019 final, which saw FunPlus Phoenix sweep G2 Esports in dominating fashion, Riot Games is already installing the framework for next year’s championship. Following the series, the Worlds hosts announced that the 2020 Worlds finals will be headed to Shanghai.

Over 50,000 seats for the 2020 Worlds final in Shanghai

Worlds is headed back to China for the tenth edition of the event. It’s a relatively quick turnaround for China, which hosted the Worlds 2017 final in Beijing. League’s 10th competitive season will conclude at Shanghai Stadium. The multi-purpose arena is primarily used for soccer games and serves as the home arena for Shanghai International Port Group F.C.

It was also used for preliminary matches for the 2008 Olympic Games.

Shanghai will only host the 2020 Worlds final, though.

Judging by other installments of Worlds, the rest of the championship will be played in at least two other cities before that. Before the Worlds 2019 final in Paris, the Knockout Stage was hosted in Madrid, Spain, while the Play-Ins were contested in Berlin, Germany. Locations for the other stages of the tournament have not yet been revealed.

Worlds 2020 looking to dwarf The International 2019

2020 will mark the second year in a row where Shanghai will host a premier esports tournament. The International 2019 took place in Shanghai’s Mercedes-Benz Arena this August, the first time since 2011 that The International had taken place outside North America. Though TI9 was the biggest Dota 2 tournament of the year and featured the largest prize pool in the history of esports, Worlds 2020 is set to make it seem small by comparison.

The Mercedes-Benz Arena is a popular location in Shanghai, but it offers seating for 18,000 people. This is considerably smaller than the 50,000 seats available for League fans at the Shanghai Stadium.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise, however, because League keeps attracting more viewers than Dota 2. While TI9 peaked just below two million viewers and broke records for Dota’s viewership, Worlds 2019 peaked at almost four million viewers, according to Esports Charts.