China’s Huya to stream League of Legends tournaments

Chinese live-streaming platform Huya has acquired rights for the League of Legends esports organisation’s North American Championship Series and European Championship.

Under the terms of the deal with Riot Games, Huya will have exclusive rights to the two competitions in China until the end of 2020.

The agreement represents a further significant investment in esports by Huya, which is backed by Chinese media giant Tencent.

Huya already has a three-year deal in place, from 2020 to 2022, to serve as Riot’s exclusive rights partner in China for its South Korea-based League of Legends Champions Korea tournament.

The platform also agreed a strategic joint venture with Swedish media company Modern Times Group in September 2019 to acquire a minority stake in the latter’s esports organisation, ESL.

Huya was one of the media platforms that was outbid by Chinese video sharing and online-gaming website Bilibili for the exclusive rights to Riot’s League of Legends World Championship in December.