Riot Games cancels Neom sponsorship deal after furious fan backlash
Riot Games, the company behind the popular League of Legends online video game, has cancelled a controversial esports championship sponsorship deal with Neom after just two days.
Riot announced on Tuesday, 28 July, 2020: “NEOM has their sights set on the future – and to help future-proof the [League of Legends European Championship] stage, they’ll be sponsoring the Oracle Lens during live broadcasts which helps players predict the next moves a team will make. Starting from Summer Week 7, NEOM joins Kia, Alienware, and KitKat, completing the lineup of our main partners for this season.”
However, the reversal came after a furious backlash from fans of the game, many of whom took to social media to voice their opposition to Neom being named main partner for the League of Legends European Championship (LEC) summer season.
Before Riot’s U-turn, League of Legends gamer tweeted: “I cannot express how frustrated and disappointed I am with #LEC today.”
Prominent gamer “Froskurinn” tweeted before the reversal of the decision: “This is disappointing because this is the LEC. It's my team, my product, my managers, my office. My family. My home. This isn't someone far away in HQ that I don't know. This is devastating because I know who made these choices and I feel silenced.”
On Thursday, 30 July, 2020, LEC released a statement by Alberto Guerrero, Director of Esports, EMEA, headed: “LEC Ends NEOM Partnership”.
The statement said: “As a company and as a league, we know that it’s important to recognize when we make mistakes and quickly work to correct them.
“After further reflection, while we remain steadfastly committed to all of our players and fans worldwide including those living in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, the LEC has ended its partnership with NEOM, effective immediately.
“In an effort to expand our esports ecosystem, we moved too quickly to cement this partnership and caused rifts in the very community we seek to grow. While we missed our own expectations in this instance, we’re committed to re-examining our internal structures to ensure this doesn't happen again.”
The news was welcomed by LEC players and fans, although many questioned why the deal had ever been struck in the first place. Twitter user Darius, from the Schalke 04 Esports Team, said: “This deal shouldn’t have been signed in the first place, but it‘s good to see it get cancelled within 14 hours of the announcement; it shows that the community is vocal about these issues & that Riot is willing to listen.”
Gamers and esports enthusiasts had expressed their anger at Riot teaming up with a country with such a poor humans rights record, with making taking to social media to note Neom’s attempts to displace tens of thousands of members of the Huwaitat tribe, the kingdom’s attacks on journalists and its abuse of people with political and social visions opposing the regime.
League of Legends is a popular online game first launched in 2009. Its European Championship matches are regularly watched by more than 300,000 viewers from across the world.
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