DreamHack, Riot Games launch Northern Championship

DreamHack joined forces with Riot Games to launch the Northern League of Legends Championship. The league is expected to cover Northern Europe, namely Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, United Kingdom and Ireland, the organizations said in a joint statement on Wednesday.

The inaugural campaign of the league is set to begin in June with regular-season matches being contested online. The finals of the event will be played at DreamHack Summer in August at Jonkoping, Sweden. "DreamHack has been the leading esports organizer in the Nordics for a very long time and we are very excited to partner up with Riot on a long term basis to create a more stable ecosystem for players, fans, and teams around League of Legends," said Michael Van Driel, chief product officer at DreamHack.

"In partnership with 12 top team organizations from all of the different countries here, the NLC we believe is going to be the best regional esports competition out there." The 12 teams invited to the new league include: ENCE, Team Singularity, Tricked Esports, Dusty, RIDDLE, Nordavind DNB, GODSENT, Fnatic Rising, BT Excel, Munster Rugby Gaming, Barrage and MnM Gaming.

"We have been working hard with DreamHack and Telia to really create something special for the Nordics' best League of Legends players," said Mo Fadl, head of publishing Nordics at Riot Games. "There is now a much clearer path from the amateur leagues through to professional level and we're excited to see what the talent here can do on the big stage."