The BBC, (yes, that BBC) have just announced plans to livestream the League of Legends World Championships at Wembley this year. Beginning on October 15th and continuing for three days, the livestream will be produced by BBC Three and take place on the same online platform that BBC Sport uses to broadcast major sporting events.

Coverage will be anchored by BBC Radio 1 DJ Dev Griffin, who is described as an 'avid gamer' and obviously knows his way around a mic. Longtime videogaming journalist Julia Hardy, who had MineCon hosting duties earlier this year, will be on hand to interview players and audience members as well as bring some gaming 'cred' to the proceedings. Leigh ‘Deman’ Smith and James ‘Stress’ O’Leary have been given the nod as commentators.

Damian Kavanagh, Controller of BBC Three, said: "We jumped at the chance to collaborate with BBC Sport and bring this massive UK event to a wider audience. BBC Three will always experiment with new ways to deliver content that young people want, in ways they want. I think this is an exciting way to cover something millions of young Brits love, in a BBC Three way.”

League of Legends is one of the most widely-played videogames in the world, but is also one of the most widely-watched eSports to boot. League of Legends streams regularly top Twitch's 'most viewed' daily, and the game has fans in the EU, US and Asia. Potentially just the BBC dipping its toe into a new genre of broadcast content, this could be the start of wider adoption of new eSports content and content models in the future.

SOURCE: via BBC.co.uk