League of Legends pros as professional athletes

In the course of a sizeable chat with Gamespot, Riot eSports manager Nick Allen revealed that LCS pros can now acquire the same US work Visas given to NBA (hand-ball), NFL (hand-egg), and NHL (hand-stick) players.

“The United States government recognises League of Legends pro players as professional athletes, and award Visas to essentially work in the United States under that title,” he said. “So this is groundbreaking for eSports. Now when [international players] come over, it’s a much easier process because they are actually recognised by the government. It’s a huge thing.”

From the sounds of it, Riot drove the shift in classification through relentless lobbying.

“This is a lengthy process, we had a lot of people fighting for this, and it wasn’t something that happened overnight,” continued Allen. “This is constant back and forth of like, ‘Show us more proof, is this realistic’, and that sort of thing. Eventually it got to the point where they were like, ‘Okay, we have no reason to say no. This is legitimate’.”

LoL's Season 3 World Championship kicks off in LA on the 16th of September. First place wins a cool $1 million, something that brings its own kind of legitimacy to the sport.

source : pcgamesn.com