Since last night Nice has been hosting the LFL Days. 2 evenings of the French League of League of Legends, the most played video game in the world. The 10 best teams in France in this game compete in front of the public at the Acropolis. And the public responds, more than 2,000 spectators are in the stands at the Acropolis… and hundreds of thousands follow the most anticipated matches live on the Twitch broadcasting platform!
It’s an e-sport competition in a room with an audience, so what are we playing? League of Legends is a fighting and strategy game. Two teams of five players compete in an arena. There are two camps and in each camp there are turrets and a main tower: the nexus. The goal ? Destroy the opposing Nexus. The game has tens of millions of players every month. Fabien “Chips” Culié is the official commentator for League of Legends competitions. He thinks he knows what makes the game so popular: “the scene created great emulation. Even people who don’t understand everything about the game get caught up in the atmosphere“.
In e-sport there is sport
It’s the biggest French-speaking e-sport competition, and in e-sport… there’s sport! So at first glance we do not think too much about sport by stopping at young people behind a computer. Yet professional players have a very controlled lifestyle. For Nicolas Perez, coach (from Nice) of a team present in Nice for the competition, his players are athletes: “In the day of e-sports there are 8 hours of training just on the game, and next to that there is one hour of sport per day. By spending hours on your chair you need to have the right posture, a well-muscled back and good abs.“The players play sports and they are closely monitored by a nutritionist. The desired effect is to maximize their performance, their reflexes, their cardio.
E-sport also resembles traditional sport in the organization. The League of Legends championship has nothing to envy to Ligue 1, it’s a large-scale competition, with professional players, a meticulous organization and motivated supporters! Ultras from Team Karmine Corp brought the drums to shake the floor of the convention center.
– Alexis Arades
This is the first time that a city has hosted two consecutive e-sport championship evenings. But it may not be the last. The city of Nice and the South Region hope to see the return of leading competitions as soon as possible.