France’s European Regional League, Ligue Française de League of Legends, has seen a rise in popularity in 2021. This growth is expected to continue into 2022 as big names, such as Martin “Rekkles” Larsson, will play in the league. However it won’t come without changes as the LFL will welcome two new teams in Elyandra Mirage and Team Oplon. An English broadcast was also announced for the league.
This account will mostly tweet in french but feel free to use google translate to follow us ❤️
🇫🇷 LFL: https://t.co/vmfDWqTq6S
🌎Eng LFL: https://t.co/pvnzj6MK2F
🇫🇷 Div2: https://t.co/SWeZiZDhRJ— LFLxDIV2 (@LFLOfficiel) November 29, 2021
Northern Arena managed to get the broadcasting rights for the French European league. However, they weren’t the only company interested in providing an alternative broadcast for the LFL. Webedia, who handle the league alongside Riot Games, went through a selection process to choose who would broadcast the LFL in English. Their Head of Esports, Bertrand Amar, explained that one of the reasons they chose NothernArena is because they will be able to provide in-studio casting.
“We are creators of esports tournaments since 2015 and have produce many TV shows and web content in the past five years. We have produced major and small events and esports broadcast for some of the biggest gaming publisher throughout the years. We feel that we can provide a high-quality broadcast with our expertise in TV and esports production,” Carl-Edwin Michel, founder and CEO of NorthernArena, said.
NorthernArena ambitions for the LFL are to generate a minimum of 10,000 concurrent viewers in the beginning, because the LFL is becoming more and more popular with the arrival of big players to the league.
“With an English broadcast, it will create more interest in the LFL from English viewers” Michel said.
Amar explained that another reason they chose NorthernArena is because of their ties with one of the new LFL organizations, Mirage Elyandra. Michel is also the owner of Mirage.
“We created a joint venture with Elyandra that will be called Mirage Elyandra for year one” Michel said. “Therefore, it’s in our best interest to shine a good light on the teams, the players and the league as a whole because we will benefit from the success of the English broadcast and the hype surrounding the league.”
Michel also spoke about who fans could expect as English casting talent for the LFL.
“We are not ready to reveal the talent team yet, but what I can say is that they will be local from Toronto since that’s where our studios are located,” he said. “But, we will bring some familiar faces remotely to the broadcast occasionally. You can expect some cool surprises there. We are working hard to make our version of the LFL broadcast as fun and unique as possible.”
The LFL has existed for three years since its launch and reached a peak viewership of 194,979 for a regular season game of Karmine Corp versus Solary in the spring split of 2021 according to Esports Charts. While French fans are looking forward for the 2022 season to start on Jan. 12, English viewers may now be part of the growth by enjoying the new English casting provided by NorthernArena.
