The Chinese government has canceled all international sporting events in the country for the remainder of 2020, according to an Associated Press report as highlighted by esports journalist Rod Breslau. This announcement by the government could potentially cause TJ Sports (a joint venture of Riot Games and Tencent Esports) to make drastic changes to the League of Legends World Championship, which is set to take place in Shanghai later this year.
Trials for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games will still take place in Beijing and Zhangjiakou according to the AP report, but every other sporting event scheduled for 2020 has been canceled by China’s General Administration of Sports.
As pointed out by Niko Partners Senior Analyst Daniel Ahmad, earlier this week Tencent said (per a Forbes China report) that Worlds 2020 was still on track for Shanghai, but this was prior to this latest news coming out of China.
Also per The Esports Observer’s reporting, both Tencent and TJ Sports have indicated multiple times in the months following the initial COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in Wuhan that Worlds 2020 was still on track to take place in Shanghai.
The Esports Observer has reached out to TJ Sports, Riot Games, and Tencent for further details.
