With the League of Legends (LoL) Pacific Championship Series (PCS) Summer Finals taking place at Taipei Heping Basketball Gymnasium on Saturday, the organizer of the pro gaming league said it is time to “find back the fans.”
Jerry Yen, CEO of Carry International Co, which has been organizing the multiplayer online battle arena game’s pacific pro league since 2021, said that the offline PCS finals featuring PSG Talon (PSG) and CTBC Flying Oyster (CFO) marked a significant step in the firm’s bid to boost the e-sports market, which took a hit during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Saturday’s event was the pro league’s first match held at a venue instead of online.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“People were saying that the tickets were priced too high, but we still sold nearly 95 percent of them,” Yen said.
The PCS, which has been allocated two World Championship berths yearly so far, saw both teams advance to the group stage in the Worlds only once in 2020, its inaugural season.
Whereas only one of the PCS teams had to play in the play-in stage for a group stage berth, this year teams from the region had to vie with two League of Legends Circuit Oceania clubs for only two Worlds play-in slots as the PCS teams remained weak internationally.
In Saturday’s best-of-five match, PSG took the last laugh with a 3-2 victory to hoist the trophy and bag US$30,000 in prize money. Runners-up CFO received US$14,000.
The championship was the sixth split title netted by the Hong Kong-based club, whose jungler Yu “JunJia” Chun-chia was named Most Valuable Player at the finals.
However, the loudest cheers could be heard after the match when fans yelled “One more year” to PSG’s veteran mid-laner Huang “Maple” Yi-tang, who said in a pre-game video that this was likely to be his last season due to the damage to his body over his decade-long career.
“Like tendinitis, [and] I can’t stretch my arms fully straight now, and my eyes suffer as well,” the 25-year-old said after the game.
Describing the moment he heard the crowd yelling as “very touching,” Maple thanked fans for all their love and support and said that he would aim for the round of eight in the Worlds.
Also confident was CFO jungler Huang “Gemini” Chu-xuan, who is soon heading to South Korea to attend the Worlds for a second straight year.
Despite Saturday’s loss, Gemini said the bumpy road CFO have taken this summer actually made them much stronger.
By the time Cameron Menzies finally left the arena on Monday, the blood gushing from the gash on his right hand had trickled down his wrist, part of his forearm and — somehow — up to his face. Smeared in crimson and regret, and already mouthing sheepish apologies to the crowd, he disappeared down the steps, pursued by a stern-looking Matt Porter, the chief executive of Professional Darts Corp (PDC). The physical scars from Menzies’ encounter with the Alexandra Palace drinks table after his 3-2 defeat against Charlie Manby at the Darts World Championship would be gone within a few weeks.
Manchester United on Monday blew the lead three times to miss out on moving up to fifth in the Premier League as AFC Bournemouth would not be beaten in a thrilling 4-4 draw at Old Trafford. United have lost just once in their past 10 games, but Ruben Amorim would be frustrated as more points at home were frittered away despite arguably the best attacking display of his reign in charge. Amad Diallo and Casemiro gave the hosts a halftime lead either side of Antoine Semenyo’s equalizer. Two Bournemouth goals from Evanilson and Marcus Tavernier in seven minutes at the start of the
Italian Luca de Aliprandini described Saturday’s World Cup giant slalom at Val d’Isere as the hardest race of his life, coming two days after his Swiss partner Michelle Gisin suffered a heavy fall in training which required neck surgery. De Aliprandini finished 26th in the men’s event won by Loic Meillard, but the result paled into insignificance with two-time Olympic ski champion Gisin in hospital with injuries to her wrist, knee and cervical spine (neck). “It was Michelle’s wish that I race here. I couldn’t say no to her, but it was the toughest race of my entire life,” an emotional De
Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) were ordered on Tuesday by a French labor court to pay their former forward Kylian Mbappe up to 61 million euros (US$71.6 million) in unpaid wages and bonuses. France captain Mbappe, who left PSG in June last year to join Real Madrid, had been claiming more than 260 million euros in total from his former club. PSG in turn had demanded Mbappe pay them 440 million euros. Mbappe, 26, also claimed the Qatari-owned reigning European champions had applied the wrong French legal classification to his contract, but that was rejected by the court. The labor court said
RSS