With both League of Legends and VALORANT under its umbrella, Riot Games oversees two of the biggest esports titles in the world. Yet scheduling conflicts, especially around the LEC, have left fans questioning why an emerging esport like VALORANT appears to take priority over the established League scene.
In a viral Reddit post, a fan called out Riot for not having a fair plan to tackle scheduling clashes between VALORANT and League games. “It feels like returning to the days of NA and EU LCS, where we had to base our entire schedule around when the Americans were playing,” they wrote, continuing to rant about Riot not building separate studios for both titles. “Imagine a tennis event being rescheduled because they have to use the same arena to run paddle that weekend, when the arena was built to play tennis!”
The controversy stems from the situation that Riot scheduled a pair of LEC matches (week four of the regional split) on a Tuesday (Aug. 26). LEC games are usually played on Saturdays, Sundays, or Mondays. This threw fans off, as they weren’t expecting a match mid-week. But Riot had a reason for the shift, too.
As it happens, the VCT EMEA Stage Two finals are scheduled for this weekend (Aug. 30 and Aug. 31). Riot needed its EMEA Esports HQ studio, which is shared between VALORANT and League events, to ensure smooth operations. After all, a finals event should take precedence over a regular split game—right?
Well, in most cases, Riot’s choice to prioritize VALORANT isn’t sitting well with the LEC audience simply because they don’t want matches shifted to weekdays or dislike being pushed out of their comfort zone.
Some fans, however, took the debate further with direct, mostly unnecessary comparisons. To them, VALORANT is still an emerging title, while their favorite MOBA remains the world’s most popular esport on PC and console. In fact, under the Reddit post, some argued that VALORANT isn’t growing at all according to viewership numbers, so there’s no reason for Riot to bank on its success. Even overly generic and uninformed comments like “it will never be more popular than CS, even the pro players are tier 2-3 CS rejects” received significant upvotes—although this one clearly came from a butthurt CS fan, or just a nonchalant online hater.
VALORANT fans weren’t ready to back down either. One pointed out, Riot has shifted only a few LEC games for VCT this year. In fact, VCT EMEA matches are usually scheduled on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, specifically to accommodate LEC on the weekend. “They just value playoffs, the finals, and the championship qualification games of VCT EMEA higher than a regular LEC Summer week. Are you genuinely gonna try to argue that isn’t reasonable?” they wrote.
At the moment, while League is still the superior esport in terms of viewership, VALORANT comes in fifth (according to numbers by Esports Charts), so it’s far from insignificant. Riot trying to balance both for its benefit is absolutely justified.
On the other hand, fans demanding that matches stick to their usual schedule have a point too. Considering the current Riot Games Arena in Berlin was once an LEC Studio—later transformed into a centralized hub for multiple Riot titles—it’s understandable why the League audience isn’t happy about sharing space and giving up their weekend schedules, even if it’s for a week.
With Riot investing heavily in both titles, the company could consider building separate studios or renting additional venues to avoid future scheduling conflicts. That said, whether such a move is financially viable remains to be seen. The good news is, LEC commissioner Artem Bykov has assured LoL fans that Riot is working on a new 2026 structure to minimize instances of schedule overlapping with VCT, so let’s hope for minimal clashes going forward.
