The RLCS Relevance and Specifically the 2022 RLCS

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Schroeder 1 Oklahoma State University The RLCS Relevance Specifically, the 2022 RLCS Ryan Schroeder SPM-3880-29485 Professor Adam Barnes May 8, 2023

Schroeder 2 The RLCS Relevance Specifically, the 2022 RLCS Rocket League is a growing video game in the competitive video games scene with more and more franchises adding teams each year. This past year the RLCS, Rocket League Championship Series, was played in Fort Worth, Texas at Dickies Arena in front of a sold-out crowd. The eSport of Rocket League is based on the general concept of cars playing soccer, but Rocket League has grown to become a mulit-million-dollar video game with new avenues expanding including professional tournaments, broadcasting, and partnerships. To reach the RLCS, a team must go through rounds of a qualifiers in various rounds that can include online and LAN events. A LAN event is an event where competitors will come together and play the match on a stage in front of an audience. So, the championship of RLCS is obviously played as a LAN event. The players will compete from all over their respective region to receive a spot in the RLCS. The RLCS regions and seeds are selective based on region. The RLCS in 2022 was set up in a way where there are teams that are automatically seeded in the Group Stage while others look for a seed in the Wild Card section. Only three North America teams and three European teams received an automatic seed in the group stage. While three other North America teams had to take their seed in the wild card spot as well as three other European teams. However, the bracket isn’t just setup with teams from North America and Europe. South America as well as the Middle East/North Africa regions each received one automatic seed in the group stage as well. Regions that were not automatically guaranteed a group stage seed fought for a wild card seed. Those included Oceania, Asia-Pacific North, and Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2022, a European team earned first place and a North American team earned second place.

Schroeder 3 This is such a worldwide eSport which deserves more attention. The RLCS brings in many spectators as well as hundreds of thousands online on Twitch and other platforms. As for the format of the RLCS, the first round is called the Wild Card round, which is setup in a 16 Team Swiss System Format. All the matches are a best of seven, and the top eight teams proceed to the Group Stage. Then, the Group Stage is 16 teams split into two groups of eight. This is all a double elimination bracket, and all the matches are a best of seven. The top four teams in each group, eight teams total, advance to the Playoffs. The Playoffs are then a single elimination bracket, which is also setup for a best of seven. All these matches happen consecutively over a course of 10 days. The prize pool for the 2022 RLCS was $2,085,000 split among a multitude of participants. So, first place, Team BDS, received $600,000 for first place, and G2 received $400,000 for second place. Meanwhile teams who placed 23 rd and 24 th finished with only $6,800. The 2022 RLCS has also been moving in the direction for the higher rated sponsors with sponsorships for the championship coming in from Ford, Verizon, and Mobil 1. And, the event was hosted offline in Dickies Arena located in Fort Worth, TX. The capacity for Dickies Arena is 14,000, and there were a variety of tickets being sold to attend each round of the RLCS. A customer was allowed to buy a wildcard pass which allowed them access to the wildcard round from August 4 th to the 7 th . Another option customers had was to buy the group stage pass which allowed them access to the group stage round from August 9 th to the 11 th . However, there was an option called the Pavilion Pass which allowed a customer to spectate both the wildcard round and the group stage. But, if you wanted to go into any of these earlier rounds, you were required to purchase an Arena ticket which gave the customers access to the final three days of the RLCS event.

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Schroeder 4 The viewership status across the whole week and a half had an average of 154,302 viewers and 10,171,035 hours watched with a total airtime of 65 hours and 55 minutes. The peak viewer count across the RLCS Championship week was 368,721 set by the quarterfinals match between FURIA and Moist. The Championship match between G2 and BDS finished 5th in peak attendance with 319,721 viewers. Each of the top five matches in peak viewership contained either of the three teams including G2, FURIA, or BDS, which makes sense as G2 and BDS were in the final. When it came down to country representation in the 2022 RLCS, the United States had the most with 22% and 16/73 players. In second, was Saudi Arabia with 14% and 10/73 players, and in third was Brazil with 12% and 9/73 players. However, two of the MVPs ended up going to two players that are not from any of these countries. Those players would be from the Spanish team, BDS, however they are of French origin. Seikoo took home the World Championship MVP and M0nkey M00n took home the World Championship Defensive MVP. The other award listed went to G2’s Chicago for the World Championship Offensive MVP. Countries that were represented by one player were Belgium, Finland, Indonesia, Ireland, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, and Singapore. The diversity is there with teams pulling players from a variety of countries and continents to come join their team. Out of the eight teams that prequalified for the Group Stage, six of them continued to the Playoffs. Both Endpoint CeX and Team Falcons lost their spot Version1 and Karmine Corp. This made the entire Playoffs consisting of only North American and European teams except for FURIA, which is a South American team. Karmine Corp showed why they deserved to be in the Playoffs with only losing one game and no matches in the Wildcard stage. Then after facing a tough FURIA team first round of the Group Stage quarterfinals, Karmine Corp defeated OpTic

Schroeder 5 Gaming and Team Falcons to push for a qualified spot. It’s a grueling process for these teams because if they don’t qualify for Group Stage, the Wildcard round can be grueling. The 2022 RLCS in Fort Worth was different than ever before with it being the biggest RLCS live event yet. According to the Dickies Arena website, previously the World Championship was a three-day event, but now it’s a 10-day event split into two distinct phases beginning August 4. The doors were set to open an hour before match play every day of the tournament. One of the biggest things that eSports has revolved around recently has been the broadcasting side of things which includes how this entire RLCS 2022 event was streamed on Twitch with a variety of different stage hosts, desk hosts, and analysts. Some notable names being Stax (Sean Stackhouse) and Orb (Joel Kumlin) as the stage hosts. The trend in eSports broadcasting is that everyone still has their own gamertag which sometimes carries over from their playing time in the RLCS league. Some of the observes and guests were previously players in the RLCS as well as now content creators on YouTube. One of the most well known guests was Rizzo (Dillon Rizzo). He currently has 644,000 subscribers on YouTube with followers on a variety of other platforms including the emerging TikTok. Another thing you’ll notice with all of these media presence people on the broadcast, they are mostly from different countries, and they can provide different perspectives to an international event like the RLCS. International travel for these tournaments including fans is something that the RLCS recognizes as they want to make sure fans in different areas of the world can still go watch their favorite RLCS players compete in person. This upcoming RLCS 2023 Championship will take place in Dusseldorf, Germany. This allows for the spread of European fans as well as American fans to have their fair share of availability to see these players compete. It also gives a sense of

Schroeder 6 home court advantage for the teams that are located throughout Europe. Once again it will be a 10-day championship event. The success of the 2022 RLCS Championships format in Fort Worth paved way for a new experience of RLCS Championships in the future. This is a growing league as the league has been around less than 10 years as well as the game itself. Rocket League will grow and the RLCS will figure out its kinks along the way. The 2022 RLCS Championships had two-million-dollar pot, so the money has to be supplied somewhere. The RLCS has worked to partner with different major companies including 7-Eleven which partnered with Psyonix to sponsor the RLCS. They even came through with an event called the 7-Eleven Slurpee Cup. With these sponsorships coming around February of 2022, the RLCS was preparing themselves for what was going to be a financial whirlwind with the 10-day series. If ticket sales didn’t spike for the earlier rounds or if Psyonix didn’t connect the tickets in packages like they did, then the RLCS could have been in a deep loss from this new format of the RLCS. However, the opposite happened, and they were able to sellout tickets on Ticketmaster through the RLCS website. They nearly filled Dickies Arena to the brim which in- turn brought the profit that the RLCS severely needed to make. Whether it be the professional tournaments themselves, or the broadcasting and sponsorships, Rocket League’s parent company Psyonix has done a great job of building the RLCS into what it is. Lots of planning and marketing strategies must have taken place to logistically figure out ticket packages as well as the running a broadcasting throughout almost an entire day of live matches. The 2022 RLCS Championships in Fort Worth were a success, and they brought more people more connected to their video game once again. The entire goal of the RLCS and all other eSports is to market the video game in which they are competing on.

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Schroeder 7 Works Cited “2022.08.12-14 - Rocket League Championships.” Dickies Arena , 4 June 2022, dickiesarena.com/event/2022-08-12-14-rocket-league-championships/.

Schroeder 8 “Rizzo.” YouTube , www.youtube.com/channel/UCB_SBSg6ry3x47NumQ3a9DQ\. RLCS 2021-22 - World Championship - RL - Esports Charts , escharts.com/tournaments/rl/rlcs- 2021-22-world-championship. Accessed 09 May 2023. “Rocket League Championship Series 2021-22 - World Championship.” Liquipedia Rocket League Wiki , liquipedia.net/rocketleague/Rocket_League_Championship_Series/2021-22.

The RLCS Relevance and Specifically the 2022 RLCS

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