More than five million people (plus an unknown number of viewers watching livestreams in China) watched the final matches of the League of Legends Worlds 2022 – the esports industry’s most high-profile tournament – this weekend.
As usual, there was a music angle, with an opening ceremony featuring artists Lil Nas X, Jackson Wang, Edda Hayes and Louis Leibfried. Cue lasers, whizzy augmented-reality effects, and Lil Nas X in an excellent wig.
The video of the opening ceremony was uploaded to YouTube yesterday and is closing in on its first million views:
This year’s roster of guest stars follow previous opening-ceremony performers including Imagine Dragons in 2021 and KD/A (a virtual group created by the game’s publisher Riot Games) in 2020.
The music is strongly tied in to the League of Legends game, too. Lil Nas X recorded the official anthem for this year’s Worlds tournament, ‘Star Walkin”, while Wang’s track is the theme song for a new line of skins sold within the game itself.
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