The League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) is the professional League of Legends esports league run by Riot Games in the EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) region, in which ten teams compete. Each annual season of play is divided into two splits, spring and summer, both consisting of nine weeks of round-robin tournament play, which then conclude with play-off tournaments between the top six teams. At the end of the season, the top performing teams qualify for the annual League of Legends World Championship. The LEC represents the highest level of League of Legends play in the EMEA.
With the exception of some touring events, all games of the LEC are played live at Riot Games' studio in Adlershof, Berlin, Germany. In addition to a small studio audience, all games are streamed live in several languages on Twitch and YouTube, with broadcasts regularly attracting over 300,000 viewers.The popularity and success of the LEC has attracted significant media attention. On 30 September 2016, the French Senate unanimously adopted the last version of the Law for a Digital Republic, significantly improving the visa process for LEC players and esports athletes in general, giving a legal frame to esports contracts, introducing mechanisms to ensure payment of cash prizes, specifying rights for minor esport athletes, and more. A few months before, France also introduced a new esports federation, "France Esports", which has the duty to be a representative body of esports towards the government and serve as a "partner of the French National Olympic and Sports Committee for all matters relating to the recognition of electronic sports as sport in itself". Spain did the same in November 2016, creating the Spanish Federation of Video Games and Esports Spanish Federation of Video Games and Esports. The LEC has attracted sponsorships from Kia, Red Bull, and Erste Group.Fnatic is the only team remaining that has played in every split since the inaugural 2013 Spring Split.
The LEC announced a controversial sponsorship deal with Neom in 2020. Many of the league's staff threatened a walkout, which led to the sponsorship being cancelled.

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