It is quite obvious that esports are developing rapidly, becoming bigger, stronger, faster, better. The events are growing in number, but also in quality in order to attract public and sponsors. There are also big investments by teams in merchandise, coaching staff and training facilities. Finally, players are getting higher payments, making unions and cherishing personal brands so they can use their names once their gaming career is over.

For instance, the biggest League of Legends competition in Europe, EU LCS, hasn’t changed the branding for the last 6 years. Despite the fact that everything else evolved, including teams, strategies, and players, the logo and wider branding of EU LCS remained barely touched all the time.

Riot Games were probably aware that visual redesign and rebranding of EU LCS should have happened a long time ago, and they invested a lot of work thinking of the new visual theme that will go official when the 2019 season starts. The situation shows us that esports develop their own kind of identity which seems like traditional sports, but also differentiate from it.

First and foremost, the name of the organization was changed, and now it’s League of Legends European Championship or LEC for short, in order to differentiate from its North American counterpart, which is now simply called the LCS. These two regions have been positioned as rivals for the longest time, striving for the world dominance and confirmation of superiority of their teams on the world stage.

Although it was great for the competition, the rivalry between Europe and North America has given the former a “little brother” image. It is quite a disservice for the region which produced world-class teams that went to the finals at the World Cup last year. That’s why there was a need for a rebrand, in order to represent esports community in Europe in the appropriate way.

After a strict selection, the job was given to the Design Studio, known for their work for a number of big brands in the past, including Airbnb, Deliveroo, Evernote, Logitech (now known as just “Logi”) and Twitter. Design Studio also had a bunch of employees who were avid video game players when they were younger, and this job was a great opportunity for them to remind themselves of that phase in life. After 7 months of exploring, immersion, and experimenting the rebrand had the premiere on November 20th 2018, and it was met with overwhelmingly positive impressions.

Despise some criticism, support for the rebrand is strong and growing. The most positive aspects people are mentioning are the fact the new design distances from the North American LCS name, and the clarity of design itself which emphasizes European values. It’s impossible to please everyone, but it seems that the goal of radically updating the Europeans League’s image has been achieved. This new brand design leans heavily onto traditional sports branding but also embraces everything that makes esports distinctive.