BBC to screen live e-sports tournament Published duration 8 October 2015

image copyright Riot Games image caption The League of Legends World Championships features teams from Europe, North America and Asia

The BBC is to stream live coverage of a major e-gaming contest for the first time.

BBC Three will show highlights of the quarter-finals of the League of Legends World Championships on its website.

The event, at Wembley Stadium next week, will be presented by BBC Radio 1 DJ Dev Griffin.

League of Legends is an online role-playing battle game played by some 27 million users every day, according to US developers Riot Games.

Multiple European cities

Teams compete in a 3D battle arena and each game lasts between 20 and 60 minutes.

This year's championship, which sees gamers compete with each other live on stage, is spread out across multiple European cities.

Teams from Europe, Asia and North America will take part, and the finals will be hosted at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin on 31 October.

The total prize pool for the championship is $2m (£1.3m), with the winning team set to take home $1m.

In 2014, some 70 million hours of footage from the games were watched worldwide, according to the game's developers.

image copyright Riot Games image caption League of Legends is played by 27 million gamers daily, according its developers

'Massive UK event'

BBC Three will collaborate with BBC Sport on the broadcast, using the platform previously used for live sporting events and the Glastonbury festival.

Live and pre-recorded video would "sit side by side" with text, audio and social-network commentary, said the channel.

BBC Three controller Damian Kavanagh said: "We jumped at the chance to collaborate with BBC Sport and bring this massive UK event to a wider audience.

"BBC Three will always experiment with new ways to deliver content that young people want, in ways they want.

"I think this is an exciting way to cover something millions of young Brits love, in a BBC Three way."