Mentioned in this article Teams: Cloud9, Echo Fox

Riot Games will now allow organizations to stream matches featuring academy teams.

Cloud9 has signed a partnership deal with Mammoth Media to produce pre- and post-game content.

Cloud9 has announced a streaming content partnership with Mammoth Media for the organization’s League of Legends academy team. The announcement means that Riot Games is now allowing organizations to stream matches featuring their academy teams, a first for the company.



Cloud9 fans will soon be able to tune into the team’s Twitch channel for an exclusive pre-game show, the matches themselves—with casting talent hired by Cloud9—and a post-match wrap-up show featuring Cloud9’s Academy Team. During both the pre- and post-match shows, fans will have the chance to win cash prizes by playing esports-themed trivia on Mammoth Media’s trivia app, Arena.

In a press release, CEO and co-founder of Cloud9 Esports, Inc. Jack Etienne said, “We’re excited to partner with Mammoth Media for our LCS Academy broadcasts. Partnering with Mammoth gives us a new, fun way to engage directly with our fans through trivia matches on Arena.”

Historically, Riot Games has not allowed teams to broadcast official matches. Instead, the company has run its own broadcasts of a selection of “minor league” games and relied upon third-party partners to broadcast the matches in additional languages.

This deal is a major shift for North America’s developmental Academy league, one that allows teams to engage with fans directly and facilitates more monetization opportunities for Academy rosters. In the past, teams such as Echo Fox signed top League of Legends streamers for their Academy teams in order to circumvent the lack of monetization of the Riot-run broadcasts.

The shift also allows teams to develop players for dual purposes. Not only can they develop talent for their main NA LCS roster, they can also use this kind of content to develop the next generation of League of Legends streamers, analysts, and commentators.