LCS Commissioner MarkZ: "The way that people are talking now is actually very encouraging to me. Everyone's like, ‘LCS is back. We're so back.'"

The League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) is entering a new chapter in 2026, with Mark “MarkZ” Zimmerman, the league’s Commissioner, outlining the priorities behind its return as an independent league. With a renewed focus on regional competition, clearer formats, and stronger fan engagement, the LCS is aiming to address feedback from the previous season while laying the groundwork for future growth.

In an interview with Sheep Esports ahead of the LCS 2026 season, MarkZ discussed the league’s efforts to reconnect with fans through the recently announced roadshows, and shared a few insights on the upcoming co-streaming initiatives in the league.

Mark “MarkZ” Zimmerman: “For me, and speaking on behalf of the LCS a little bit, one of the biggest things is making sure that we are delivering for fans what they felt like they were missing the most last year with the change to LTA.

We definitely wanted to go back to some of the things that were more comfortable with fans, the things that they were looking for, both the LCS branding, focusing the competition more on just regional competition, getting more slots back to the international competitions and stuff like that. So that was the base level of things that we wanted to make sure we were delivering on. And then still looking for a couple new things that we continue to do like the Americas Cup and some of these sorts of things.

MarkZ: So we kind of mentioned it quickly in the video that we had gone down to effectively one roadshow a year in recent years, last time it was even all the way back to 2024, which people might not remember. And we just know how important in-person events are for people. It's really where a lot of the fans' biggest memories will come from, where their bonds are strengthened. If you get the chance to bring a friend to something, it's a big chance to celebrate the overall community. And we knew it was something we wanted to do more of.

And with the LCS coming back this year, it felt like the perfect time to kind of make sure we redoubled our efforts into finding ways to get on the road more often and creating more of these experiences. If [fans] can't make it to what was before the single Summer Finals or they come out to LA, this is an opportunity to try and meet them where they are a little bit more often in different parts of the country.

MarkZ: We'll get into the logistic part actually second, but just in terms of targeting places, there's usually two important things. One, we have some geographical data around what are the biggest population centers or where players are. And so those are obviously going to make a short list of places that we're going to want to go to. And then from there, it's often kind of that logistical component of, ‘are there venues on these days? Do they make sense? Are there any incentives for this region?’ Because sometimes there's government or schools or whatever it is, there's different reasons to explore all these options.

And so we also—with the United States being so big—generally end up in a couple core areas of the West Coast, Central, which often ends up being Texas, and then East Coast. And I think that makes sense that those are kind of our main areas and we're trying to rotate between those as well.

The other factor is making sure that you're spreading out your events so you're not just in the same place all the time. And I think when you only have one roadshow a year, it really limits your ability to get out to more places, because then, even if you're going just through those three main areas, you do so once every three years. And it's very limiting in terms of the sorts of shows that you can do, where you can go, if all of them are just like the one big Finals. And so not only can we get out on the road more, but we can take it hopefully to different kinds of places as well.

MarkZ: I would say technically for the LCS, we represent all of North America as well as part of Latin America, and so we would love to be able to go everywhere. There are obviously challenges when it becomes international, nothing's off the table quite yet, but I think we'll be targeting a little bit more of the United States for 2026.

MarkZ: I think to this point, about making sure that we're getting out on the road more often and in more different ways, I think that is part of the plan. And we touched a little bit about finding different ways to do it because the goal is to engage local communities and obviously LCS is—with it coming back—kind of trying to hit on some of those, but acknowledging that there is a broadened scope of the LCS in the modern era. We definitely can't ignore that fact.

MarkZ: So, a couple things. First being the format. We definitely had to play Tetris a little bit with what we were trying to do last year, where we're increasing the scope of things, but keeping it within certain windows and budgets, and all these sorts of things. And so we had to make trade-offs on the regional portion of play to be able to get into that kind of cross-regional moment, where we're playing LTA North versus South, which shortchanged some of that regional play. So that was one of the big goals with this year, is making sure that we have a simple format, that's easy to follow, that gives the volume that fans are expecting from each of these splits, and feels like a beefy enough tournament that it's worth watching. The LCS Lock-In tournament is, I think, roughly 50% longer than Split One was last year, because we don't have to tackle this travel component, and the sorts of things that can make it more difficult.

So that's one thing is making sure the formats are a lot easier to follow, making sure our coverage of that is on point. Which, again, I think becomes a little bit simpler when you're not needing to worry about informing fans of something that they might not have been watching, because now we're going to Brazil and if you weren't watching LTA South, here's what was happening and all this sort of stuff.

And then the other thing that we're doing is the LTA Fantasy app. A lot of people used it last year, and they really enjoyed it, but it didn't have all the information that was relevant to the LCS, or LTA back then, when you logged onto it. It's mostly just that. So now by making it a little bit more all encompassing when you're logging on to check your fantasy, and these sorts of things, you'll be seeing more information around the league as a whole. And hopefully, it becomes a bit of a homepage for LCS fans to just go there if they're ever wondering what's going on in the league, upcoming games, what's the standings. All that should hopefully be covered there, and make it a little simpler to follow along, as well as the coverage that we're providing on broadcast and different things.

MarkZ: Yeah, I think you saw a little bit of the showmatch that we did in winter. We historically liked to throw showmatches—we had some Doom Bots when that came out—and so we tend to follow the game's cadence a little bit with those. Whenever there's a new mode, or map, or anything going on, we'll try and make something fun with it. And I definitely think there's going to be some fun stuff this year.

So I don't want to be the one to leak it, but there'll be some cool stuff. And in terms of other kinds of content, we're continuing with our kind of cadence of podcasts that we've seen fans really like with Pros, and The Dive, and making sure that those keep going, so that they have some things to listen to in the week as they're getting ready for the LCS to come back around on the weekend.

MarkZ: I think co-streaming's super important, and it's one of the areas that we want to try a little bit more directly, in terms of outreach for creators, bringing them out. We'll have a small thing that we're doing on the opening weekend of the LCS, which we're not quite ready to share yet. It's not huge, but I think it's indicative of the things that we're trying to do, which is for people who are becoming newer fans of League of Legends and esports within the North American, Latin American communities: finding ways to kind of try and engage them a little bit more as opposed to being a little bit more like hands off who's interested and they come to us. We're going to try and do a little bit more talking with people. So, I think there'll be some cool things there.

Obviously, just in general, co-streaming's become an absolutely massive component of the ecosystem. And so we always want to make sure that we are working with the longstanding partners and people that have been watching the LCS for a long time, as well as trying to figure out who are new voices and people who might be interested in the scene.

MarkZ: No, I don't think so, but it's only because one of the people I was talking to was like, "when can we talk about it? " I would feel bad if I leaked it before them. Again, it's not a huge thing, but it's just something that's, I think, more emblematic of what we're trying to do, more than a big splashy thing in and of itself. So it's just something that I think will be interesting to fans.

And then obviously there's a lot of big creators who have randomly gotten into it in North America recently, like Moist Cr1TiKaL. Obviously, he's paired with Shopify, but he's been playing League nonstop recently. I think I saw CaseOh playing it. And so we're always happy to try and wrangle all these people to show up. Ludwig's a co-owner of Shopify, and so I'm sure at some point we'll get them in the door, and we're just always happy to work with those kinds of guys.

MarkZ: Not specifically, probably. I think part of it is the GRP and the pricing kind of coming more through that mechanism as a whole. And then the other part of it is that we have our own initiatives that we're doing more directly to work with teams, and put that money to use. So obviously, here in America, we have a whole bootcamp system, and these sorts of things that we're doing to encourage and reward teams for different levels of competition and what they're participating in. So not one-to-one in any sort of way, but I think we're always looking for the most valuable way that we can continue to invest in the ecosystem.

MarkZ: Yes. I probably should not get into the details of how that system works, but I do think there's still a lot of value in regional performance, both competitively, and as just a media or entertainment portion as well.

MarkZ: The way that people are talking now is actually very encouraging to me. Everyone's like, ‘LCS is back. We're so back. All these things look great...’ I would love it if that energy kept throughout the year. If we're able to have people ending the year with the way that it's feeling right now, and a little bit more retrospective being like, 'we were so back, that was a great year,' and be able to say that we landed 2026 the way that it kind of felt at the start of the year, I think that'd be a great takeaway to have, as well as them being optimistic about the future and all whatever plans we start talking about then.”