KeSPA opens bidding process for host cities of the 2027 League of Legends Worlds playoffs

The Korean e-Sports Association (KeSPA), in collaboration with Riot Games, has officially launched the host city selection process for the 2027 League of Legends World Championship, which will take place in South Korea. On Monday, March 9, 2026, KeSPA published the official call for bids to select the host cities for the knockout stage, including the quarterfinals, semifinals, and the grand final, scheduled for November 14, 2027.

KeSPA does not mention the early stages of the Swiss Stage, suggesting that the venue for the first part of the competition may already have been decided. According to the official document, the results of the bidding process and the name of the host city are expected to be announced during the first week of August, between August 3 and August 7, 2026.

For the fourth edition of the Worlds hosted in its history, South Korea is already setting things in motion, several months before the 2026 Worlds take place in the United States, between Allen and New York City. The document also confirms that the 2027 format will remain the same as this year’s edition, with a one-week break between the two semifinals and the final, 18 teams, and a prize pool still set at five million dollars.

The Worlds, as in several recent editions, are expected to take place from mid-October to mid-November 2027. KeSPA’s current call for bids specifically focuses on the Knockout Stage, with the dates for those matches already confirmed and the possibility for the host city to use two different venues. The quarterfinals and semifinals, scheduled from November 2 to November 7, 2027, require a venue with a minimum capacity of 5,000 seats, although the goal is closer to 8,000.

For the final, scheduled on November 14, 2027, KeSPA clearly states that the venue must be able to host at least 10,000 spectators. This is why Riot Games is proposing that the playoffs be held in two different venues between the beginning and the end of the stage.

Due to operational requirements, including the setup and dismantling of installations, the venue hosting the quarterfinals and semifinals must be available from October 22 to November 9, 2027. For the final, the venue must be booked from October 30 to November 17, 2027. In addition to these standard venue requirements for the competition, KeSPA also outlines several additional requests. The host city will have to provide a space, ideally close to the arena, where Riot Games can organize a Fan Fest with a simultaneous capacity of around 5,000 people.

KeSPA’s specifications also require the city to provide a “support budget” in the form of in-kind services, such as offering the competition venues free of charge or at a subsidized rate. Riot Games expects that the city will recover this investment through the audience traveling to attend the event and even afterward.

While this requirement had been mentioned during the search for the host city of the 2026 Mid-Season Invitational, which was won by Daejeon in the center of the country, KeSPA no longer specifies minimum hotel requirements around the venues. During the bidding process launched in mid-July last year, the association had stated that the host city needed to have at least four-star hotels near the competition sites and around 500 rooms available in the surrounding area.

This will be the fourth time that South Korea hosts the World Championship. In 2014, Busan and Seoul hosted the playoffs after group stages held in Taipei and Singapore. In 2018, South Korea once again hosted the competition across four different cities: Incheon, Gwangju, Busan, and Seoul. For T1’s return to the top in 2023, the tournament was once again held in South Korea, split between Busan and Seoul. It is therefore hard to imagine Busan or Seoul not competing again for 2027, considering that both cities hosted at least one match in each of the last three editions held in the country.