How the NBA All-Star Game could save MSI

With fans growing increasingly dissatisfied with League of Legends’ The Mid-Season Invitational, there is one, albeit unorthodox, source of inspiration Riot Games could turn to — the NBA.

It’s fair to say that MSI 2022 was not the most well-received. The eventual champions weren’t present at the event; fans criticized a format that featured 66 best-of-one matches, and overall, what should have been League of Legends’ grand return to international events felt muted.

If Riot Games want to ensure that MSI doesn’t fall by the wayside, they need to rethink how the midseason tournament is run. And if anywhere knows how to run successful midseason events, it’s American professional sports. In particular, the National Basketball Association, or NBA, operates an All-Star Game format that could be of particular use in saving MSI.

The problem with MSI

While entire articles can, and have, been written about why MSI disappoints fans, the core issue is that the tournament is essentially the disappointing younger sibling of Worlds. It’s the LCS to Worlds’ LEC; the Cleveland Browns to Worlds’ Cincinnati Bengals; the Red Vines to Worlds’ Twizzlers. League of Legends esports doesn’t need a smaller, worse version of Worlds halfway through the year. This is especially exacerbated by the fact that winning MSI gains you nothing more than pride and a modest cash prize.

The NBA All-Star Weekend explained

In contrast, the NBA All-Star Weekend is a celebration of professional basketball. Played over a single weekend, the NBA All-Star event is all about fan involvement and fan engagement. The players in attendance are voted on by fans and the teams for the All-Star Game itself are selected in a draft led by two appointed All-Star captains.

In addition to the All-Star Game itself, there are a number of show events throughout the weekend, such as the dunk contest, the rising star game, and the celebrity game. As opposed to MSI, the NBA All-Star Weekend is laid back and centred around celebrating the NBA, its players, and giving a memorable experience for the fans.

How to fix MSI using the NBA

What the MSI currently lacks is fun. It tries to emulate the high stakes of Worlds in order to try and justify its existence and by extension, the existence of the Spring split. It then becomes a slog for players and fans with the excitement heavily dropping in the middle of the event and barely breaking even by the time of the Grand Final

So let’s fix MSI based on the NBA All-Star Weekend.

First, there’s the player selection process. Instead of sending the Spring split champions from each of the twelve eligible regions, let the fans decide which players from those twelve regions go to MSI. Fan voting or, like the NBA does, a mixture of fan and media voting, would select one regional captain and four regional All-Stars. Then, the twelve regional captains select their MSI teams via a broadcasted draft with the only rules being that you can’t select players from your own region and you can’t select more than one player from a single region.

Now, for the tournament format. The teams are randomly drawn into two groups of six, where they play a single round-robin with best-of-three matches. The top four teams from each group progress to a double-elimination playoff bracket with best-of-five matches.

And then there is the expansion of the event. Bring back the 1v1 challenges from Rift Rivals. You could even tie it into the Red Bull SoloQ Series as a way to more naturally promote that event. Have a celebrity showmatch. Give the fans more than just the MSI matches to enjoy.

What’s more, this wouldn’t be a radical change for Riot. For many years, Riot ran an end-of-year All-Star event featuring all-regional teams, as well as featured events such as 1v1 challenges. All this would do is adjust the format, namely because all-regional teams don’t fix the problems surrounding regional talent differences, and move it to the middle of the season, rather than the end.

No one wants two serious international events a year, and fans are becoming increasingly vocal in their displeasure at the quality of the event. Besides, what would people rather see — T1 beating Team Aze in 20 minutes, or custom-drafted Team Faker taking on Team caPs?

Header: Morry Gash for ESPN, Riot Games