KeSPA opens bids from Korean cities for the Worlds 2027 playoffs

The Korea e-Sports Association (KeSPA) has opened the selection of the South Korean cities that will host the knockout stage of the 2027 League of Legends World Championship, Sheep Esports reported on March 9, 2026. The call, run with Riot Games, covers the quarterfinals, the semifinals and the final, and sets out the arena sizes, the booking dates and the support a candidate city must offer.

It is the first concrete step toward a fourth Korean edition of Worlds, the game's yearly world championship, after 2014, 2018 and 2023. The bid document asks for a final arena of at least 10,000 spectators, a fan zone for thousands of people beside it and a city willing to pay part of the bill in kind. The winner is expected to be named in the first week of August 2026.

Bid requirements of KeSPA and Riot Games as reported by Sheep Esports on March 9, 2026.

Two venues, one for the final

The call splits the knockout stage across two venues, as Riot proposes in the document. The first hosts the quarterfinals and the semifinals: it needs at least 5,000 seats, and the target is about 8,000. The second hosts the final alone and must hold at least 10,000 spectators.

The quarterfinals and semifinals are scheduled from November 2 to 7, 2027, a Tuesday to a Sunday. The final follows on Sunday, November 14, 2027, after a one-week break. The cities must also keep both arenas free well beyond the match days.

Each booking window runs for 19 days. For the first venue, that is eleven days of preparation before the first quarterfinal and two days after the last semifinal. For the final, the arena is held for fifteen days before the match and three days after it.

Beyond the arenas, the host city must find a space near the venue for a Fan Fest, an open fan zone with activities and screens, able to take about 5,000 people at the same time.

What the format will look like

Worlds is the last and biggest event of the League of Legends season, where the best teams of every region meet. The document states that the 2027 format will stay the same as the 2026 edition. According to Sheep Esports, that means 18 teams, a one-week break before the final and a US$5 million prize pool.

The call says nothing about the stages played before the quarterfinals. At Worlds 2025, the event opened with a Play-In and a Swiss stage. There, as Riot described it in its primer of September 30, 2025, the Swiss stage gathered 16 teams: after a seeded first round, teams with the same record met each other, without rematches, and the first eight to reach three wins went through. The knockout stage that follows is single elimination, every series a best-of-five, meaning the first team to win three games advances.

Sheep Esports notes that KeSPA's silence on the opening stages suggests their venue may already be settled. The call itself only concerns the eight teams that reach the quarterfinals and the matches that follow.

Worlds 2025 shows how the stages are usually spread across cities. Riot played the Play-In and the Swiss stage in Beijing from October 14 to 25, 2025, then the knockout stage in Shanghai and Chengdu from October 28 to November 9, with the final in Chengdu. For 2026, Riot announced on January 8 that Worlds will start at the Credit Union of Texas Event Center in Allen, Texas, which hosts everything from the Play-In to the semifinals, and that the final goes to New York.

What a city has to bring

The call also sets a support budget. A host city must offer support in kind, such as free or discounted access to its venues. According to Sheep Esports, Riot expects the city to earn this back through what visitors spend during and after the event.

One requirement has gone. When KeSPA ran the selection for the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) 2026, Riot's international event held in the middle of the season, its call of July 2025 asked for hotels of at least four stars near the venues and about 500 rooms in the surrounding area. The Worlds 2027 call sets no minimum hotel requirement.

That earlier call ended with a win for Daejeon. Riot announced on January 8, 2026 that MSI 2026 will be played there, the first time the event goes to that city, and said that the venue and the event details would follow.

Korea's three earlier editions

South Korea has hosted Worlds three times, and each time the knockout stage moved between several cities. In 2014, Busan and Seoul hosted the playoffs, after group stages played in Taipei and Singapore. In 2018, matches were spread across Incheon, Gwangju, Busan and Seoul. In 2023, Busan and Seoul shared the event.

Busan and Seoul are the only cities that hosted matches in all three of the last Korean editions. Sheep Esports writes that either would be hard to leave out of the 2027 plans, without naming them as favorites. Neither city has been announced as a candidate.

The 2023 edition, won by T1 against Weibo Gaming in the final, is also the one KeSPA now uses to argue that a world championship pays for its host.

Why cities are interested

KeSPA has been building the case that a world championship pays for its host. In a study reported by Sheep Esports on February 23, 2026, the association put the total production effect of Worlds 2023 at about 740 billion won, roughly US$510 million. That is 3.7 times the earlier estimates of about 200 billion won.

The new figure rests on a wider method. Beyond direct spending, KeSPA's model counts the media value of sponsor exposure, about 150 billion won, and a customer expansion value, about 50 billion won, before multiplying the total by 1.8, a regional factor for Seoul taken from the Seoul Institute's economic tables. It assumes 50,000 foreign visitors, each spending about 2.8 million won over eight days, against about 70,000 people in the venues. Sheep Esports points out that three of the model's adjustment coefficients, for the game, the size of the tournament and the host region, were set by KeSPA itself, close to their maximum, that the method has not been independently validated, and that much of the input data came from the industry itself.

Studies abroad give smaller figures. Riot's own study put the impact of Worlds 2022 in North America at about US$53 million, and London & Partners estimated the direct impact of the 2024 final on London at about £12 million, a figure limited to the final.

Taxes and arenas outside Seoul

National law already rewards events held away from the capital. Under the Restriction of Special Taxation Act, a company that organizes an esports competition outside the Seoul metropolitan area receives a tax credit of 10 percent of its operating expenses, Sheep Esports reported on February 24, 2026. The credit has a sunset clause: it ends on December 31, 2026, before the 2027 event.

On February 19, 2026, lawmaker Kim Seung-soo introduced an amendment to that act to extend the tax benefits for regional competitions, according to the same report. A day later, KeSPA presented a 150-page report, delivered in December 2025, asking for the credit to become permanent and rise to 15 to 20 percent. It also proposes to add marketing, temporary staff and broadcast production to the expenses that qualify. The report cites MSI 2026 and Worlds 2027 as evidence that South Korea remains attractive for events, and names Saudi Arabia, China and France as emerging competitors.

For a candidate city, the tax question and the bid are linked. An organizer that takes the knockout stage outside the capital region would, under the current law, play it after the credit has ended, unless the National Assembly extends it. The Worlds 2027 call adds a practical test of its own: a regional bid needs an arena of 10,000 spectators for one Sunday in November, or a partner city that has one.

What comes next

The selection now runs through the spring and summer, while candidate cities put together venues, dates and a support package. KeSPA and Riot are expected to announce the result between Monday, August 3 and Friday, August 7, 2026.

Before then, South Korea hosts MSI 2026 in Daejeon, whose venue and dates Riot has not yet given. The international season starts with First Stand, from March 16 to 22, 2026 at the Riot Games Arena in São Paulo, Brazil. Worlds 2026 follows in the United States, from Allen to New York.

Worlds 2027 itself is expected to run from mid-October to mid-November 2027, with the knockout stage in South Korea and the trophy decided on November 14.

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