Korea amends its esports law so local governments can found teams

South Korean cities and provinces now have a law that names them as builders of esports. On March 31, 2026, the National Assembly passed in plenary session a partial amendment to the Act on the Promotion of Esports (Electronic Sports), led by lawmaker Jung Yeon-wook of the People Power Party, the Korean outlet STN News reported on April 2.

The amendment spells out what a local government may do for esports. It may set up and run bodies tied to building esports facilities, found regional esports teams, host competitions, and run youth activities and career-education programs. Until now, according to the outlet, the legal footing for such support was vague, and in some places the lack of detailed provisions made it hard to spend budgets that had been set aside for it.

The vote comes eighteen days before the 2026 season of the Korea Esports League, a team league promoted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea e-Sports Association (KeSPA), which grows from 14 teams to 19 this year.

STN News, April 2, 2026, on the amendment passed on March 31 and on the Korea Esports League.

What the amendment allows

Korea's esports law, the E-Sports Promotion Act, is one of the two statutes on which the ministry's 2024-2028 plan for the game industry rests. The amendment gives local governments their own legal basis under it, in four areas.

STN News reads the change as a move beyond basic infrastructure support, toward local governments building a wider esports ecosystem of their own: teams, competitions and education programs. The outlet also sees a shift in how the state frames esports, as an industry tied to regional economies and not only as culture or content.

The practical problem the amendment answers is money. With the legal basis left vague, the outlet reports, some local governments struggled to execute budgets they had planned for esports, because no detailed provision covered the spending.

The sponsor and his reasons

Jung Yeon-wook represents the Suyeong district of Busan, according to the caption of the photo the lawmaker's office supplied. In remarks carried by STN News, he said the amendment lays a foundation for developing esports systematically in the regions, and that it would give young people an environment in which to meet esports as a healthy culture and a possible career.

He placed his own city at the center of the argument. Busan, he said, is a symbolic esports city, from the 2004 final on Gwangalli beach to the international tournaments it has hosted since, and he said the change in the law would be used to strengthen the regional industrial ecosystem.

The history he refers to is long. In 2004, the final of the StarCraft pro league was played on Gwangalli beach in front of about 100,000 spectators, an event that drew attention abroad, the outlet recalls. Busan hosted League of Legends' Mid-Season Invitational, Riot Games' international event held in the middle of the season, in 2022. In 2023, it hosted the quarterfinals and semifinals of the League of Legends World Championship.

A plan that asked for regional teams

The amendment gives legal form to a direction the government set two years ago. On May 1, 2024, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism presented its five-year comprehensive plan for the promotion of the game industry, covering 2024 to 2028, at an emergency economic ministers' meeting, Kukmin Ilbo reported that day. The plan rests on Article 3 of the Game Industry Promotion Act and Article 6 of the E-Sports Promotion Act.

Its esports part, as the newspaper listed it, was regional from the start:

• permanent esports venues in the regions, as the hubs of a system of local home teams;
• regional amateur teams founded alongside the professional ones, to build what the ministry called a Korean-style league system;
• more support for esports clubs in middle and high schools;
• a separate esports category in the Korean Standard Industrial Classification, distinct from games;
• institutions to train coaches, planners, producers and referees, designated from 2024.

The plan also took up the legal status of esports itself. Esports was not clearly listed in the definition of cultural industries under the Framework Act on the Promotion of Cultural Industries, the newspaper reported, and the ministry set out to close that gap and define esports as an industry.

Jeon Byeong-geuk, the ministry's First Vice Minister, explained the logic at the briefing. As the newspaper reported him, esports would develop only if every level grew evenly, from school teams to amateur teams to professional ones, and competition venues were largely concentrated in the Seoul metropolitan area. He also said the government had chosen indirect support, such as building venues and training staff, over direct support to esports teams.

The same report noted the industry's reservations at the time: venues built as regional hubs were often left empty, teams and tournaments were run at a loss, corporate sponsorship of teams fell far short of other sports, and indirect support was seen as bringing little practical benefit, according to the newspaper. The amendment passed on March 31 concerns local governments: it gives them the legal basis to found and run teams of their own.

The league the law is meant to feed

The Korea Esports League, known as KEL, is the clearest example of what the amendment is meant to support. It is promoted by the ministry and KeSPA, the national federation, and launched in 2025 with 14 teams. For its 2026 season it expands to 19 teams, and play opens on April 18, according to STN News.

The outlet expects the amendment to bring local governments more directly into this kind of league and to strengthen competitions built on regional teams.

KeSPA has described the same structure in its own terms. In a policy report delivered in December 2025 and presented in February, the association took the K-League, Korea's professional soccer league, as its model and drew three levels, as Sheep Esports reported on February 24: school programs at the base, regional semi-professional teams in the middle backed by local governments working with private companies, and professional leagues such as the LCK, the Korean League of Legends league, at the top. The amendment concerns the middle level of that pyramid, where local governments sit.

How it fits with the regional tax credit

The amendment is not the first Korean measure aimed at taking esports out of the capital region. Under an amendment to the Restriction of Special Taxation Act passed on February 27, 2025, a domestic corporation that holds a professional esports competition outside the Seoul metropolitan area may deduct 10% of its operating costs from its corporate tax, the Korean outlets iNews24 and Newsis reported at the time. The credit ends on December 31, 2026, and a bill to extend it, introduced by lawmaker Kim Seung-soo on February 19, 2026, is separate from the one passed on March 31, according to Sheep Esports.

The two measures work on different parties. The tax credit rewards a company that takes an event to the regions. The new amendment lets the region itself act: found the team, host the competition, run the program.

What comes next for Korean cities

The calendar gives local governments early occasions to use their new footing. The Korea Esports League season starts on April 18, with five more teams than in 2025. Riot Games has set the 2026 Mid-Season Invitational in Daejeon, from June 28 to July 12 at the Daejeon Convention Center II, according to its announcement of March 22. And KeSPA, with Riot Games, has opened the selection of the Korean cities that will host the knockout stage of the 2027 World Championship, with the host city expected to be named between August 3 and 7, 2026, Sheep Esports reported on March 9. The 2027 bid asks a host city for support in kind, such as free or discounted use of its venues.

STN News does not give a date of entry into force for the amendment, and reports no implementing decree yet. Nor does its report say how many local governments plan to found teams or how much they intend to spend. The tax credit, for its part, keeps its end date of December 31, 2026, unless the separate extension bill is passed.

What the vote settles is the question of authority. A Korean city that wants a team, a tournament or a school program in esports no longer has to find a general provision to stretch over the spending: the Act now names the activity.

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