Riot names onethreefive gaming operator of the DACH Prime League

Six months after the company that ran it entered insolvency proceedings, the League of Legends league of Germany, Austria and Switzerland has an official operator again. Riot Games has appointed onethreefive gaming GmbH, a Berlin company, to operate the Techniker Prime League for the 2026 and 2027 seasons, The Esports Advocate reported on May 21, 2026.

The license covers more than one competition. According to the outlet, onethreefive gaming oversees the Prime League together with its connected competitive tiers and league structures, meaning the divisions that sit under the top one. The three countries together are usually called the DACH region.

The names behind the new company are not new to the league. Its managing director and its chief product officer both come from Freaks 4U Gaming, the Berlin agency that held the same license until now. And the league did not stop in between: it has played this year, drawn larger audiences and sent four teams to the European stage before any contract was made public.

What the license covers

The Prime League is one of the EMEA regional leagues, known as ERLs. Riot Games, the publisher of League of Legends, listed thirteen of them for 2026 in a post on its esports site dated November 27, 2025. They form the level under the LEC, the top European league, and Riot's post states their purpose in one line: turning young prospects into the players who carry the scene remains the primary goal.

Riot does not run these leagues itself. It grants each one to a tournament operator, the company that runs the league, under a license for a set period. For the German-speaking league, that period now runs to the end of the 2027 season.

What the announcement leaves out is as notable as what it contains. The Esports Advocate describes it as formalizing the structure for 2026 and 2027, and lists the points it does not settle.

From Freaks 4U Gaming to a new company

The previous operator's position looked settled eighteen months ago. In November 2024, Freaks 4U Gaming announced that Riot had renewed its operator license for the Prime League for 2025 to 2027, as The Esports Advocate reported at the time. The agency had run competitive League of Legends in the German-speaking countries since 2018, and Techniker Krankenkasse stayed on as title partner, the sponsor whose name the league carries.

The renewal did not run its course. On November 21, 2025, the Charlottenburg District Court in Berlin opened preliminary insolvency proceedings over Freaks 4U Gaming GmbH and appointed a preliminary administrator whose consent is required for any material disposal of assets, The Esports Advocate reported a week later. NODWIN Gaming, which had invested US$8.7 million for a 13.51% stake in January 2024 and held 61.73% by August 2025 according to the shareholder list, said it would provide no further capital and had written off its investment in full.

The league itself kept going. The Esports Advocate notes that the Prime League continued through the end of its 2025 season in December, after the filing. Two months later, public register data shows onethreefive gaming GmbH being entered for the first time.

The people behind onethreefive gaming

Two names link the old operator and the new one. Michael Haenisch is the managing director of onethreefive gaming, according to public company information cited by The Esports Advocate. He founded Freaks 4U Gaming in 2011 with co-founders and was its chief executive.

Matthias Remmert is listed among the company's authorized representatives and is its chief product officer. He is also the founder of heartbase group and a co-founder of Freaks 4U Gaming, where he was senior vice president of product, television and media production when the license was renewed in 2024. The German scene knows him by the nickname Knochen.

The outlet describes both men as closely associated with Germany's esports production business. Remmert is the one quoted in the announcement. "The Techniker Prime League has tremendous potential," he said, adding that the aim is to unlock it together with the community, the teams and the partners. He also said the league should feel polished and accessible at once, and that success would mean fans feeling part of it instead of only watching.

People inside the league had described the handover before it was announced. In an interview published by Sheep Esports on March 23, the content creator Tolkin, president of the Prime League team G2 NORD, said that a new organization backed by German companies such as Saturn and MediaMarkt was running the league, that many of the same people remained, that it was smaller and that it produced the broadcast offline in Berlin.

The numbers the announcement puts forward

Two figures come with the appointment. The league's ecosystem counts more than 10,000 active players across its divisions. And the average hours watched per match have risen by more than 200% compared with 2025, a gain the announcement places under onethreefive gaming's leadership. Hours watched add up the time all viewers spend on a broadcast. Neither figure comes with a base number or a source outside the announcement.

Part of the audience growth is credited to co-streams, the broadcasts in which a creator shows the official match feed on a personal channel and comments on it. The Esports Advocate names two creators: HandOfBlood and Tolkin. The second told Sheep Esports in March that he broadcasts the big Prime League matches as well as the whole of the LEC, and that he sees more regional interest in promoting the league this season.

The sporting side moved in the same direction. Sheep Esports reported in the same article that all four Prime League teams entered in EMEA Masters Winter 2026 reached its playoff stage, the tournament where the best teams of the regional leagues meet, and that this was a first in the league's history.

A license names who is responsible for a league. In the German-speaking countries, the season had started before the name was published.

Three pillars and a home in Berlin

The plan onethreefive gaming sets out rests on three pillars: closer work with the teams and organizations, more live experiences, and a broader entertainment product around the matches.

The second pillar has an address. XPERION Berlin, a venue brought in through the company's partnership with MediaMarktSaturn, becomes the league's first permanent physical home beyond its seasonal finals, according to The Esports Advocate. Selected match days and special formats may be held there, which the outlet presents as an opening for fan attendance, partner activities and community programs led by the teams.

For the third pillar, the company says it plans to add new talent and rotating guests, and to produce more editorial and entertainment content around the competition.

The list of partners is the commercial base for all of it. Techniker Krankenkasse remains title partner and is also named health partner. The others are Nongshim, MediaMarktSaturn with XPERION, KitKat and DKB. The report gives no amounts for any of them.

Three regional leagues with a new operator

The German-speaking league is not the only one of the thirteen to change hands this season. Riot has named a new operator for at least two others since November.

The northern case is the closest in time, and it has a link with Berlin. Freaks 4U Gaming once ran the Northern League of Legends Championship, the league of the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Nordic countries, and handed it over in November 2023, when it also laid off staff, according to The Esports Advocate. Leagues ApS, the Danish company that went on to run it, said this spring that it was no longer in a position to do so, and the spring split was postponed. On May 12, Riot said GameWaves, the operator of the Benelux league, would lead the NLC in 2026, which it calls a transitional year.

Riot's rules for these leagues have loosened as well. Its November post removed the common requirement that every team field at least two locally trained players and left each league free to develop and apply the guidelines best suited to its own region.

What comes next

The appointment arrives in the middle of the season. On the preliminary calendar Riot published in November for all regional leagues, with a note that dates could vary from one league to another, the spring split runs from March 23 to June 7 and the summer split from June 26 to September 17.

The European stage follows each of them. EMEA Masters Spring is scheduled for June 8 to 25 on the same calendar, and EMEA Masters Summer for September 21 to October 19.

For the Prime League, the first visible effects of the license are the ones onethreefive gaming has listed itself: match days at XPERION Berlin, new faces on the broadcast and more content between the games. The company has given no dates for any of them. The license it now holds ends with the 2027 season, the year in which the license granted to Freaks 4U Gaming would also have expired.

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