Priya Venkatesh has been following the money in esports since before brand deals were considered legitimate marketing. She got pulled into the scene through competitive fighting games and eventually found herself more interested in the contracts and partnerships behind the tournaments than the matches themselves. These days she focuses on how brands navigate esports sponsorships, where the smart money is going, and which deals are actually built to last versus the ones that look good in a press release.
Team Vitality is pausing its LFL activities and closing Vitality.Bee, making it the second French organisation in three days to step back as the league’s 2027 operator remains unannounced.
Vitality said on October 9 that the move is a pause rather than a permanent departure. Vitality.Bee has competed in the Ligue Française de League of Legends since the competition launched in 2019.
The announcement followed Ici Japon Corp Esport ‘s October 7 decision to cease operations at the end of 2026. The club joined the LFL in 2025; Esports Advocate, citing Sheep Esports, reported that uncertainty around the league’s future was among the factors behind its decision.
The two announcements add to pressure on the French competition as teams plan for next season. Joblife ended its League of Legends division in September, before the October announcements.
According to Sheep Esports reporting cited by Esports Advocate, only five of the 10 LEC organisations still field teams in regional leagues. That figure reflects a wider pullback from academy operations, even as the regional circuit remains a development route for players aiming to reach the top flight.
Sheep Esports reported on August 19, citing sources, that Webedia would stop organising the LFL from 2027. The operator had been involved since the league’s creation, but neither Webedia nor Riot had publicly confirmed the change, Esports Advocate reported.
New Esports Org (NEO), which has taken over other competitions from Webedia, told The Esports Radar it was in talks with Riot and French stakeholders, but had not planned to invest in the LFL and no decision had been made. The league also held no in-person event in 2026, according to Sheep Esports reporting cited by Esports Advocate.
The uncertainty comes alongside other format decisions in Riot’s ecosystem. The LEC’s 2027 format will not include LEC Versus, while the competition is set to return to its classic 10-team structure. The current three-year licensing cycle with 13 regional league organisers runs through 2027, according to Sheep Esports.
The LFL’s 2027 operator, format and team count remain unknown. It is also unclear whether Riot will fund the competition directly during the transition or what it will cost organisations to field a team.
The immediate question for clubs and sponsors is whether a replacement operator will be named before French organisations complete their 2027 budgets. Until then, the league’s stakeholders face limited certainty over the structure and commercial arrangements they will be planning around.