Author(s)

Shenghao Yuan

Germantown Friends School, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

Esports—video game competitions—has experienced significant worldwide growth over the past decade. Alongside this has been a concomitant rise in academic research focused on this unique digital setting. At the same time, most esports research has placed emphasis on either defining the setting and scope of the industry or analyzing consumer interest and perceptions of esports and related services and activities. From this perspective, the current work advances the research into esports by examining whether changing the tournament design of top-level esports competitions impacts overall team performance. Specifically, using regression analysis of match data from multiple League of Legends World Championships, we find that recent format changes result in more unbalanced matches. The results indicate that tournament design is critical in the development and management of esports and other forms of competitions.

Tournament Theory, Esports, Swiss-Style, Performance

Yuan, S. H. (2024). The Impact of Swiss-Style Tournaments of Esports Team Performance: An Examination of the League of Legends World Championships. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 12, 239-256. doi: 10.4236/jss.2024.1210019.