Another unexpected delay has plagued professional League of Legends, this time affecting more than just the viewing experience.
Today, the LCS broadcast said that all of today's games have been pushed back an hour due to an ongoing hardware issue, beginning with the opening match between Cloud9 and FlyQuest. This issue appears to be unable to be resolved in a timely manner without disrupting today's scheduled matches, therefore all teams will be returning to their facilities to play remotely.
Riot Games told Dot Esports that the LCS broadcast would continue as planned, with casting during the matches and post-game analysis. However, Riot also explained that these issues had remained constant throughout the day and forced the broadcast to make a last-minute alteration.
Riot said his team was going through their usual pre-match day production checks when this happened around 10:30am PT, and he has been avoiding delaying the broadcast too long as they work through the issue.
Fans who are present for today's games will be automatically refunded, although they should wait for further information from the Riot Games Arena to complete the process. For those who are out of town, the League Lounge featuring Emily Rand, Jatt, Markz, and Raz will continue analysis until the start of the next hour, when today's delayed games will begin.
The LCS expects fans and players to be welcomed back to the arena for next week's matches, although no specific timeline on how to resolve the issues was given.