Ramón Barrueta, Riot Games and the change of teams in the LLA

Ramon BarruetaEsports Brand Manager of Riot Games Latin America, spoke with ESPN.com where confirmed the expansion of teams in the LLA for 2024referred to VALORANT Challengers on LAN and LASand promised tft events.

Ramón referred to the balance of the first half of the LLA in 2023: “This year we have done better and we are very grateful to the fans for them, they dedicate more and more time to us. We knew the fans wanted these (in-person) events. But for Riot Games it doesn’t end there, we still have a long way to go. If you compare, speaking of numbers, how many people watch esports in LATAM vs. those who watch in the United States, Korea, Brazil, well there is still a way to go. We have many fans and We have a commitment to deliver a better show every day”.

Asked about how to grow those numbers, he said: “Something that is key is that the esports ecosystem in the region has to be more robust.. We do our part by having leagues, informing them and what is helping us more and more is that more people are dedicated to esports. There are more media outlets, more content creators, and this is key for the fan to understand that at the end of the day, what he is doing is going long. We want there to be as many fans as football, basketball, but we know that this takes a lot of time.”.

Faced with speculation of an expansion of teams in the LLA, Barrueta confirmed it: “We still don’t know if next year we are going to go from 8 to 10 or 12 teams. What is a fact is that the sport is evolving and we want both the League and the players to have a stage where they can grow, where they can develop and where the region stands out in the rest of the world.”.

VALORANT: LAS and LAN

He FPS de Riot entered the scene with a strong footing and the Esports Brand Manager focused on development in Latin America: “It is worth it to be divided into LAS and LAN because they have very different ways of playing, the two complement each other. We want the fans to see that they can reach the highest level to represent the region, going down the path of the regional leagues and then Ascension with the possibility of playing on VCT Americas. That’s when a fan’s dream comes true.”

TFT: Team Fight Tactics

He car battler (may also be called auto chess) from Riot, became a resounding success and LATAM players are among the best in the world, as shown year after year in the World Cups. Ramón referred to the future of this scene in the region: “Several things are coming up for TFT. We want people who dedicate time to it to feel that it is an esport that is growing a lot. For a start, we want it to be the most player esport in the worldor” and added: “We want that, if you are at home, but maybe you don’t have the time to dedicate to it like with VALORANT or League of Legends, you know that you also you can reach the international scene with TFT”.

“The first thing we are going to do is support this year’s World Cup from LATAM. There will be more LATAM presence doing broadcasts talking about the game and, above all, supporting the players who are going to represent us. This is the first step and from there, the sport must evolve”, he commented on the immediate future of the game in Latin America.

Finally, Barrueta revealed: “Just as we did with Argentina last year with VCT and how we did this year with the LLA in Chile, we are going to have something like this next year with TFT. The truth is, we are still planning it because the challenge of TFT is that every day there are more players and they are rotating the trend of where the strongest are. That’s why, It is difficult to decide in which country we are going to hold the event, but we are going to bring to LATAM things that we see all over the world”.