Amazon is celebrating Prime Day by hosting a major League of Legends grudge match between Internet icons MrBeast and Ninja. Content creators MrBeast and Ninja have built their reputations upon YouTube and Twitch, respectively, with both creators attaining tremendous success in their online careers. Both internet celebrities are also notable fans of Riot Games' immensely popular MOBA, League of Legends.
Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson and Tyler “Ninja” Blevins are currently two of the biggest names in content creation. MrBeast’s YouTube channel hosts a wide variety of content such as game streams, reactions, and most notably, participating in outrageous stunts and hosting challenges for other participants who win equally outrageous prizes. Professional Twitch Streamer Ninja is one of the most famous streamers in gaming, growing from the earliest days of Let’s Plays to the heights of the #1 most viewed channel on Twitch and the first professional gamer ever to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Prime Gaming has revealed that in honor of this year’s Prime Day, Amazon’s annual site-wide sale day, Amazon’s Crown Channel will be hosting a special event known as Ultimate Crown, a live League of Legends bout between MrBeast and Ninja. In the past few weeks, the internet personalities have engaged in a bit of a social media spat regarding League of Legends over Twitter. Notable statements include MrBeast claiming that Ninja “sucks," and Ninja retorting that he would “literally dominate [MrBeast] in a League of Legends match, and it wouldn’t even be close.” The recent social media feud will culminate in a best-of-three matches League of Legends series with MrBeast and Ninja helming a team of five players to compete for a $150,000 cash prize and the ultimate bragging rights. Ultimate Crown will be held live at the HyperX Esports Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday, July 9 at 4 p.m. (PDT) and broadcast worldwide via Amazon’s Crown Channel on Twitch and simulcast on Prime Video. The event is scheduled for a three-hour runtime but with room for overrun.
As this is an Amazon-hosted event, Amazon is preparing to offer its Prime members a chance to attend the Ultimate Crown event live, as well as offer Prime members and Twitch viewers several giveaways. In addition, Amazon is also planning to offer Twitch viewers the opportunity to support their favorite champion with custom emotes that could influence the matches in real-time. More details about the event including the identities of the competing teammates, live ticket sales, giveaways, and how the custom emotes will play a part in the match, will be revealed in the coming days.
Though League of Legends has been around for over 10 years, the amount of strides it has taken in the last year alone is quite impressive. League became an educational subject in South Korean high schools, while developer Riot games helped promote female diversity in esports with its Game Changers program. League of Legends would cap off the year by entering into talks to potentially become an Olympic event. Now, as the featured game of Amazon’s Ultimate Crown, League of Legends has claimed another milestone in its already influential lifespan.
Amazon’s Ultimate Crown is poised to become one of the biggest live events in esports. Between the two, MrBeast and Ninja have an established audience numbering millions, and with Amazon promoting this League of Legends grudge match akin to a world-class title fight, Ultimate Crown may lend a further sense of mainstream legitimacy to esports. At the very least, Ultimate Crown will hopefully prove that, unlike Black Friday, Prime Day can sponsor a fight during a big sale and not have anyone get hurt.
Sources: Prime Gaming, YouTube/Crown Channel, Twitter/MrBeast, Twitter/Ninja