Australia and New Zealand are firmly part of the civilised, developed world. That much is a given. But when it comes to their technological connectivity, they're often left in the cold. Netflix still isn't officially supported there, content is hard to come by without a VPN and games are often restricted by an overly zealous ratings board.
It also hasn't had its own official League of Legends competitive scene, until now. Riot Games has just announced that beginning today, a new league will be born, giving teams from Australia, New Zealand and the Malaysian Islands a chance to compete head to head for cash prizes.
The new Oceania Pro League will feature eight teams from the region, pitting them head to head over the next seven weeks to see who's the best. The winners will take home $64,000 AUS ($50,000 USD) with the rest of the teams receiving $32,000 between them.
The bottom three teams after everyone has played one another, will be relegated, with new teams given a chance to take part in the league next year. For the top placed team however, they'll be heading to the Turkey for the International Wildcard Invitation in April to see how they compete on the world stage.
While it seems unlikely that the Oceania region is about to put out the world's best players, hardly having much of a grounding for Esports, Riot says that it hopes one day Australia and New Zealand can step up and provide some solid competition for their worldwide opponents.
[Cheers PCG]
