Keyboard warriors: a night at the Superbowl of esports

The O2 arena sold out in a Glastonbury-esque frenzy, with resale tickets going for up to 1,000 online. All this for the chance to watch people play a desktop game on a jumbo screen? Annabel Nugent went to see what the big deal is

- Annabel Nugent

It is the Super Bowl of esports, I'm told. A sentiment that means little to me but a lot to the 180 million people who play League of Legends, a phenomenally popular desktop game that might not have yet punctured the British mainstream in quite the same way as Fortnite or Call of Duty, but means a lot to the men between the ages of 15 and 25 that make up the majority of its players.

Not that apathy is an emotion you’d detect anywhere in the crowd gathered outside the very sold-out Wembley stadium this afternoon. It’s the first time the League of Legends finals – an annual event and the culmination of a multi-stage tournament that began this summer in Berlin – have been held in the UK, and tickets sold out in a Glastonbury-esque frenzy. Resellers were looking for up to £1,000 for a ticket that might’ve run them £60; a group of Chinese students sitting in the row behind me (one studying at Durham; three at Bristol) paid £500 for the nosebleed section. Everyone, though, is thrilled to be here. Palpably so. And not because Linkin Park is performing.

As is the case at most esporting events, there is an element of flamboyant dress-up, with many attendees dressed as their favourite characters – or champions, as is the correct terminology. The ones who go all-out are mainly the women (of which there are more in attendance than I thought). One twentysomething in a blue wig and a makeshift skirt of nine fluffy tails tells me she’s dressed as Ahri, a hot fox-human hybrid. The men, meanwhile, wear jerseys of their favourite players, often completing the look with a fuzzy green bucket hat in homage to another character, Teemo. “He’s cute,” one such dressed man offers by way of explanation.