This past weekend saw the conclusion of the League of Legends Mid Season Invitational, where China’s Edward Gaming took down Korea’s SK Telecom T1 in a thrilling best of 5 series. While China defeating Korea in a major international event was likely the biggest storyline of the tournament, that’s not what I’d like to discuss here (though it was awesome to witness, just because of the huge implications it had.) What I’d like to discuss is that without MSI, we wouldn’t have been able to see a Chinese defeating a Korean team in a major international event.

This is the first year that Riot Games has hosted MSI, and I feel I can say that the event was, without a doubt, a rousing success. The initial concerns fans had that the event “didn’t mean anything” were quickly swept aside, as it was quite clear that the participating teams took it very seriously. Last year, we had the All-Stars event in the middle of the year, and while it was fun, it wasn’t a true international competition. Riot decided to change that up this year, and MSI was an extremely welcome addition to the League of Legends calendar.

It should never be underestimated what some good, old-fashioned national pride can do to bring excitement to a competition. It’s why people who never care about speed skating, or field hockey, will suddenly have a huge personal stake in who wins and loses every couple years when the Olympics roll around. This is a great feeling for both the fans and competitors, and it provides an extra jolt of electricity throughout the entire event. Riot Games did a fantastic job setting up the event, and I’d like to see more companies follow suit.

For any eSport, the “World Championships” are generally the pinnacle of competition, with the best teams from all over the world duking it out for a trophy, a nice paycheck, the title of “best team in the world,” and yes, some national pride. However, those only come around once a year for any particular game, and this format of introducing a secondary international event for the mid-season was a stroke of genius. It allowed us to crown the “best team in the world right now,” while waiting to hand out the biggest prize until the end of the season. For League, now we have the excitement of waiting to see what Edward Gaming does in the second half of the season, while wondering if SKT can become the first team to win two World Championships.

Even with all of that, perhaps the biggest benefit is exposing fans to teams they may not otherwise be very familiar with. A lot of fans in the West will only watch the LCS, and don’t know much about teams from other regions. It’s safe to say that a majority of those watching MSI didn’t know much about the wild card team Besiktas, but the Turkish organization gained some new fans just for playing their hearts out. It’s this kind of exposure that can help both individual teams, and an entire game as a whole, grow.

Now, I’m not saying that putting together an event like this is a simple matter, because it’s not. It requires a fair bit of investment of both time and money, and for games that are still trying to find their place in the eSports world, that can be a tall task. However, it is just that: an investment. It’s an investment in the future, in helping a game to grow in a way local tournaments simply can’t. It’s creating huge stakes for all involved, even if all that’s on the line is some prize money. When done correctly, it’s hugely beneficial for everyone involved; the company in charge of the game, the teams and players competing, and most of all, the fans.

It’s not easy, but it’s sure worth it. Any company that thinks they might have the means to pull something like this off for the game needs to be looking into it as soon as possible. MSI was something of a test case, but it showed that any international event, even one without everything on the line, is truly a sight to behold.