Rocket League Championship Series facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Rocket League Championship Series
Genre	Rocket League tournament
Location(s)	Various
Years active	2016–present
Inaugurated	Season 1 (2016)
Most recent	2022–23
Participants	Various throughout season World Championship: 16
Organized by	Psyonix (2016–2023) Blast ApS (2024–present)

The Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) is a big yearly tournament for the game Rocket League. It's like the World Cup for Rocket League players! It's put on by Blast ApS and supported by Psyonix, the company that made the game. Teams from all over the world compete online in different stages. They earn points to get into bigger tournaments called Majors and, finally, the Rocket League World Championship. These big events happen live, in person, in different cities around the globe.

History of the RLCS

How RLCS Started

Back in 2016, the game's creators, Psyonix, noticed that lots of people loved watching Rocket League games online. They saw how popular it was on Twitch and YouTube. So, in March 2016, Psyonix announced the very first Rocket League Championship Series.

The first finals happened in June 2016. The winning team, iBUYPOWER Cosmic, took home a prize of $55,000! The second season followed in December 2016. This time, the prize pool was even bigger, at $125,000. FlipSid3 Tactics won that season. By the third season in 2017, the prize pool grew to $300,000. For the first time, teams from the Oceanic region (like Australia and New Zealand) were invited to play.

Growing Bigger

In Season 4, a new division was added called the Rocket League Rival Series (RLRS). This was for teams trying to get into the main RLCS. At the end of each season, the bottom RLCS teams and top RLRS teams would play each other. This decided if teams would move up (get promoted) or move down (get relegated).

By Season 5 in June 2018, Psyonix started running the whole event by themselves. Before this, they had worked with Twitch. Season 6, which started in September 2018, had a huge prize pool of $1,000,000! For Season 7, Psyonix added South America as a new region for teams to compete from.

Changes and New Formats

Season 9's championship in 2020 had to be cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, the winners of the regional championships were named the champions.

In July 2020, Psyonix announced a brand new way the RLCS would work for Season 10, called RLCS X. This new format got rid of the old league play and the RLRS. Instead, teams earned points through three regional "splits." Each split ended with a big seasonal Major tournament.

The 2021–22 season kicked off in October 2021. It brought in four new regions: Middle East and North Africa, Asia Pacific North, Asia Pacific South, and Sub-Saharan Africa. This season had a massive $6 million prize pool! The competition was set up with three splits. Each split had three regional events and one international Major tournament. The season ended with a World Championship. Team BDS won this exciting season.

For the 2022–23 season, the Asia Pacific North and South regions were combined. The point system was changed, and regional events were named the Open, Cup, and Invitational. Team Vitality won this season, beating Team BDS in the grand finals. They had an amazing run, winning every event in the Spring split!

The Future of RLCS

After the 2022-23 season, there was a longer break than usual. The 13th season of the RLCS didn't start until January 26, 2024. The 2024 season also brought new changes to how teams qualify. Now, there are three open qualifying stages for each region. These stages include different types of tournaments, like double-elimination brackets and Swiss-system tournaments. Teams earn RLCS points at each stage. The top teams then go to that split's Major tournament, where they can earn even more points. All these points add up to decide who gets to play in the World Championship. The World Championship itself will be smaller, with 16 teams instead of 24.

On January 4, 2024, it was announced that Blast ApS would take over organizing the RLCS from Psyonix. Blast ApS is a company known for running other big esports tournaments, like the Blast Premier for Counter-Strike.

RLCS Seasons