MarkZ on his vision for success of the LTA: "I would like them to go like 'damn, that was hype as hell!'"
We're now only days away from the start of the inaugural LTA season. Though the process has been long, and not without it's challenges, Split 1 of the North and South Conferences will finally show fans exactly what they can expect from the new league and format.
Prior to the start of the season, Mark Zimmerman (MarkZ), commissioner of the LTA, sat down with Strafe Esports for an exclusive interview. Among the several topics of discussion, MarkZ spoke of the direction of the LTA, the future of the region, and what he sees success looking like for the first season of the new league.
Having formed a part of the LCS team for numerous years, MarkZ is devoted to the region, as well as to its fans, and is committed to seeing the new and innovative league succeed in giving viewers a spectacle to behold.
After being a part of the LCS talent team for several years, MarkZ became commissioner of the league in 2023. (Credit: Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)*The following interview has been edited slightly for clarity and length.
[Strafe] To start off, I'd like to ask how closely the two conferences will work together moving forward outside of cross-conference events.
"So, there's the obvious overlap moments where we compete against each other, and then obviously the LTA as an overarching brand will be what represents us on the international stage. But on a week-to-week level, myself and the LTA South teams working at Riot and stuff, we are step and step every single part of the journey. So, if we're doing an activation up here, we're making content up here, what's going on in the South? Is there opportunities to share this stuff and combine together, or is it more like a conference-specific thing, or even a language-specific thing? We're constantly checking, we want feature parity as much as we can have it across the product.
We talked about the LTA Fantasy coming, that's something that's for both conferences. So, we're working together to make sure that it makes sense for both of our audiences, and that we have an experience that makes sense, given that these things can take on different forms in different regions and communities. So, we're always checking to make sure that this is something that makes sense for both.
And where it doesn't, that's where we can break parity. And that's kind of our approach for everything, and we're not going to get it perfect all the time, but that's our general philosophy."
[Strafe] Next year promises to be a very exciting year for the Americas, with First Stand set to take place in Brazil, and Worlds in North America. Do you expect to run into any challenges for what's going to be such a loaded year in 2026 for the region, only a year after the inauguration of the LTA?
"I'm more excited than worried, I guess I would say. I think it's super cool that the Americas are going to host three of the next six international tournaments. We have MSI this year (2025), First Stand next year (2026), and Worlds next year (2026).
And so, we'll also then have all three of the international events across the year as well. So, you get to see all three levels of scope as they kind of ramp up. I think it's really cool for fans of the Americas to get these different opportunities to see things in person and see how they kind of scale up over time.
So, I think it's really cool. I do think it is, like you said, it's something where we're going to have to make sure that on the LTA side, I think our responsibility, if anything, is to make sure that the local communities are really engaged in esports already. We're kind of setting the stage, in a sense, of making sure that the North American audience is super excited, the Brazilian audience is super excited.
So, when we host these events, it's really easy for the global teams to tap into the region. And I think that's, if anything, the biggest responsibility we have is to make sure that the LTA succeeds on its own, right? So, that way, when global events start showing up and popping up, they're already really, really excited."
[Strafe] Given that teams from the LTA South will represent the competition for teams from the LTA North down the line, do you expect to see an increase in viewership for South American League of Legends from North American fans?
"I hope so. And I think it will be the case. We had the America's Tier 2 event. I'm not quite sure if you followed that, but we had the top teams from Tier 2 in NACL go down to Brazil to compete against the top teams from the LLA and CBLOL academies. And it was really hype. It was really, really cool. And I think it showed that there is this kind of interest.
You know, a lot of Tier 2 viewers are some of the most diehard that there are if you're watching Tier 2 League of Legends. And we saw already that some of the NA fans were like, "whoa, we thought we'd go in there and crush them." We thought that they had this perception of how the competition was going to go, and it didn't go that way.
And now as we gear up on the Tier 1 stage to do something similar, it's kind of repeating the process, I think. But you have the kind of hardcore fans who did watch that moment and go, "whoa, we should be more careful as we go into the South and get ready for that competition." And I think maybe for opening weekend, we're really focused on activating the local audiences and gearing them up for the cross-conference competition.
But I expect once you start having these clashes, interviews, cross-conference content and all these things to start getting people more and more invested in the other storylines that will deepen on the North American side as well, watching the South American teams. Probably be the case."
PaiN Gaming Academy, from Brazil, surprised North American teams to win the Americas Challengers 2024 tournament. (Credit: Riot Games)[Strafe] What do you personally envision success looking like for the inaugural season of the LTA?
"First season, a couple of key things for success, which is to take the communities that existed and bring them with us into the new year with the new product.
I think, like we kind of talked about at the beginning, with the amount of changes that happened, we want to make sure that people, as they get into the year, are feeling good about them. And not that if you had your favorite team and they're not here anymore, that's understandable. But at some point in the year, we want you attached to a new team or just to the leagues and these sorts of things and bring them into the new year with us, retain viewership, make sure that fan sentiment and satisfaction stays high across the year.
And we have metrics to track these sorts of things and make sure that we are able to preserve both that satisfaction level and the viewership level and then begin to see some of that crossover. We definitely want to see more of it. We saw that they were going the right direction in previous years, and now that we've officially combined as the LTA, see even more of that.
I think those are kind of the two key ones, is to see more crossover, as well as making sure that all the fans are happy and start reaching out from there to newer fans and newer people who have maybe heard of esports or the LTA or the LCS or these former brands and make sure that they check out the LTA."
[Strafe] If you could pick one thing that you wanted fans to take away from the LTA, what would that be?
"If I was going to pick one thing that a fan was saying at the end, I think I would like them to walk away from the LTA season going like, “damn, that was hype as hell!”
When you had these sorts of cross-conference moments, when you got excited, when you saw the two communities and fan bases cheering against each other and repping their teams. I think that would be eye in the sky, best, best moments."
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