RLCS Finals in Dallas cancelled due to Coronavirus fears

The Rocket league Championship Series Season Nine finals, set to take place in Dallas Texas from April 24th-26th, has been cancelled. The official Rocket League Esports website posted a blog today, revealing that the upcoming world championship has been cancelled. This comes as a huge blow as this RLCS LAN was the first to take place in Central USA, with the event completely selling out in under six hours.

This is not the first esports event to be affected by the spread of the coronavirus, IEM Katowice, the famed CS:GO event had attendees barred from entering by the Polish government, leaving an eerily empty Spodek arena for one of the most famous events on the CS:GO calendar.

The remainder of the RLCS online season is unaffected, all games from league play, the regional championship, the promotion playoffs and all of Rival Series will play out as normal. However, in the interest of safety, the in-studio broadcasts have been cancelled, and the remainder of streams will be done online starting this weekend.

For anyone worrying about refunds, fans that bought tickets to attend the event the ETIX website, a refund will be granted automatically to your card. If you haven’t received a refund by Wednesday, March 11, you can contact ETIX support.. 

While the news is obviously disappointing, the health of the general public should obviously be the priority for everyone. It has also called into question whether the Intel World Open qualifier will go ahead, slated to take place from June 11th-14th in Katowice, which as already stated has already cancelled Esports events. These concerns extend to the IWO finals in Tokyo in late July, or even the Olympic Games as a whole.