Tencent League of Legends Pro League (LPL) (simplified Chinese: 英雄联盟职业联赛; traditional Chinese: 英雄聯盟職業聯賽; pinyin: yīng xióng lián méng zhí yè lián sài) is the top level League of Legends league in China. The first season of the LPL was the 2013 Spring season. The top three finishers of the playoff tournament receive automatic bids to the League of Legends World Championship. Playoffs are an eight team single elimination with each step a best-of-five series. The total prize pool is ¥2,350,000. In 2014 Riot Games began providing an English language broadcast. The format is modeled after the League of Legends Champions Korea format in South Korea. In September 2015 it was announced that Riot Games was in negotiations with Tencent to take over operations of the league.