In the latest episode on BTS’ own variety show Run BTS, the K-pop boy band played League of Legends against South Korean esports team T1.
Besides the rabid ARMY fanbase and their music, BTS have their own web series. Run BTS is a variety show that sees the Bangtan Boys complete challenges related to the weekly theme and being rewarded or punished accordingly.
In the 114th(!) episode of the web series, the septet met up with the League of Legends roster of renowned Korean esports team T1. While the crossover between the world’s biggest (literally and figuratively) boy band and an esports team may seem a little strange from a Western perspective, the episode has already clocked up more than 300 million hearts on V Live (Korea’s YouTube for hosting celebrity content).
Both BTS and T1 have spoken of their admiration of each other. The members of the former have admitted to being fans of T1 and specifically Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok, while T1’s Lee “Effort” Sang-ho previously revealed that he’s a registered member of the official ARMY fanclub. Effort even dyed his hair blue like V, who was proud to hear of this during the episode.
In terms of the challenges completed, the boy band and the esports team played a Korean drinking game (sadly with no drinks), played rock paper scissors with a toy hammer, sang IDOL and Boy With Luv together with incredible passion, and of course, played video games.
Rather than having BTS get smashed by professionals, teams were formed by mixing the members of both groups. The League of Legends session was also modified from a standard 5v5 to the custom game mode “Mundo Dodgeball” instead.
BTS’ collab with T1 is a two-parter, with next week’s episode featuring the teams playing Fall Guys and Gang Beasts. The Bangtan Boys previously debuted a music video for their hit single Dynamite on Fortnite.
Expect to hear a lot of screaming and shouting, particularly of the phrase “Fighting!” Besides this, also look forward to seeing a lot of ARMY playing these games soon afterwards.
