The Rocket League Season Nine World Championship has been cancelled due to the rapidly escalating COVID-19 (coronavirus) crisis.

Due to be held in Dallas, Texas, from 24-16 April, organisers have cancelled the event due to “worldwide health concerns surrounding the developing situation around the coronavirus (COVID-19).”

Though many esports events across Asia have already been cancelled or postponed due to the virus emergency, the Rocket League World Championship is the first major North American esports event to be axed.

The developer has said all fans who purchased tickets and parking passes will receive full refunds by 11 March, and the in-game Wheel made available to ticket holders will be sent via email code.

For the remainder of the season teams will play online-only, away from the studio, and revised plans for the World Championship will be announced at a later date.

Rocket League is also scheduled to be featured in the Intel World Open, set to take place immediately prior to the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan. At the time of writing, organisers maintained they had no plans to postpone or cancel the Olympics.

AYO.NEWS says:

With confirmed case numbers of infected now exploding across the world, including in Europe and North America, and air travel collapsing worldwide, it seems certain we’ll see many more events cancelled or postponed indefinitely. As for the Summer Games in Japan… we’d put money on them being postponed or cancelled.

Earlier this week we reported that both the G2E Asia gaming show and Paris Blockchain Week Summit have been postponed due to the rapidly evolving crisis.

AYO.NEWS says features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited.

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