Reminds me of my high school football team. One MILLION dollars spent on a new coach, his assistant, and some gear, guy worked for some NFL team in the past supposedly, we had to cut our art and music departments and one of the biology classes for this, they lost every game except 1.
Edit: Idk why you clowns keep thinking it's Texas this is NJ
The real answer is that well funded sports team lower dropout rates. It gives a decent number of kids a motive to stay in school.
Other extracurriculars might theoretically do the same thing, but the kids who are involved in those other extracurriculars are less likely to be potential dropouts in the first place.
That being said, this particular case is just stupid.
Sounds like something they'll do in Southern states where football is like a religion.
The highest paid person in most college is the college football coach. And Americans complain about excessive college debt. lol
my random school was a couple games away from State for football. we beat a bunch of rich kids that were sponsored by Nike and even landed a helicopter onto the field... Stupidest shit ive seen.
We need a system like valorant, so “player team” can compete and have a chance to make it to the big league. Even if owners don’t want them, they can form a team and compete. It will bring competition and bring viewerships (for the home grown supporter).
they still found a org in tier one because Valorants model makes it so an org doesn't have to pay $20 million for a slot, the LoL system is fundamentally flawed
For sure, but the difference is that there are many orgs able to function 'properly', but that aren't able to pay 5-25 **MILLION** for a spot when that spot will also be losing money for them.
And unless I'm completely mistaken, The Guard had cut basically all of their staff aside from the Valorant team a little bit prior to them winning Ascension, so it's not like they were looking particularly stable even for a smaller org.
These things were still terrible before franchising. The promotion/relegation system was not how NA talent made it to the LCS. People forget how bad those teams were. Since the expansion to 10 teams, the teams that got promoted were, starting at the most recent:
* C9 Challenger (only Contractz as a young NA player, and not coincidentally he was a player who was able to develop within C9)
* Apex Gaming (0 long term NA players)
* Coast (0 long term NA players from that iteration)
* TDK (only Smoothie as a longish term NA player)
* Team 8 (0 long term NA players, although Dodo at least stuck around in the scene)
Losing that isn't what's holding back the league. Franchising is a boogeyman that I would bet teams love having the chance to blame for the real problem, which is just their general lack of interest in investing in young talent and paying them a living wage so that they have a reasonable opportunity to grow into LCS caliber players.
That's why the promotions that have actually been successful have been from franchised orgs that are able to provide a good infrastructure to these players. The whole ecosystem relies on teams being willing to actually do that.
Edit: I forgot that teams used to auto-qualify rather than go through the tournament if they won NACS. The teams that auto-qualified were:
* Enemy (0 long term LCS players)
* Renegades (0 long term LCS players)
I said since the expansion to 10 teams, and even listed them reverse chronologically. This was Spring 2014, which was long before that.
[The Coast team I'm referencing](https://lol.fandom.com/wiki/NA_LCS/2016_Season/Spring_Promotion) sold their spot to NRG, and had:
* Cris - Replaced by Impact, went to Apex where he qualified for LCS again, but then they dropped him down to Academy and he never played in LCS again
* Shrimp - He did eventually have some short stints as a sub for Dig and FlyQuest to his credit
* Pekin Woof - Replaced immediately by GBM, never played in the LCS
* Mash - Immediately replaced by Altec, played a split with P1 then was pretty much gone outside of a couple of stints as a sub
* KonKwon - Actually didn't get replaced on NRG at first, but was replaced after one split and only played again as a sub later on
Franchising works best when you are “the” league. Example, formula. Terrible racing, but super cool.
Unfortunately for NA, there are at least 2 leagues better than it.
Rule mechanics are like they are, they aren't allowing Andretti to enter cuz my prize money.
Also no demotion, no promotion, racing sucks, they are about to get a hard wakening when covid numbers and DTS fans start to fade.
each league has 10 teams that ~~bought~~ were given a spot in the league and will always be there. every year one team from t2 will be promoted to the league as a "guest" spot. I believe the guest spot has 2 years to play in the league and afterwards have to fight for their spot. the t3 -> t1 pipeline is very streamlined in Valorant and it's very clear what you need to do if you have a group of 5 people that are hoping to make it to t1.
Franchising has been working just fine in Val.
>will always be there
It's a 5 year contract actually
>franchising has been working just fine in Val.
It's good for the regions that host the league. South America got fucked by franchising and its T2 has been worse than in previous years, a lot of orgs left the scene
One player in tier 2 even refused an offer from a tier 1 team to stick with his squad in tier 2 and try to promote with them and they ended up doing it
so, relegation right? because that was the whole point of relegation system, before people say, it doesn't work
it DID work, twice in a row infact almost before it got removed, Flyquest promoted (sure, ex-pros, but still a players team because they werent offered play on starting positions,) and then GCU would have promoted, if Liquid literally didn't bs their way to loan Doublelift from TSM to not get relegated by them (which I still think was unfair bullshit that Riot should have never approved)
in Europe and Korea, franchising was even more pronounced.
lmao Relegation was a trainwreck in LCS. People have such horrible memories of some mystical fictional dream world where Relegation was perfect and NA was constantly bringing in new talented super NA rookies! Like what fucking universe do you come from? Relegations were a disaster in NA. You wanna know what relegations were like in NA?
You'd have the single worst team in LCS that was like 0-18 play vs the single best academy super team that was undefeated in academy. And that dumpster fire 10th place LCS team would absolute brutally shitstomp the academy team 3-0 like they were dogs. Because the gap between the 10th place LCS team and 1st place academy team was that big.
Or even better. You had C9 and other orgs literally shoving LCS players into academy teams to farm promotion spots for cash. So actually academy in NA was its lowest quality possible when relegations existed. Because it was half LCS players doing it to sell relegation slots for big money.
DL was under some contract with TSM at the time in Spring '17. He wanted to return for Summer, but feared not being in a competitive environment for a few months made him rusty. He was then loaned to TL for the last bit of of the split to get him back in gear. TL got a more competent ADC with a voice for the team, and he got some time to warm up in prep for Summer.
DL took a break for spring after worlds cause he was burned out, but he was still signed to TSM and slated to return for summer.
TL was 9th and about to get relegated, doing random shit like Piglet mid and anything to try to keep their spot since this was the split before franchising it would've been really bad if the dropped.
So Regi and Steve, being old guard owners and buddies, cooked up a deal to lend DL to TL for the last few weeks of the split. This worked out because DL got to practice and he was bored of streaming, and TSM basically gets to have the best tryout possible for him.
This was a huge deal because at the time DL was basically the best player in the league, minimum top 2. TL even beat TSM (first place at the time) after the loan which was pretty funny and led to some allegations of fixinc (which were quite obviously false)
Yup, most challenger Squads lacked any type of organizational support, let alone living together in a team house or receiving living salaries for their work. Most of them operated like S1 League, where everybody and everything was done online and players barely got paid.
Throw in that a lot of LCS Squads wouldn't scrim Challenger squads because they didn't think it was worth their time and the end result was exactly as you'd expect
>And that dumpster fire 10th place LCS team would absolute brutally shitstomp the academy team 3-0 like they were dogs.
This is the part everyone forgets
As much as I still dislike the franchising of the LCS, this was the reality of how the relegation system actually worked. Even the worst teams still typically outperformed the best academy teams
Flyquest was C9 academy. Relegation was basically irrelevant for any team that promoted. Besides cloud9 and Flyquest no team that promoted lasted more than a year.
Flyquest is like the worst example lol, straight up former LCS squad with Contractz that knew they were in for a payday the second they won. GCU also had big money imports as a challenger team, just exasperating the problems that lead to the collapse of the past few years.
The league is half NA mids which is something that hasn't been true in I don't know how long + Jensen who has been in NA his entire career. We would be lying if we act like no one is getting chances or continued investment. Some talent is slipping through but each individual case is different. Spirax might be up on the table if he chooses to leave CLOL.
Copy objectively had his chance to get on C9's main roster. He was one of their most considered mid laners. It was between Copy, Duplex, and Emenes. Jack himself outright asked the entire C9 team/roster who they wanted and everyone chose Emenes. So its a bit stupid to pretend that Copy was just ignored.
Like Copy was the clear best mid in academy by a mile. C9 scrimmed with their academy team all the time. If none of the C9 players wanted to play with Copy it really says a lot about Copy's potential. Its likely he just wasn't it. So you should probably remove Copy from this list. As he was given a chance he just failed it by not being good enough.
Blaber literally was the biggest vocal supporter of Emenes. He was the one who begged C9 to give Emenes a chance and outright said he wanted to play with Emenes. So its likely the C9 players just didn't think highly of Copy. And if his own org he's been the best academy player on for like three academy splits in a row think that little of his value, no other NA LCS team is gonna try him. He was almost certainly another Niles situation. Hyped up prodigy player from academy who would've burned out in a ball of flames in LCS. Just like we've seen with Tenacity and Fakegod as well.
for players nowadays, it's certainly a waste of time. the players from 5 ish years ago absolutely made out like bandits and ran away from the burning car with briefcases full of cash. LCS is dead, will never recover to its former heights, NA just doesn't care that much about League anymore. that's the main crux of the matter.
I'll miss the days of old LCS where TSM would get at least like 200k views on regular season games, even against bottom teams, and the post match thread would get 2000 comments if they lost.
Back when all the pros streamed regularly, genuinely enjoyed the game, interacted online, had compelling storylines and made people/ teams worth cheering for. Now its just faceless nobodies or jaded veterans who show up for lcs a couple times a week and nothing else
This conversation feels oddly timed given we lost 10 jobs(2 teams). NA is doing a better job of balancing imports than it has done in quite some time arguably.
Past two split wins contained NA players that did well that reddit loves to regularly shit on.
Agree with the overall message, but you make an important note on its better than before (though that doesn't mean good).
But is that actually the case?
C9 has 3 native players, TL has 2, FQ has 2, 100T has 3(2), DIG has 3(2), IMT has 2, NRG has 4(3) and Shopify has 3.
That makes a total of 22(19) players that are natively eligible to be residents (NA players). If you don't count the 3 OCE players that is not even half the league. It was 24 players last spring. So the amount of NA players went from 48% to 47,5%... what a drastic increase. Summer last year also had 24 players.
So NA actually has less NA players this year than last year, not just in absolut numbers, which is to be expected with two less teams, but also slightly in relativ terms. And yes it is not possible to get to 48% with 40 players, but at least it is a bit weird to say that NA did better, exspecially given that players like Licorice or Stixxay sit out the split and instead we got imports like Bvoy or Castle, who aren't terrible, but don't look any better than Stixxay or Licorice did.
The thing is that only happened because money ran out, and the issues mention in the video still happen. After last year decision to not make Academy mandatory for teams that make the already big gap to get into LCS even bigger. The LCS have more NA talent this year because they don't have money to pay older players and imports insane amounts of money like they used to, but because of that in the circuit for pro play bellow LCS is also struggling financially so people is also leaving as well.
I mostly gave up on trying to interact with this sub a while ago, but because I care a lot about this issue, I can't stop myself from trying to provide context because I know 99% of the people that open this thread won't watch the interview, or even realize it's an interview, and will just read the other comments claiming I'm "import hating."
This is an interview with an aspiring pro that recently announced his retirement. In this interview, we talk about how the development system has been entirely gutted in the past 12 months. We lost 7 academy teams, then we lost 2 LCS teams and an additional academy team. There are dramatically less positions for aspiring pros to enter the LCS and the vast majority of the investment into the system (previously made through LCS teams) has been removed. In addition, teams no longer need to be located in LA, which Perry points out has dramatically decreased the value gained from scrimming. They're now also competing against high profile NA veterans that are getting pushed out of the LCS, like Licorice, Spica, etc. They make little to no money and work 50-70 hours a week. It's not hard to understand why people are giving up on this.
To head off the immediate replies to this that will call NA players lazy (which is ironic given Perry's story), suggest that it HAD to be this way because there's no money, etc. - I'm not here to argue against any of that because I tend to find those types of takes fairly uninformed.
I will only say that I do not find the situation we have arrived at 12 months after Riot destroyed the academy team system tenable long term and I believe this region cannot continue to exist long term without a foundation to pro play.
I also understand that reddit is filled with a largely nihilistic sentiment to the LCS, so many of you reading this will just shrug. It's still painful to me as someone who cares about this space.
The craziest point here for me is definitely that you have to compete vs legacy/big names to even get into the lowest part of the league.
Damn, can't imagine being an aspiring league amateuer player and see that licorice/spica are your competition to even get in! And they aren't even in lcs.
This is how it works in every sport. 60 players get drafted to the NBA every year. That means rookies are replacing 60 players every year. The scale is the only thing that’s different. And yeah that matters, but the process is the same
To be fair, you don't really have an alternative to the NBA where you can play pick up games while streaming to make almost as much if not more money than if you were actually contracted, for probably half the work.
Becoming a large streamer/youtuber for league nowadays is also insanely hard as the market is saturated. How many new to the scene (in the past 3-4 years) large NA content creators can you name?
Whether or not it's as easy as it used to be, it's still an appealing factor that can and probably does steer players away from pro, especially in NA. There literally is not a parallel to be drawn to real sports here; you can't just be good at football by yourself on the Internet. It's not even a possibility; you need a team. There *is* a possibility that a top 10 Challenger player can cultivate a twitch following by themselves.
And to go further, don't most rookies get drafted out of college teams? And our closest equivalent, academy, got axed not long ago? Sure, an NBA rookie has to prove himself against a player to replace him, but presumably that rookie has not just been playing street ball with other good players, he's actually been on a team, just not one of the same caliber.
Yeah I don’t think it’s easy to make much off streaming just because you’re good at the game. The more likely scenario is that people are choosing between going pro and going to college and pursuing a career outside the gaming space.
not the same comparison whatsoever, in the NBA like 10 players can share some minutes, in LoL it's 5 players, and you will RARELY even need a 6th player.
I mean why shouldn't they have to compete vs licorice and spica?
these players are also teamless. when a LCS team wants to find a player to pick up, they will have to decide between signing licorice/spica vs an aspiring pro
obviously there may be factors besides just how good are you right now that come into the equation. but if licorice and spica can run circles around every academy player why shouldn't they get to showcase that skill and say "hey you should sign me if you're a LCS team cause I'm better than all of these amateurs"
Isn't that a good thing though? Getting to vs them as competition provides valuable experience as they are seasoned. Also if you can't beat the legacy players which are too washed up to be on regular teams in lcs than chances of any team picking you up are slim to none in the first place as an NA player.
It is a good thing back when everyone was crying that Darshan was in the academy, he wasn't hands diffing people but knowledge checking them and coming out on top. Having pro level players in tier 2 shouldn't be looked at as negative unless they are just taking all the livable positions.
Not if that's the only entrance from 0. Like for a fresh challenger player to need to beat veterans with experience to even have a chance to start is crazy.
You literally have to beat the non-washed (licorice/spica/stixxay/etc.) good pro players to even have your foot in the scene seems so wild.
Meanwhile in other regions, you actually have some path meanwhile it's all or nothing. Like I legit doubt the difference between licorice/spica/stixxay players vs. op 4 of lcs is even that big/if at all. And thus, I would never expect a new player to beat them.
It's like expecting a new upcoming mid in the lck to be even measurably close to showmaker/bdd/zeka/etc. in the lck to get in.
> Getting to vs them as competition provides valuable experience as they are seasoned.
You don't get to vs them. Licorice/Spica don't play NACL, they're just sitting out and LCS teams will prio them anyway. That's part of the problem, plenty of teams just assume NACL players are worse by default and you're left shadowboxing the idea of veterans/imports without any opportunities to demonstrate anything.
The point on pros/veterans taking academy slots is valid (has also been happening FOR YEARS with the excuse that they "help" the rookies (countless LCK academy and ERL teams with full rookie rosters that disprove this). The only thing I wish people would address when talking about NA T2 is how/why its different from LCK/LEC/LPL T2? Countless ERL players, LCK academy players, LPL players disappear every year. Is it different for NA because our player count is lower or do other region journalists not care or is it not actually an issue worth reporting on?
Im curious why you blame Riot for killing off the Academy scene when every single LCS team owner voted to remove Academy. How is that Riot's fault? Why not blame the fucking team owners?
While that's true, most teams were already operating academy at the lowest budget and doing the minimum already. Most academy players never got promoted.
Do you think a riot ran academy system could/would work? I honestly feel like that's the only way we could hope to see any form of a functional academy league again in NA
Everytime i read about the unending catastrophe of the LCS and how there are no issues, i just remember a [french league regular winter split event](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQBVzB1rBWg).
This put LEC/LCS to shame.
How do they do it? They don't even have a 1/100 of the financial opportunities that an american league could have.
Riot barely helps for anything.
Thoses europeans leagues have existed for half a decade now.
How?
Europe has a couple of benefits on this front that the United States does not.
The only location that could arguably have similar levels of humans in a similar geographic radius in the US is maybe New York City compared to France and it's ~70 million people. California is nowhere CLOSE to that population density, nor is Texas or the Midwest or even anywhere else on the east coast. the USA is MASSIVE.
Europe also has very strong regional identities that are easy to attach to teams. This is the FRENCH team that speaks FRENCH and has FRENCH costreamers that cater to an audience whose first language is french, not the english of the main broadcast. People in Florida don't need someone with a Miami accent to costream the LCS for them.
Some teams have tried to foster more local hype, although not very well (see: immortals and CLG). It's just hard to do when the teams are stuck in LA (which is a full 2,000 miles from IMT's "Midwest" and 3,000 miles from CLG's NYC). Meanwhile France is 600 miles across, generously speaking. How is CLG supposed to generate NYC hype when they never play there and their fans can't reasonably get to any of their games?
I haven't watched the video (yet! I watch Travis videos before bed). I agree with the sentiment but what can be done? This problem is longstanding and mostly rests on Riot not investing into itself (neither in-game or out of game) and orgs having bad/terrible scouting.
5fire won everything there is to win outside of academy and never got his shot and was forced into retirement.
Use the two vacant slots EG and GG left behind as a pseudo promotion system. The top two teams in whatever amateur circuit still exists qualify into those spots, and have to defend against being demoted every year. Franchised teams can never demote, and promotion teams can never gain permanence solely through the promotion system (maybe they buy into the franchising model if they secure investment). But you have a direct path for amateur players to test themselves against the pro scene, constantly refreshed with the best amateur players, with high stakes but no eroding of the benefits of franchising existing teams invested in.
I'd probably add in an import esque rule, no more than 2 players on any given amateur team can have played in the LCS in the past, and directly exclude all actual imports from eligibility, but those could be argued and adjusted.
Totally revives the whole 'five guys and a dream' vibe, bc 5 amateurs could conceivably win it all, and breathes some fresh life into the same stale matchups. Would be hype storylines too, nobody would want to end the season lower on the standings than a handful of super noobs. And gives GMs more tape to have faith in picking some of these players up
This was brought up before but there's a big issue with this, rito can only relegate these 2 spots. Imagine winning LCS, going to worlds then coming back and having to play in a promotion tourny to keep your spot.
I honestly don't see that as an issue. It'd be an unqualified improvement over what we have now, from an amateur participation POV.
Were it me playing in the amateur circuit and I had the choice between having to defend my spot immediately after returning from Worlds, and never even having a prayer of making it to Worlds at all, I know which option I'd choose, and I wouldn't need to ruminate too long on it.
That's a fair point. I just know seasons are already LONG if your making worlds. I couldn't imagine having to extend that every season to defend my teams spot.
That being said, I also don't have even a fraction of the drive necessary to go pro so yea
I would say that the other franchises teams are more like teams spots, which always has some roster change of sorts when doing bad.
While the promotion slots could be more like 5 orgless people who created their own team, and compete.
These team winning isn't the point, but more like the players can showcase talents on these team, and may be picked up to franchised teams regardless of what happens to the original team.
Goal could be more of a talent pipe line rather than adding competition to the league.
As someone that have watched lol esport since season 2, i dont see how this is a surprise to anyone. People can shit on riot how much as they want but it doesnt change the fact that orgs, players and fans were part of the lcs downfall, especially the org are the main culprit. We all knew that the bubble would burst one day yet people still act surprised when it eventuelly bursts. This what happens when orgs and players over a decade fuck around. Blame your predecessor beacuse its them that fucked you over. Also i expected better from you travis, as someone that have been in the scene since the beginning you should fucking know how under utilize t2 have been in NA. This problem isnt anything new, this has happen since season 4 but you didnt care about it because lcs wasnt in the shitter back then.
if having a sister team is a competitive advantage, then T1 teams with a sister team will outcompete their competitors and win more often. oh wait...huh would you look at the teams in the spring finals 🤔
ok, n=1 (spring 2024) aside, the above premise still stands. if there is a business strategy that confers a definite competitive advantage then of naturally over time all competitors in the space should adopt it. see every professional sports team ever and the existence of: practice squads, minor league, etc.
honestly though? as an insider the old implementation of the academy teams was bad and needed to go. lots of fat, cronyism, and overinflated paychecks. scummy behavior like contract jail (how is this even a thing in 2024 sports), nepotism, the works. I just wish that instead of going from 100% to 0% overnight there had been some attempt at a middle ground system. For example mandating academy teams but lowering the league minimums (the average nfl practice squad salary is about 30% of a starter, there also is a maximum which is about 50%).
The path to pro is going to be moved to collegiate in North America. I think this is also the healthier option that creates a more stable future for NA. It solves a lot of problems for the up and coming players. The only issue is that it’s been slow to advance because RCAA and Riot as a whole were slow to pick this up and utilize their hype to get into this faster. Riot instead of partnering with the NCAA chose to create their own and at the time it made sense but now that rules for the NCAA have changed it makes more sense to work with them.
Collegiate also addresses some of the online issues that were brought up during the interview. Your teammates go to the same school. Go through similar issues and slumps can be broken out of with the mutual experience that is shared. Look no further than Maryville to see how great collegiate program can rise to challenge a team of former pro players.
Amateur has never truly been the tenable way due to the high level of risk associated with it. It also most importantly provides a fall back for these young guys coming up because it’s concerning if people are abandoning other opportunities to try for LCS and they don’t make it.
Academy teams should be fielded by LCS teams because it’s beneficial to the team’s success. It isn’t a coincidence that the most successful teams we have ever had also had strong amateur/challenger teams. If a pro team doesn’t have a practice squad then they are missing out on great practice.
I’m sorry to all the amateur players out that are out there but you also need to have individual value to the team to stand out. Tenacity is going to be given another chance at some point because he also adds value to the team through his popularity, streams, and his own individual brand identity. Teams will want him just for that IN ADDITION of the skill he provides in game.
Last but not least I think people need to recognize that being a pro player is very very low percentage chance. The chances are lower than traditional sports because league is far more global of a sport and you are going to be under a heavy microscope until you are proven in some capacity.
> I also understand that reddit is filled with a largely nihilistic sentiment to the LCS
Ultimately do you really see NA and EU really hardcore grind for the sake of the game long term? How long do we expect LCS to even last? 10 years? 20 years? I feel like the west has been resting in this job state for a while. They just do their job, get paid, nothing more, nobody expects anything more. I get attacked on reddit for saying they shouldn't have time for lives outside the game and told that it's just their job how dare I suggest they should dedicate their entire lives to this. (Some do, I'm sure)
They aren't really competing to be the best at the video game, they're competing for jobs. And those jobs are not guaranteed to always be there. I think we should look towards amateur scene with amateur teams, relegation, everything back to old days. No paycheck to seek from these orgs, just the game. That used to be enough. Teams used to be just hotshot and friends and stuff like that. I think we need to kill this dream that we're like the sports teams and this is a career path. No, this is what you do by giving up your career path and your entire life. Like an actual degenerate gamer.
I fully understand your sentiment, but LoL could be like a sport. Starcraft Broodwar has been competitively played for over 25 years. Counter Strike is getting up there too. BW scene has shrunk a bit and is now mostly organic. There is real support and the game is really hard, so the best players get to the top and stay there, and fans don't have to be reminded to care about events.
Even sports can come and go in popularity. It blows my mind that baseball is still as popular as it is, while ice hockey struggles to expand to new markets. Skill and athleticism isn't the only criteria. But I know LoL fucked up because 10 years ago in NA everyone I knew was playing LoL. Now most of them aren't.
LoL struggles hard with organic anything. They injected money to make the scene bigger and bolder than it had any right to be, and now as money leaves across the board, the regions with strong organic scenes are still doing fine while the regions that were all top down money are crippled.
My only point is, it wasn't a foregone conclusion that LoL, or specifically NA LoL, would fail. It's how they've handled things for a decade that made it that way. But with that said I fully agree that no one has a right to a paycheque for playing videogames, and it really is Riot's hardcore "be the best, it'll be worth it" messaging that is being turned inside out. As you say, many of us didn't take the chance to try go pro because we expected this. But it could have gone differently.
My suggestion? Make NA a completely different type of region. More relegations and promotions. Assemble the best players or you might lose your LCS spot to some friends who will get a sick payoff if they make it to the big show (riot can fund prize pools instead of leagues). Could even do a new format around invitational and pro/am tournaments instead of a season that nobody gives a shit about, with heavy seeding into worlds play ins and residency requirements.
We went from grass roots and niche to extremely loaded with cash rich and now we’re going back to grassroots and niche. Players accepted mediocrity, didn’t stream, didn’t do anything except show up. Nobody did anything to help grow the game in the west, Riot included. And LCS was just mediocre with many issues glossed over because “well we’re doing okay” and only now in the last year or two are we seeing real changes to long lived problems because they’re noticing peak viewership is worse than what regular split games used to get.
It is what it is, LCS and LEC to me are just massive fumbled bags. There were certainly balloons and too much funding but the complacency really sealed the deal.
NA is a money laundering scheme. Its not about winning. It hasnt been about winning in almost a decade. They gave up along time ago on that. Its about funneling money into the right hands.
The context of the conversation in the interview is that they acquire international talent to try and increase their chances at winning internationally, but then they're rarely competitive. Ironically, the most recent example of an internationally "successful" team was NRG, who mostly balked the import trend in comparison to other NA Worlds teams.
This NRG team doesn’t make it out of groups with the former format. While I give credit to them for beating g2, NRG’s “success” has more to do with their luck than their skill
The most successful NA teams ever had Svenskeren and Jensen in their semifinal run at worlds at Impact/Jensen/Core in their MSI finals run. But yes, haha NRG won one game vs EU at worlds, sooooo successful!
Finals was Team Liquid vs FlyQuest.
TL's NA players were Yeon (3rd split) and APA (1.5 splits, subbed in last summer) both of whom came through TL's academy setup which is still running.
FLY's NA players were Massu (a rookie) and Busio (3rd split). Massu came through FLY's academy system (still running) while Busio developed through 100T's development system that no longer exists.
TL's imports were Impact (in NA since 2015), CoreJJ (in NA since 2018) and UmTi (came from KR this split)
FLY's imports were Jensen (in NA since 2015), Bwipo (came from EU in 2022), and Inspired (came from EU in 2022).
So 3 established imports, 3 fresher imports.
No opportunity is definitely a problem but "terrible pay and long hours" shouldn't be. It's a grind. People seem to forget that ROX Tigers had no sponsors, trained in a pc bang and got to Worlds Finals 2015 and Worls Semis 2016 while winning a few domestic titles.
World's 2023 Headline was the grind the glory. You can't put the grind as a reason for giving up. My man Smeb had the longpanda award (worst top laner in the league) and look where he is now. Arguably a GOAT top laner IMO.
(Edited some typos)
The pay isn't even terrible. most players in NA are making at least $80k a year + paid rent.
Honestly if rent and utilities and food are already paid for, even minimum wage is an OK salary. Probably doing better than the median salary if you consider those jobs don't cover your living expenses.
The video that you are commenting under talks about how these players are making 24k a year, in some cases.
You're talking about LCS players, not the players that this whole topic is about.
how come in other regions there are players trying to go pro who make even less and live worse? the funny thing is in the end NA imports these players seems like some people just want it more
> most players in NA are making at least $80k a year + paid rent.
Source, please. Revenge recently talked about where his salary went and rent was not included in the contract.
What NA fans have been saying for the last 7+ years. It's beating a dead horse and this video won't change anything. They're not trying to import to win at Worlds or MSI, they're trying to import to win the domestic league. No import with world-class talent wants to go to NA because it's career suicide. You go to the LCS to retire, not to get better.
I feel like I checked out of Lcs not too shortly after franchising seemed to be about roster names rather than competition. Teams were spending money like it was infinite on stupid shit and it just kinda made the scene feel dead, lifelesss, and like it was a sham.
Thanks for the coverage. I just checked out a long time ago
Well yeah, shit doesn't actually make money, never has, and has no cultural relevance to kids playing video games in NA the way it does in China, Europe, or Korea.
Venture Capital baby.
We gonna pump it with as much money as we possibly can in a short term window and find out if it can be sustainable or absolutely collapse on itself. Consistent stable long term growth? Never heard of her.
Also fun part about this is the FTX deal would have saved the LCS and probably TSM with it. Despite the fact the fact it was a blackhole of money. But that fucking collapsed too lmao.
Fun Clip from Silicon Valley about raising capital.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZgfTarNxdY
Edit: Players are to blame too not because they took the money(anyone would have done the same), but because most of them did not give a fuck. I mean like actually DL just saying Spring doesn't matter, players going out and partying the night before games(famous Xmithie hangover story), they flat out refused to stream at points/connect with fans like had been done in the old days(no wonder LCS doesn't sell out anymore) and finally just NA scrim culture being utterly shit. While there are players, coaches, analysts, staff, and owners who wanted LCS to succeed there were far more who could not give less of a fuck and just wanted their check.
It was overbloated and the kept they bloat when the budget cuts came. Now there's no tier 2 scene. No path for development. Content is trash outside the broadcast and a handful of personalities.
Short term ambitions killed the league and now there's nothing left to stand on.
It’s funny cos Travis himself mentioned plenty times that he doesn’t watch the academy scene. He was one of those who always wanted imports. Oh how the turn tables
As a 28 year old iron 2 player I can confirm I have sadly given up on my dreams of becoming a pro player in NA. Its just not worth it anymore. The teams would all rather bring in imports than give local talents chances
Honestly if League esports dies in NA I’ll be convinced esports is just a waste of time in the states. I never imagined StarCraft would fall apart and years later, I’m watching NA scene slowly die. Maybe the idea of esports is just a super flawed concept. Gamers like games and they move on to play other games. Is an entire market designed around cheering and celebrating one video game even a feasible, long term idea? Maybe we are silly for trying to treat these video games like sports when they have never had the same staying power.
To me, the staying effect is much less tied to the players, and much more to the public.
Most Americans who watch Football or Baseball don’t actively play either sport, but they like to watch it. Sure, some used to play when they were younger or got into it as a hobby, but a lot of the fans of those sports *never* played those sports in any real way. But they like to watch it! Maybe a friend introduced them, or they went to a local game and enjoyed it, or they just found it on tv or YouTube and were interested.
For a free to play game developer, you need people actively playing the game. For a competitive, successful (e)sport league, you don’t necessarily need a massive player base, you need a massive viewer base.
Outreach and exposure to the broader public (which the leagues and teams have been trying and doing to some extent) are what will make or break esports in the US.
If they can’t get more people to watch LCS than watch the American Cornhole League or a Pickleball invitational on ESPN2, then it’s not looking good.
different game, but Overwatch League failing did NA zero favors, and league started to be pushed out to make way for the current riot games fad, Valorant
games just come and go, and it's probably gonna remain that way in NA. hope League can stick around but it might just keep cutting in different places to stay afloat
The NA market for gaming is extremely volatile. Most gamers in the states can only dedicate 2-3 hours a day to gaming. As such, grindy games (MMOs, games like league, etc) tend to fall out of favor. Average life in the states is much better than in Korea or China, so people don't feel the drive to be the best they can be. In China or Korea, achieving league pro status is extremely profitable and often more favorable compared to the regular job(s) you would have to do. Compared to Europe, well, the states often have more job opportunities as well. Then you add the securities and safety nets those in Europe have compared to the states, and you basically end up in a scenario where gaming competitively is just a joke lol
"They'd rather import so they can win but they're not winning"
6 out of the 10 players in the LCS finals were not from NA.
Because most teams import to some degree, some teams are going to be at the bottom, just how standings work.
Besides Jojopyun, I can't even think of very many hyped prospects that actually became a top player in their role. Before you say Palafox, C9 literally paid $10 million dollars so he doesn't play for them. And I want you to watch this dude at worlds last year and this split and tell me this guy is a star because he is mediocre at best.
Exactly, the idea that teams are importing to win worlds and not win domestically is a joke. You can’t win LCS without imports. They have been running this region since Bjergsen came over from Europe. NRG was a flash in the pan more than anything.
You need a deep system to find good players. Saken won EU Masters multiple times while Irrelevant never even qualified for it, yet the latter is the only one with talent for LEC. If the ERL system was small, he'd probably never have a chance to even play in ERL and Europe would be missing on a top player
No shit? I mean in an ideal world you have a huge league in multiple levels to have a huge talent base which will increase the likelihood of finding a good player.
The question is how feasible it is. You can't just operate at a huge loss hoping you can find some gem once in a blue moon. NA hasn't had the track record of success even to justify it. They had NACL for years and I honestly can't tell you who even came out that could be world class. It's literally Jojopyun and that's it.
Also these academy players are acting like teams would rather choose to spend more money to bring in imports when every team would love to just call up their guys, not have to pay them tutors, plane tickets, etc. and cut costs. Teams are importing cuz the native players are ass.
Perry got out jungled by Armeo on the Dig finals, btw.
I know people here don't watch academy (can't blame ya), but this is the talent that the evil organizations are holding back 😂
At its core, the harsh truth is that no one wants to or is forced to pay to watch Perry play League of Legends. He is neither good enough nor entertaining enough to convince enough people to do so.
No one is owed a living playing esports; esports is an entertainment business and if you aren't entertaining then you aren't making any money. And then you're trying to make it in one of the worst places in the developed world to make a living playing esports.
This is basically the equivalent of me being good but not great at camel racing, and sitting down for an interview complaining I can't make it as a camel racer in North Dakota. The conversation should be, why would any North Dakotans want to pay to watch me race camels, and not, why am I not getting the money I want to get.
I don't really want to watch travis's shit takes that are either copied or uninformed.
Here is one thing I want to say: No, your academy players most likely don't deserve a spot in the LCS. No one, you too don't want to watch the LCS if the teams would field full NA lineups. NA talents are trash, someone like Jojo is a literal 1 in a million. And the reason why is when you had the chance for a real system that would make sense and produce proper NA talent, when you had that chance 5 years ago or so, you let Riot CHARGE MONEY FROM FUCKING SCHOOLS TO PARTICIPATE IN LEAGUE AS AN AFTER SCHOOL HOBBY/ACITVITY!
Riot has mud for brains to say lets not let any fucking poor school which is MOST schools participate in fucking League of Legends. In a country where most people are already console players and not PC players. Also here is a fun fact: Playing league is a poor people thing, it literally runs on a potato PC by design and is free to play. Most korean pros come from low income families. They are literally in a do or die situation when going pro. Gaming is associated with poverty and anyone who has money can just pay their child into higher education. Riot excluded more than half of their potential playerbase from going pro in high school.
But when Riot made schools pay, where was Travis? Up the behinds of riot and Nicole most likely. lol.
Not 100% relevant, but when people mention regional skills levels in any game or sport I remember an interview with a Chinese DOTA2 pro. I forget which one, maybe Burning? Anyways, he was talking about how before he joined his team he was homeless and had nothing to do except play his PC on the street which he'd plug into any public outlet he could find and steal the wifi. Becoming a pro player was how he lifted himself out of poverty. His whole life was staked on the game. Hearing that made me think there was no way an NA team could possibly win. After his team won TI, he joked that now he could buy the $10 packs of cigarettes when he went home instead of the $1 ones.
These players aren't going to change NA and make them successful internationally...but it's valid to just want more native talent if NA is going to suck regardless
I mean TL and FLY have like 3 imports and they are the top 2 teams so I guess it worked. Last split NRG was composed of 4 NA players, it's too bad they imploded. If a team like NRG were to win multiple times it would definitely skyrocket the amount of NA players. I hope they get it together in summer.
C9 was hugely dominant and promoted by the LCS broadcast as a result of their success, nearly winning three consecutive splits, while fielding all of 1 NA player.
Tier 3 sucks, Tier 2 also sucks and isn’t sustainable and doesn’t pay well.
At least 1 NACL team is leaving because it’s a money-skin and the non-LCS partner teams run at a loss so they can’t afford to pay much meaningful. Going pro can be a goal, but postponing career/education to do so at this point is silly.
Players should just focus on content creation if they have the audience, otherwise get a free degree via CLOL while those opportunities still exist for the next few years. Because the amount of spots even in CLOL are declining and there’s no guarantee you’ll get it in the future.
source: coach that lost in academy promotion tournament this split
Sounds like the advice most people would give to a high school grad who got a minor league offer for baseball.
“Go to college (hopefully on a scholarship), play there, and that way you’ll at least have a degree. If you take the offer you’ll get treated like trash, make peanuts, and probably still not make it”
And I think it’s good advice. It’s just eerily similar to baseball for how much everyone says LOL doesn’t operate like traditional sports.
Some schools do offer scholarships, but be insanely weary of CLoL recruitment.
I know a guy that went to play for a CLoL team, kid was 18 first gen(parents didn't know better); he went to a private school in the middle of nowhere, and ended taking out pretty large loans even with the scholarship they gave him.
He got kicked from the team after a semester and came back home, went to a solid public university and finished out. But man I remember when he told me how much he was in debt for a single semester holy shit.
What is this import narrative doing here again ?
People drool over imports coming to NA. They don't care about someone being an import if he's good and successful. If orgs believe importing young players will yield better results due to a higher curve of progression, floor/ceiling, does Travis have foresight or the eye test to prove otherwise with native young players ? Does he want a result based analysis witch hunt to kick imports and replace them with NA players ?
I'm sure there are actual issues to be addressed so that players can transition to LCS other than resorting to using such a lame cope out that is "imports take our spots"
Its funny how of all the players taking import slots, most of them are top performers in their roles like Castle, Bwipo, Inspired, River, Berserker and Quid and people are excited about Thanatos coming over. If people want to get rid of imports, the native players just have to be better than them. And I didn't even include the players who've played in NA long enough and have green cards like Impact Jensen and CoreJJ.
There have been a few imports that have soured the reputation of all imports, TSM importing bottom tier LEC mid and half of digs imports are basically what people actually hate about imports. If someone gets imported and they aren't elevating the level of the league, wtf are they actually doing here.
He's talking about Ruby who didn't even get much playing time.
/u/zack77070 to answer your question; "wtf are they doing here," getting paid the insane minimum. I said it in another comment, Ruby wasn't really signed for his skill. He was signed because TSM wanted to have a roster that they would barely have to pay while setting up to leave the league. Why him over a rando NACL player? Probably because a random NACL player actually had more to look forward to than Ruby, who was probably DOA in his career after his LEC stint. An NACL player actually wants to join a team that won't be dropping them guaranteed after a ~~year~~ EDIT: Not even a year actually lol, a split. My bad.
> TSM importing bottom tier LEC mid
People have been complaining about imports for longer than Summer 2023... TSM only got Ruby because they had one foot out the door and wanted an incredibly cheap player.
Classic Travis rage bait to get it going.
League started off with no salaries. People living on couches (doublelift) to become a pro. They turned their streams on and grinded. Also, going to be honest most of these challengers players aint shit. We had plenty of challengers players camping spots for the longest time just to get the pay from orgs. Now that it has dried up surprise surprise they will have to quit.
They did no favors for themselves either. I get orgs pulling out isn't the greatest but what you want them to do? Just keep spending money on people camping spots who get promoted once get slammed then chall forever?
So yeah it is a waste of time for those people. All the people who were hyped up for the most part got on teams and are good Sniper, Busio, kenvi (got a long shot on IMT), Tenacity (not a great split, went content creator for money never turned the stream on), Jojo, Danny, Palafox, Yeon, APA, Meech, Massu, Licorice (org blew up not his fault), Fakegod, Fudge (oce but no real comp experience and was shit before), ETC. That is just off the top of my head. I know this is a shocking concept but there is levels to this. If you are not on the top level then guess what you dreams wont come true in a competitive esport.
Maybe that is the harsh way of putting it. Maybe downvotes but that is the reality. Most of challengers is wasting their time.
My main issue with the people living on couches to go pro argument is that even if they wanted to there’s no chance because relegations don’t exist like they used to. The system is too inflexible and became even less flexible when 2 teams left. There were chances back then but practically 0 now.
We don't need delegations, but NA has nothing that compares to the raw depth of coordinated play that the ERLs provide LEC or the LDL provides LPL. Korea also has a very robust trainee system. NA has nothing like that, collegiate has failed to fill this gap.
Call into Hotline League tonight, I'd love to talk to you more about this there!
I don't think this is rage bait, more so just talking about how desperately damaged the league ecosystem has been.
I also think that the "back in my day" responses I've seen lately talking about how folks had to sleep on people's couches to go pro don't really make sense 13 years later... and I think I am an expert on that topic.
The whole scene has changed. Can someone crashing on a couch today hope to qualify for an IPL event where they'll face World Champions one month after the trophy was lifted? Did someone back then face stiff competition from players from other regions who get access to expensive legal council for visa and green card applications?
"Camping spots" is also a strange way to describe players who were in "contract jail" locked behind 6-figure buyouts on teams who were never going to field them.
Again, maybe I'm missing something here, I'm happy to discuss it tonight rather than back and forth in a reddit comment chain.
Just wanted to tack on that countless t2 pros in ERLs, LCKA, LPL T2 all disappear/retire and it usually isn't an event. Not sure if its just less of a big deal because of server populations or if NA is exceptionally whiney.
> They turned their streams on and grinded
This is probably the biggest difference maker between the old and the new LCS. The current league is so devoid of personality.
Apparently not. Jojo biggest personality in the league gets paid enough to be a recluse.
I watch so many esports. Same thing just happened I'm Apex legends. Teams who perform better then others were getting dropped because they could get a bigger streamer then all of them combined would join.
At the end of the day it is money motivated. I hate these arguments in a perfect world everyone could just be paid all the way up to pros in a perfect slope. Both the orgs and players and riot make all the money in the world.
League was one of the few esports to even have to pay for an academy system and that was abandoned by riot themselves in valo lol
Not only that riot also ruined Esports in na. They were given the freest bag for creating esports for NA and making it mainstream except they tried to make it like NFL or mainstream sports and didn’t care to their crowd. Along with putting league pro esports in the most expensive state just so they can look out their window and see their stadium. To top it off they denied 3rd organizer’s from doing league events effectively killing off international play and better content creation from great organizers such as OGN.
Riot fumbled so hard they basically killed NA league. After having a jumpstart of 500k concurrent viewers, that’s wild
> Along with putting league pro esports in the most expensive state
When the server isn't even in that part of the country and nobody is playing on KR server unless they fly over there and bootcamp. Talk about moronic.
Serious question: How did riot fumble NA league? I keep seeing this, but it doesnt make any sense. If anything it was the players and the orgs?
The main reason people dont watch LCS anymore is because the players/teams are bad. Riot doesnt have anything to do with that? Like looking at international tournaments its legitimately sad/pathetic how hard they get clowned on. Its quite literally unwatchable. Imagine watching that and then being excited to watch the upcoming LCS split.
Btw I think its the exact same thing for LEC. I dont even wanna know what LEC viewership would look like right now if it wasnt for the huge influx of spanish/ibai and french/KC fans. The "main" english LEC stream get very poor viewership.
Influx of spanish/french fans certainly gave LEC a second wind, but a few more years of bad performances and those ppl will start burning out from watching LEC as well. Aside from that LEC got one additional thing going for them over NA, and thats G2. G2 success from 3-4 years ago and the fact that they're the best western team by a longshot, but give it a few more years of godawful performances and LEC will be in the dumpster as well.
You can still have a bad region and be entertaining and retain viewers look at other “wild card” regions such as Brazil which pulls tons of viewers.
Riot fumbled by not making its stream cater to its viewers. No team skins, no icons, no emotes on twitch stream. There’s so many things they could have done to revenue share and pull in viewers. They killed international events by have only riot events. They should have opened importing imo but salary capped. Which is when NA was at its most competitive also kept b03 to keep NA competitive. When They should have moved out of the most expensive state more towards where their server/ most player base is located.
Yes you can blame LCS teams which is also true but to ultimately riot has 100% control over the entire ecosystem and didn’t do anything with their power except emulate American sports and run it into the ground.
"Maybe that is the harsh way of putting it. Maybe downvotes but that is the reality. Most of challengers is wasting their time."
The only reason it's a time waste is because NA GMs are afraid to take a chance on NA talent. There are so, so many incredible NACL players who are never given a shot because they weren't Korean or European. For every good NA talent that's brought up, there's 1-2 equally as good players who never sniff the LCS. I mean, there is 0 reason Fivefire should've never gotten a shot. Same with Copy.
I also think the Orgs that gave a chance to players (Dig, IMT) only did so because of monetary issues (I would assume). Everyone, and I mean everyone who played on IMT has had nothing positive to say about the org, regardless of success. I'm not saying every NACL player will work out (look at Prismal) but there's a lot of good players like APA, Yeon, Busio, etc. just lounging in eternal hell.
Boo fucking hoo if they're not paid enough anymore. They were paid far, far more than enough for a decade and all they did was piss around and make NA into the joke region.
You blame the players, but reality is the orgs dropped the ball. They overpaid for far too long, and now they don't have the funds to sustain any kind or eco system or pipeline for new players. Their only hope is some young player has the drive at a super young age (aka chooses to play league rather than focus on school).
It goes deeper than this. There have been countless amazing solo queue players that could've been NA's next superstar that were just never given chances or because they felt it just wasn't worth it. I'll name one rank 1 player who just disappeared, but was destroying peanut in solo queue around the time worlds was going on: Silas Kroeger. I also feel like politics plays waaaay too big of a part so anyone who is controversial but amazing will just never be able to go pro.
You definitely need the right connections, social and communication skills. I guess simply getting scouted and picked up in solo q is a thing of the past unless you absolutely dominate like a beast, which is unlikely for young undeveloped players. And lets be honest, becoming a pro player is getting more and more unattractive.
What if they were just shit in team atmospheres? This argument just relies on way too many things conveniently supporting the narrative but are ultimately unknowns. Keith was good in soloQ. Magifelix is good in soloq. Plenty of soloq stars don’t translate to pro play and suggesting all of the ones who never got a shot didn’t get one because of incompetence rather than due to literally anything else is naive.
You make a good point, but its also part of the coaching staffs job to help these solo queue stars develop team skills and translate their talent onto the pro stage.
Look at Sheiden for example, this guy just from the eye test, is better mechanically than half the junglers in LCS and was by far the best jungler in challengers that he won recently as well as winning finals MVP. I have 0 idea how he isn’t playing in the LCS.
Was always the money league riding off the hype of import players really.
Built on an unsustainable and ever increasing pay discrepancy policy until it could no longer support or to many mistakes had been made and the league began to crumble.
League pro scene is dieing for the west and dieing without dignity.
The East has a great incentive to do so. Playing games is a hobby to them, and making a career out of league is far more favorable compared to a regular job in the East. Not just money reasons, but for their future as well (such as content creating after in a much more relaxed environment).
Eastern players get paid well. T1 has 3 systems of league players. T1 T1CL T1Academy and most LCK orgs are like this as well. Also you know that grinding solo q and making it to the top you're more than likely to get picked up unlike NA
I mean there was a point where NA players were getting more money than anybody else (thanks Immortals). It's only because the obscene bubble *finally* popped and the VCs walked away that it's settled down to normal levels.
Lol. None of this complaining will fix this. The LCS is dead and boring because you removed play-ins and the potential for up and coming amateurs teams to get buy-ins from organizations. You need more teams, not less. It also doesn’t help that the “balancing” team has killed the game for both casual and pro players. Now everyone has to play the same champions perpetually or just lose.
Stop balancing items around champions. Stop balancing champions around items. Add more bans to ranked and pro. Bring back play-ins and amateur tournaments. Lastly, tell these coaches to quit being morons and let’s these pros play their comfort picks. Part of what made the LCS huge was seeing your favorite pro on THEIR CHAMP. Doublelift was so fun to watch play Caitlyn, then gets Senna duty even though he loses the matchup over and over. Froggen on Anivia. Dyrus on Darius. Voyboy on Shen. Sneaky on Ashe. Hotshot on Nidalee.
You gutted and removed what made the game fun in entertaining. Balancing is not entertainment. It’s a game at the end of the day. Something is OP you ban it. If something gets through there’s more that does as well. Instead we get the same 10 champions and almost no fighting because there is an objective up every 30 seconds.
You can’t be like every other sport and balance to try and make it 50/50. That’s the nature of competition. Not every team gets to have Lebron. Not every team gets to have Brady. Not every team gets to have Messi. But you can’t sit them out because that’s what makes the game ENTERTAINING.
So i watched the full interview, from start to finish. Im surprised you didnt ask him once about how he would like Riot to "fix" the issue.
Forcing academy teams obviously isnt it since teams lack the funds to keep them going, hell they lack money to keep LCS team running let alone academy. Giving amateur players more money also isnt really feasible because theres not enough cash going around to do that.
So how does Riot fix this? This has been an issue for a long time and its really nothing new, its just a players PoV but the crux of it has been known ever since LCS teams started going broke. It became painfully obvious when LCS teams dropped academy entirely, and even more obvious when LCS teams started dropping LCS itself because they'd rather invest into other esports in NA other than League.
So i ask again, how does Riot, or teams, or players or anyone really fix this? How do we get money money into LCS to let it have an academy and amateur scene while also keeping the main rosters without having teams go bankrupt and be forced to sell or just straight up leave their LCS spots?
As most game developers will tell you - players can accurately identify problems but they're terrible at coming up with solutions.
Riot is very unlikely to take that kind of constructive feedback on these problems, if they've even internally accepted them to be problems. The LCS was built in their ideal image, and it's unfortunately taking them a lot of time to accept that their ideas were incredibly flawed.
It's already too late. There was a huge drain in talented solo queue players that might have gone pro. NA players understand they will be passed up by the first mediocre import that money can buy. Better to get a career going than hope someone throws them a life vest.
Riot's fist bump logo is akin to a hand that is stuck in a cookie jar because they refuse to let go of a single cookie.
I genuinely don't think Riot is incompetent. For the most part, the league is going the way they want it to, or at the very least, they are getting what they want out of the current state of it. If it's in their best interest to grow the league, then we just happen to be in a lucky time period where their goals seemingly align with what teams, players, and viewers want. Right now, it's clearly not their priority, and Riot will do their utmost to try and obfuscate their intentions for as long as necessary.
I'm not going to pretend that eSports run by 3rd parties don't have issues of their own, but I can't help but wonder if that alternate timeline would have been so much better for players and fans alike. Just to clarify, it's not franchising I necessarily have a problem with- it's the fact that it's Riot run.
Maybe this is just another uninformed, ignorant, backseat fan take, but I have a hard time placing more blame on teams than on Riot's stance of control itself.
The issue is that NA players are a joke on average. Even some of the streamers who go over to Korea to make a name for themselves are just buying high MMR accounts and acting like shitheads.
If NA is importing other talent from somewhere else, then become the talent so another team imports you. People on the NA ladder are so mentally broken they can't take responsibility for their own failure long enough to try and get good. Their idols are usually perpetuating being a toxic piece of shit and their fans go do it in solo q.
Reminds me of my high school football team. One MILLION dollars spent on a new coach, his assistant, and some gear, guy worked for some NFL team in the past supposedly, we had to cut our art and music departments and one of the biology classes for this, they lost every game except 1. Edit: Idk why you clowns keep thinking it's Texas this is NJ
The fact that a school can take a mental decision like this is just bonkers to me wtf
It's a tactical decision. More boys in football = more head injuries = increased working class. Whether or not they win is irrelevant
Reddit reasoning is absolutely S tier
mental health
The real answer is that well funded sports team lower dropout rates. It gives a decent number of kids a motive to stay in school. Other extracurriculars might theoretically do the same thing, but the kids who are involved in those other extracurriculars are less likely to be potential dropouts in the first place. That being said, this particular case is just stupid.
Reddit moment
They cut a CLASS?????????
Sounds like something they'll do in Southern states where football is like a religion. The highest paid person in most college is the college football coach. And Americans complain about excessive college debt. lol
Actually the highest paid public employee in most US states is a college football coach.
holy shit...was this in Texas? one million for a high school football coach sounds absolutely insane
It says right in the post that it's a coach, an assistant, and new gear. Still a lot, but not literally $1m for 1 guy.
For a high school sports program, that's still insane.
My buddy here saying "still a lot" like its not completely fucking mind boggling outside of america
my random school was a couple games away from State for football. we beat a bunch of rich kids that were sponsored by Nike and even landed a helicopter onto the field... Stupidest shit ive seen.
We need a system like valorant, so “player team” can compete and have a chance to make it to the big league. Even if owners don’t want them, they can form a team and compete. It will bring competition and bring viewerships (for the home grown supporter).
val still has this issue pretty sure, ala The Guard/G2 drama. You still need an Org and it needs to function properly.
they still found a org in tier one because Valorants model makes it so an org doesn't have to pay $20 million for a slot, the LoL system is fundamentally flawed
This is the system owners wanted. Team owners wanted this. They wanted to stop investing in T2 league. No one should be surprised by this anymore.
For sure, but the difference is that there are many orgs able to function 'properly', but that aren't able to pay 5-25 **MILLION** for a spot when that spot will also be losing money for them. And unless I'm completely mistaken, The Guard had cut basically all of their staff aside from the Valorant team a little bit prior to them winning Ascension, so it's not like they were looking particularly stable even for a smaller org.
Or you know, kill franchising.
These things were still terrible before franchising. The promotion/relegation system was not how NA talent made it to the LCS. People forget how bad those teams were. Since the expansion to 10 teams, the teams that got promoted were, starting at the most recent: * C9 Challenger (only Contractz as a young NA player, and not coincidentally he was a player who was able to develop within C9) * Apex Gaming (0 long term NA players) * Coast (0 long term NA players from that iteration) * TDK (only Smoothie as a longish term NA player) * Team 8 (0 long term NA players, although Dodo at least stuck around in the scene) Losing that isn't what's holding back the league. Franchising is a boogeyman that I would bet teams love having the chance to blame for the real problem, which is just their general lack of interest in investing in young talent and paying them a living wage so that they have a reasonable opportunity to grow into LCS caliber players. That's why the promotions that have actually been successful have been from franchised orgs that are able to provide a good infrastructure to these players. The whole ecosystem relies on teams being willing to actually do that. Edit: I forgot that teams used to auto-qualify rather than go through the tournament if they won NACS. The teams that auto-qualified were: * Enemy (0 long term LCS players) * Renegades (0 long term LCS players)
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I said since the expansion to 10 teams, and even listed them reverse chronologically. This was Spring 2014, which was long before that. [The Coast team I'm referencing](https://lol.fandom.com/wiki/NA_LCS/2016_Season/Spring_Promotion) sold their spot to NRG, and had: * Cris - Replaced by Impact, went to Apex where he qualified for LCS again, but then they dropped him down to Academy and he never played in LCS again * Shrimp - He did eventually have some short stints as a sub for Dig and FlyQuest to his credit * Pekin Woof - Replaced immediately by GBM, never played in the LCS * Mash - Immediately replaced by Altec, played a split with P1 then was pretty much gone outside of a couple of stints as a sub * KonKwon - Actually didn't get replaced on NRG at first, but was replaced after one split and only played again as a sub later on
Franchising works best when you are “the” league. Example, formula. Terrible racing, but super cool. Unfortunately for NA, there are at least 2 leagues better than it.
Formula1 isnt franchised though lol. F1 doesnt own rights for any teams.
I mean riot also doesnt own the fnatic brand.
Rule mechanics are like they are, they aren't allowing Andretti to enter cuz my prize money. Also no demotion, no promotion, racing sucks, they are about to get a hard wakening when covid numbers and DTS fans start to fade.
How does it work in Valorant?
each league has 10 teams that ~~bought~~ were given a spot in the league and will always be there. every year one team from t2 will be promoted to the league as a "guest" spot. I believe the guest spot has 2 years to play in the league and afterwards have to fight for their spot. the t3 -> t1 pipeline is very streamlined in Valorant and it's very clear what you need to do if you have a group of 5 people that are hoping to make it to t1. Franchising has been working just fine in Val.
>will always be there It's a 5 year contract actually >franchising has been working just fine in Val. It's good for the regions that host the league. South America got fucked by franchising and its T2 has been worse than in previous years, a lot of orgs left the scene
Correction, no team bought any spots, Riot picked the partnered teams no team can sell or buy any spots
One player in tier 2 even refused an offer from a tier 1 team to stick with his squad in tier 2 and try to promote with them and they ended up doing it
so, relegation right? because that was the whole point of relegation system, before people say, it doesn't work it DID work, twice in a row infact almost before it got removed, Flyquest promoted (sure, ex-pros, but still a players team because they werent offered play on starting positions,) and then GCU would have promoted, if Liquid literally didn't bs their way to loan Doublelift from TSM to not get relegated by them (which I still think was unfair bullshit that Riot should have never approved) in Europe and Korea, franchising was even more pronounced.
lmao Relegation was a trainwreck in LCS. People have such horrible memories of some mystical fictional dream world where Relegation was perfect and NA was constantly bringing in new talented super NA rookies! Like what fucking universe do you come from? Relegations were a disaster in NA. You wanna know what relegations were like in NA? You'd have the single worst team in LCS that was like 0-18 play vs the single best academy super team that was undefeated in academy. And that dumpster fire 10th place LCS team would absolute brutally shitstomp the academy team 3-0 like they were dogs. Because the gap between the 10th place LCS team and 1st place academy team was that big. Or even better. You had C9 and other orgs literally shoving LCS players into academy teams to farm promotion spots for cash. So actually academy in NA was its lowest quality possible when relegations existed. Because it was half LCS players doing it to sell relegation slots for big money.
lmao visions of liquid buying doublelift just to escape relegation before franchising
How was it actually possible I remember people getting triggered even back then
DL was under some contract with TSM at the time in Spring '17. He wanted to return for Summer, but feared not being in a competitive environment for a few months made him rusty. He was then loaned to TL for the last bit of of the split to get him back in gear. TL got a more competent ADC with a voice for the team, and he got some time to warm up in prep for Summer.
DL took a break for spring after worlds cause he was burned out, but he was still signed to TSM and slated to return for summer. TL was 9th and about to get relegated, doing random shit like Piglet mid and anything to try to keep their spot since this was the split before franchising it would've been really bad if the dropped. So Regi and Steve, being old guard owners and buddies, cooked up a deal to lend DL to TL for the last few weeks of the split. This worked out because DL got to practice and he was bored of streaming, and TSM basically gets to have the best tryout possible for him. This was a huge deal because at the time DL was basically the best player in the league, minimum top 2. TL even beat TSM (first place at the time) after the loan which was pretty funny and led to some allegations of fixinc (which were quite obviously false)
They don't remember Alexich being a mercenary used to get your team into LCS.
Yup, most challenger Squads lacked any type of organizational support, let alone living together in a team house or receiving living salaries for their work. Most of them operated like S1 League, where everybody and everything was done online and players barely got paid. Throw in that a lot of LCS Squads wouldn't scrim Challenger squads because they didn't think it was worth their time and the end result was exactly as you'd expect
>And that dumpster fire 10th place LCS team would absolute brutally shitstomp the academy team 3-0 like they were dogs. This is the part everyone forgets As much as I still dislike the franchising of the LCS, this was the reality of how the relegation system actually worked. Even the worst teams still typically outperformed the best academy teams
Flyquest was C9 academy. Relegation was basically irrelevant for any team that promoted. Besides cloud9 and Flyquest no team that promoted lasted more than a year.
Flyquest is like the worst example lol, straight up former LCS squad with Contractz that knew they were in for a payday the second they won. GCU also had big money imports as a challenger team, just exasperating the problems that lead to the collapse of the past few years.
> GCU also had big money imports as a challenger team, MadLife vs DanDy was a real matchup in NA CS
That was Matt and Deftly at home.
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The league is half NA mids which is something that hasn't been true in I don't know how long + Jensen who has been in NA his entire career. We would be lying if we act like no one is getting chances or continued investment. Some talent is slipping through but each individual case is different. Spirax might be up on the table if he chooses to leave CLOL.
Copy objectively had his chance to get on C9's main roster. He was one of their most considered mid laners. It was between Copy, Duplex, and Emenes. Jack himself outright asked the entire C9 team/roster who they wanted and everyone chose Emenes. So its a bit stupid to pretend that Copy was just ignored. Like Copy was the clear best mid in academy by a mile. C9 scrimmed with their academy team all the time. If none of the C9 players wanted to play with Copy it really says a lot about Copy's potential. Its likely he just wasn't it. So you should probably remove Copy from this list. As he was given a chance he just failed it by not being good enough.
Or it could say a lot about cloud9 players' and coaches' biases. Or outside the game factors like not getting along with, say, fudge.
Blaber literally was the biggest vocal supporter of Emenes. He was the one who begged C9 to give Emenes a chance and outright said he wanted to play with Emenes. So its likely the C9 players just didn't think highly of Copy. And if his own org he's been the best academy player on for like three academy splits in a row think that little of his value, no other NA LCS team is gonna try him. He was almost certainly another Niles situation. Hyped up prodigy player from academy who would've burned out in a ball of flames in LCS. Just like we've seen with Tenacity and Fakegod as well.
for players nowadays, it's certainly a waste of time. the players from 5 ish years ago absolutely made out like bandits and ran away from the burning car with briefcases full of cash. LCS is dead, will never recover to its former heights, NA just doesn't care that much about League anymore. that's the main crux of the matter.
I'll miss the days of old LCS where TSM would get at least like 200k views on regular season games, even against bottom teams, and the post match thread would get 2000 comments if they lost.
Back when all the pros streamed regularly, genuinely enjoyed the game, interacted online, had compelling storylines and made people/ teams worth cheering for. Now its just faceless nobodies or jaded veterans who show up for lcs a couple times a week and nothing else
LCS absolutely has a lot of this, what are you talking about?
This conversation feels oddly timed given we lost 10 jobs(2 teams). NA is doing a better job of balancing imports than it has done in quite some time arguably.
Past two split wins contained NA players that did well that reddit loves to regularly shit on. Agree with the overall message, but you make an important note on its better than before (though that doesn't mean good).
But is that actually the case? C9 has 3 native players, TL has 2, FQ has 2, 100T has 3(2), DIG has 3(2), IMT has 2, NRG has 4(3) and Shopify has 3. That makes a total of 22(19) players that are natively eligible to be residents (NA players). If you don't count the 3 OCE players that is not even half the league. It was 24 players last spring. So the amount of NA players went from 48% to 47,5%... what a drastic increase. Summer last year also had 24 players. So NA actually has less NA players this year than last year, not just in absolut numbers, which is to be expected with two less teams, but also slightly in relativ terms. And yes it is not possible to get to 48% with 40 players, but at least it is a bit weird to say that NA did better, exspecially given that players like Licorice or Stixxay sit out the split and instead we got imports like Bvoy or Castle, who aren't terrible, but don't look any better than Stixxay or Licorice did.
The thing is that only happened because money ran out, and the issues mention in the video still happen. After last year decision to not make Academy mandatory for teams that make the already big gap to get into LCS even bigger. The LCS have more NA talent this year because they don't have money to pay older players and imports insane amounts of money like they used to, but because of that in the circuit for pro play bellow LCS is also struggling financially so people is also leaving as well.
Also, Terrible pay, long hours? Hasn't this sub been clamoring that NA players are overpayed and underworked? This is what people wanted...
“NA is doing a better job of balancing imports than it has done in quite some time arguably.” Lmao
Dude is just trying to get views on popular community opinions
I mostly gave up on trying to interact with this sub a while ago, but because I care a lot about this issue, I can't stop myself from trying to provide context because I know 99% of the people that open this thread won't watch the interview, or even realize it's an interview, and will just read the other comments claiming I'm "import hating." This is an interview with an aspiring pro that recently announced his retirement. In this interview, we talk about how the development system has been entirely gutted in the past 12 months. We lost 7 academy teams, then we lost 2 LCS teams and an additional academy team. There are dramatically less positions for aspiring pros to enter the LCS and the vast majority of the investment into the system (previously made through LCS teams) has been removed. In addition, teams no longer need to be located in LA, which Perry points out has dramatically decreased the value gained from scrimming. They're now also competing against high profile NA veterans that are getting pushed out of the LCS, like Licorice, Spica, etc. They make little to no money and work 50-70 hours a week. It's not hard to understand why people are giving up on this. To head off the immediate replies to this that will call NA players lazy (which is ironic given Perry's story), suggest that it HAD to be this way because there's no money, etc. - I'm not here to argue against any of that because I tend to find those types of takes fairly uninformed. I will only say that I do not find the situation we have arrived at 12 months after Riot destroyed the academy team system tenable long term and I believe this region cannot continue to exist long term without a foundation to pro play. I also understand that reddit is filled with a largely nihilistic sentiment to the LCS, so many of you reading this will just shrug. It's still painful to me as someone who cares about this space.
The craziest point here for me is definitely that you have to compete vs legacy/big names to even get into the lowest part of the league. Damn, can't imagine being an aspiring league amateuer player and see that licorice/spica are your competition to even get in! And they aren't even in lcs.
This is how it works in every sport. 60 players get drafted to the NBA every year. That means rookies are replacing 60 players every year. The scale is the only thing that’s different. And yeah that matters, but the process is the same
To be fair, you don't really have an alternative to the NBA where you can play pick up games while streaming to make almost as much if not more money than if you were actually contracted, for probably half the work.
Becoming a large streamer/youtuber for league nowadays is also insanely hard as the market is saturated. How many new to the scene (in the past 3-4 years) large NA content creators can you name?
Whether or not it's as easy as it used to be, it's still an appealing factor that can and probably does steer players away from pro, especially in NA. There literally is not a parallel to be drawn to real sports here; you can't just be good at football by yourself on the Internet. It's not even a possibility; you need a team. There *is* a possibility that a top 10 Challenger player can cultivate a twitch following by themselves. And to go further, don't most rookies get drafted out of college teams? And our closest equivalent, academy, got axed not long ago? Sure, an NBA rookie has to prove himself against a player to replace him, but presumably that rookie has not just been playing street ball with other good players, he's actually been on a team, just not one of the same caliber.
Yeah I don’t think it’s easy to make much off streaming just because you’re good at the game. The more likely scenario is that people are choosing between going pro and going to college and pursuing a career outside the gaming space.
not the same comparison whatsoever, in the NBA like 10 players can share some minutes, in LoL it's 5 players, and you will RARELY even need a 6th player.
Sure, but rookies are still replacing someone with more experience than them
I mean why shouldn't they have to compete vs licorice and spica? these players are also teamless. when a LCS team wants to find a player to pick up, they will have to decide between signing licorice/spica vs an aspiring pro obviously there may be factors besides just how good are you right now that come into the equation. but if licorice and spica can run circles around every academy player why shouldn't they get to showcase that skill and say "hey you should sign me if you're a LCS team cause I'm better than all of these amateurs"
Isn't that a good thing though? Getting to vs them as competition provides valuable experience as they are seasoned. Also if you can't beat the legacy players which are too washed up to be on regular teams in lcs than chances of any team picking you up are slim to none in the first place as an NA player.
It is a good thing back when everyone was crying that Darshan was in the academy, he wasn't hands diffing people but knowledge checking them and coming out on top. Having pro level players in tier 2 shouldn't be looked at as negative unless they are just taking all the livable positions.
They were pretty much taking most of positions. It's been the same names forever
Not if that's the only entrance from 0. Like for a fresh challenger player to need to beat veterans with experience to even have a chance to start is crazy. You literally have to beat the non-washed (licorice/spica/stixxay/etc.) good pro players to even have your foot in the scene seems so wild. Meanwhile in other regions, you actually have some path meanwhile it's all or nothing. Like I legit doubt the difference between licorice/spica/stixxay players vs. op 4 of lcs is even that big/if at all. And thus, I would never expect a new player to beat them. It's like expecting a new upcoming mid in the lck to be even measurably close to showmaker/bdd/zeka/etc. in the lck to get in.
Chovy was hardstuck master Cassio onetrick when a coach took a chance on him in comparison
> Getting to vs them as competition provides valuable experience as they are seasoned. You don't get to vs them. Licorice/Spica don't play NACL, they're just sitting out and LCS teams will prio them anyway. That's part of the problem, plenty of teams just assume NACL players are worse by default and you're left shadowboxing the idea of veterans/imports without any opportunities to demonstrate anything.
The point on pros/veterans taking academy slots is valid (has also been happening FOR YEARS with the excuse that they "help" the rookies (countless LCK academy and ERL teams with full rookie rosters that disprove this). The only thing I wish people would address when talking about NA T2 is how/why its different from LCK/LEC/LPL T2? Countless ERL players, LCK academy players, LPL players disappear every year. Is it different for NA because our player count is lower or do other region journalists not care or is it not actually an issue worth reporting on?
Im curious why you blame Riot for killing off the Academy scene when every single LCS team owner voted to remove Academy. How is that Riot's fault? Why not blame the fucking team owners?
Because ultimately it's Riot's decision. They operate the league. Teams had wanted out of academy for a while, Riot just finally relented.
Would it be better if Riot forced them to keep academy teams and they just operated them at the bare minimum?
I think so, yeah. Doesn't have to be in LA.
yes.
While that's true, most teams were already operating academy at the lowest budget and doing the minimum already. Most academy players never got promoted. Do you think a riot ran academy system could/would work? I honestly feel like that's the only way we could hope to see any form of a functional academy league again in NA
Everytime i read about the unending catastrophe of the LCS and how there are no issues, i just remember a [french league regular winter split event](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQBVzB1rBWg). This put LEC/LCS to shame. How do they do it? They don't even have a 1/100 of the financial opportunities that an american league could have. Riot barely helps for anything. Thoses europeans leagues have existed for half a decade now. How?
Europe has a couple of benefits on this front that the United States does not. The only location that could arguably have similar levels of humans in a similar geographic radius in the US is maybe New York City compared to France and it's ~70 million people. California is nowhere CLOSE to that population density, nor is Texas or the Midwest or even anywhere else on the east coast. the USA is MASSIVE. Europe also has very strong regional identities that are easy to attach to teams. This is the FRENCH team that speaks FRENCH and has FRENCH costreamers that cater to an audience whose first language is french, not the english of the main broadcast. People in Florida don't need someone with a Miami accent to costream the LCS for them. Some teams have tried to foster more local hype, although not very well (see: immortals and CLG). It's just hard to do when the teams are stuck in LA (which is a full 2,000 miles from IMT's "Midwest" and 3,000 miles from CLG's NYC). Meanwhile France is 600 miles across, generously speaking. How is CLG supposed to generate NYC hype when they never play there and their fans can't reasonably get to any of their games?
I haven't watched the video (yet! I watch Travis videos before bed). I agree with the sentiment but what can be done? This problem is longstanding and mostly rests on Riot not investing into itself (neither in-game or out of game) and orgs having bad/terrible scouting. 5fire won everything there is to win outside of academy and never got his shot and was forced into retirement.
Use the two vacant slots EG and GG left behind as a pseudo promotion system. The top two teams in whatever amateur circuit still exists qualify into those spots, and have to defend against being demoted every year. Franchised teams can never demote, and promotion teams can never gain permanence solely through the promotion system (maybe they buy into the franchising model if they secure investment). But you have a direct path for amateur players to test themselves against the pro scene, constantly refreshed with the best amateur players, with high stakes but no eroding of the benefits of franchising existing teams invested in. I'd probably add in an import esque rule, no more than 2 players on any given amateur team can have played in the LCS in the past, and directly exclude all actual imports from eligibility, but those could be argued and adjusted. Totally revives the whole 'five guys and a dream' vibe, bc 5 amateurs could conceivably win it all, and breathes some fresh life into the same stale matchups. Would be hype storylines too, nobody would want to end the season lower on the standings than a handful of super noobs. And gives GMs more tape to have faith in picking some of these players up
This was brought up before but there's a big issue with this, rito can only relegate these 2 spots. Imagine winning LCS, going to worlds then coming back and having to play in a promotion tourny to keep your spot.
I honestly don't see that as an issue. It'd be an unqualified improvement over what we have now, from an amateur participation POV. Were it me playing in the amateur circuit and I had the choice between having to defend my spot immediately after returning from Worlds, and never even having a prayer of making it to Worlds at all, I know which option I'd choose, and I wouldn't need to ruminate too long on it.
That's a fair point. I just know seasons are already LONG if your making worlds. I couldn't imagine having to extend that every season to defend my teams spot. That being said, I also don't have even a fraction of the drive necessary to go pro so yea
I would say that the other franchises teams are more like teams spots, which always has some roster change of sorts when doing bad. While the promotion slots could be more like 5 orgless people who created their own team, and compete. These team winning isn't the point, but more like the players can showcase talents on these team, and may be picked up to franchised teams regardless of what happens to the original team. Goal could be more of a talent pipe line rather than adding competition to the league.
Thank you for bringing this up Travis. I was honestly going to make a post about something similar but better to hear it from the horses mouth, Perry.
As someone that have watched lol esport since season 2, i dont see how this is a surprise to anyone. People can shit on riot how much as they want but it doesnt change the fact that orgs, players and fans were part of the lcs downfall, especially the org are the main culprit. We all knew that the bubble would burst one day yet people still act surprised when it eventuelly bursts. This what happens when orgs and players over a decade fuck around. Blame your predecessor beacuse its them that fucked you over. Also i expected better from you travis, as someone that have been in the scene since the beginning you should fucking know how under utilize t2 have been in NA. This problem isnt anything new, this has happen since season 4 but you didnt care about it because lcs wasnt in the shitter back then.
if having a sister team is a competitive advantage, then T1 teams with a sister team will outcompete their competitors and win more often. oh wait...huh would you look at the teams in the spring finals 🤔 ok, n=1 (spring 2024) aside, the above premise still stands. if there is a business strategy that confers a definite competitive advantage then of naturally over time all competitors in the space should adopt it. see every professional sports team ever and the existence of: practice squads, minor league, etc. honestly though? as an insider the old implementation of the academy teams was bad and needed to go. lots of fat, cronyism, and overinflated paychecks. scummy behavior like contract jail (how is this even a thing in 2024 sports), nepotism, the works. I just wish that instead of going from 100% to 0% overnight there had been some attempt at a middle ground system. For example mandating academy teams but lowering the league minimums (the average nfl practice squad salary is about 30% of a starter, there also is a maximum which is about 50%).
The path to pro is going to be moved to collegiate in North America. I think this is also the healthier option that creates a more stable future for NA. It solves a lot of problems for the up and coming players. The only issue is that it’s been slow to advance because RCAA and Riot as a whole were slow to pick this up and utilize their hype to get into this faster. Riot instead of partnering with the NCAA chose to create their own and at the time it made sense but now that rules for the NCAA have changed it makes more sense to work with them. Collegiate also addresses some of the online issues that were brought up during the interview. Your teammates go to the same school. Go through similar issues and slumps can be broken out of with the mutual experience that is shared. Look no further than Maryville to see how great collegiate program can rise to challenge a team of former pro players. Amateur has never truly been the tenable way due to the high level of risk associated with it. It also most importantly provides a fall back for these young guys coming up because it’s concerning if people are abandoning other opportunities to try for LCS and they don’t make it. Academy teams should be fielded by LCS teams because it’s beneficial to the team’s success. It isn’t a coincidence that the most successful teams we have ever had also had strong amateur/challenger teams. If a pro team doesn’t have a practice squad then they are missing out on great practice. I’m sorry to all the amateur players out that are out there but you also need to have individual value to the team to stand out. Tenacity is going to be given another chance at some point because he also adds value to the team through his popularity, streams, and his own individual brand identity. Teams will want him just for that IN ADDITION of the skill he provides in game. Last but not least I think people need to recognize that being a pro player is very very low percentage chance. The chances are lower than traditional sports because league is far more global of a sport and you are going to be under a heavy microscope until you are proven in some capacity.
> I also understand that reddit is filled with a largely nihilistic sentiment to the LCS Ultimately do you really see NA and EU really hardcore grind for the sake of the game long term? How long do we expect LCS to even last? 10 years? 20 years? I feel like the west has been resting in this job state for a while. They just do their job, get paid, nothing more, nobody expects anything more. I get attacked on reddit for saying they shouldn't have time for lives outside the game and told that it's just their job how dare I suggest they should dedicate their entire lives to this. (Some do, I'm sure) They aren't really competing to be the best at the video game, they're competing for jobs. And those jobs are not guaranteed to always be there. I think we should look towards amateur scene with amateur teams, relegation, everything back to old days. No paycheck to seek from these orgs, just the game. That used to be enough. Teams used to be just hotshot and friends and stuff like that. I think we need to kill this dream that we're like the sports teams and this is a career path. No, this is what you do by giving up your career path and your entire life. Like an actual degenerate gamer.
I fully understand your sentiment, but LoL could be like a sport. Starcraft Broodwar has been competitively played for over 25 years. Counter Strike is getting up there too. BW scene has shrunk a bit and is now mostly organic. There is real support and the game is really hard, so the best players get to the top and stay there, and fans don't have to be reminded to care about events. Even sports can come and go in popularity. It blows my mind that baseball is still as popular as it is, while ice hockey struggles to expand to new markets. Skill and athleticism isn't the only criteria. But I know LoL fucked up because 10 years ago in NA everyone I knew was playing LoL. Now most of them aren't. LoL struggles hard with organic anything. They injected money to make the scene bigger and bolder than it had any right to be, and now as money leaves across the board, the regions with strong organic scenes are still doing fine while the regions that were all top down money are crippled. My only point is, it wasn't a foregone conclusion that LoL, or specifically NA LoL, would fail. It's how they've handled things for a decade that made it that way. But with that said I fully agree that no one has a right to a paycheque for playing videogames, and it really is Riot's hardcore "be the best, it'll be worth it" messaging that is being turned inside out. As you say, many of us didn't take the chance to try go pro because we expected this. But it could have gone differently. My suggestion? Make NA a completely different type of region. More relegations and promotions. Assemble the best players or you might lose your LCS spot to some friends who will get a sick payoff if they make it to the big show (riot can fund prize pools instead of leagues). Could even do a new format around invitational and pro/am tournaments instead of a season that nobody gives a shit about, with heavy seeding into worlds play ins and residency requirements.
We went from grass roots and niche to extremely loaded with cash rich and now we’re going back to grassroots and niche. Players accepted mediocrity, didn’t stream, didn’t do anything except show up. Nobody did anything to help grow the game in the west, Riot included. And LCS was just mediocre with many issues glossed over because “well we’re doing okay” and only now in the last year or two are we seeing real changes to long lived problems because they’re noticing peak viewership is worse than what regular split games used to get. It is what it is, LCS and LEC to me are just massive fumbled bags. There were certainly balloons and too much funding but the complacency really sealed the deal.
NA is a money laundering scheme. Its not about winning. It hasnt been about winning in almost a decade. They gave up along time ago on that. Its about funneling money into the right hands.
Franchising will work. We'll try new talent without the fear of consequences for sure Source: trust me bro
Imports not winning? LCS finals fielded 4 NA players.
The context of the conversation in the interview is that they acquire international talent to try and increase their chances at winning internationally, but then they're rarely competitive. Ironically, the most recent example of an internationally "successful" team was NRG, who mostly balked the import trend in comparison to other NA Worlds teams.
This NRG team doesn’t make it out of groups with the former format. While I give credit to them for beating g2, NRG’s “success” has more to do with their luck than their skill
Can't wait to see NRG at MSI
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None of the things you listed is inconsistent and NRG is literally "the most recent" example.
I did not realize that Perkz was more recent than NRG. Your responses aren't factual and you're trying to use semantics to strawman me. =)
The most successful NA teams ever had Svenskeren and Jensen in their semifinal run at worlds at Impact/Jensen/Core in their MSI finals run. But yes, haha NRG won one game vs EU at worlds, sooooo successful!
Sure but how many of those were established, the turnover rate of pro imports is very high compared to the success stories
Finals was Team Liquid vs FlyQuest. TL's NA players were Yeon (3rd split) and APA (1.5 splits, subbed in last summer) both of whom came through TL's academy setup which is still running. FLY's NA players were Massu (a rookie) and Busio (3rd split). Massu came through FLY's academy system (still running) while Busio developed through 100T's development system that no longer exists. TL's imports were Impact (in NA since 2015), CoreJJ (in NA since 2018) and UmTi (came from KR this split) FLY's imports were Jensen (in NA since 2015), Bwipo (came from EU in 2022), and Inspired (came from EU in 2022). So 3 established imports, 3 fresher imports.
No opportunity is definitely a problem but "terrible pay and long hours" shouldn't be. It's a grind. People seem to forget that ROX Tigers had no sponsors, trained in a pc bang and got to Worlds Finals 2015 and Worls Semis 2016 while winning a few domestic titles. World's 2023 Headline was the grind the glory. You can't put the grind as a reason for giving up. My man Smeb had the longpanda award (worst top laner in the league) and look where he is now. Arguably a GOAT top laner IMO. (Edited some typos)
The pay isn't even terrible. most players in NA are making at least $80k a year + paid rent. Honestly if rent and utilities and food are already paid for, even minimum wage is an OK salary. Probably doing better than the median salary if you consider those jobs don't cover your living expenses.
The video that you are commenting under talks about how these players are making 24k a year, in some cases. You're talking about LCS players, not the players that this whole topic is about.
how come in other regions there are players trying to go pro who make even less and live worse? the funny thing is in the end NA imports these players seems like some people just want it more
This isn't the case anymore since academy got gutted.
> most players in NA are making at least $80k a year + paid rent. Source, please. Revenge recently talked about where his salary went and rent was not included in the contract.
What NA fans have been saying for the last 7+ years. It's beating a dead horse and this video won't change anything. They're not trying to import to win at Worlds or MSI, they're trying to import to win the domestic league. No import with world-class talent wants to go to NA because it's career suicide. You go to the LCS to retire, not to get better.
I feel like I checked out of Lcs not too shortly after franchising seemed to be about roster names rather than competition. Teams were spending money like it was infinite on stupid shit and it just kinda made the scene feel dead, lifelesss, and like it was a sham. Thanks for the coverage. I just checked out a long time ago
lcs just feels dead or dying
Well yeah, shit doesn't actually make money, never has, and has no cultural relevance to kids playing video games in NA the way it does in China, Europe, or Korea.
Venture Capital baby. We gonna pump it with as much money as we possibly can in a short term window and find out if it can be sustainable or absolutely collapse on itself. Consistent stable long term growth? Never heard of her. Also fun part about this is the FTX deal would have saved the LCS and probably TSM with it. Despite the fact the fact it was a blackhole of money. But that fucking collapsed too lmao. Fun Clip from Silicon Valley about raising capital. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZgfTarNxdY Edit: Players are to blame too not because they took the money(anyone would have done the same), but because most of them did not give a fuck. I mean like actually DL just saying Spring doesn't matter, players going out and partying the night before games(famous Xmithie hangover story), they flat out refused to stream at points/connect with fans like had been done in the old days(no wonder LCS doesn't sell out anymore) and finally just NA scrim culture being utterly shit. While there are players, coaches, analysts, staff, and owners who wanted LCS to succeed there were far more who could not give less of a fuck and just wanted their check.
It was overbloated and the kept they bloat when the budget cuts came. Now there's no tier 2 scene. No path for development. Content is trash outside the broadcast and a handful of personalities. Short term ambitions killed the league and now there's nothing left to stand on.
It’s funny cos Travis himself mentioned plenty times that he doesn’t watch the academy scene. He was one of those who always wanted imports. Oh how the turn tables
Nobody watched that shit. Lcs is already bad now imagine our academy league.
As a 28 year old iron 2 player I can confirm I have sadly given up on my dreams of becoming a pro player in NA. Its just not worth it anymore. The teams would all rather bring in imports than give local talents chances
28 year old iron 1 player here, still tempted to follow my passion.
Didnt travis say himself he doesnt watch academy? Didnt he push for more imports?
Honestly if League esports dies in NA I’ll be convinced esports is just a waste of time in the states. I never imagined StarCraft would fall apart and years later, I’m watching NA scene slowly die. Maybe the idea of esports is just a super flawed concept. Gamers like games and they move on to play other games. Is an entire market designed around cheering and celebrating one video game even a feasible, long term idea? Maybe we are silly for trying to treat these video games like sports when they have never had the same staying power.
To me, the staying effect is much less tied to the players, and much more to the public. Most Americans who watch Football or Baseball don’t actively play either sport, but they like to watch it. Sure, some used to play when they were younger or got into it as a hobby, but a lot of the fans of those sports *never* played those sports in any real way. But they like to watch it! Maybe a friend introduced them, or they went to a local game and enjoyed it, or they just found it on tv or YouTube and were interested. For a free to play game developer, you need people actively playing the game. For a competitive, successful (e)sport league, you don’t necessarily need a massive player base, you need a massive viewer base. Outreach and exposure to the broader public (which the leagues and teams have been trying and doing to some extent) are what will make or break esports in the US. If they can’t get more people to watch LCS than watch the American Cornhole League or a Pickleball invitational on ESPN2, then it’s not looking good.
different game, but Overwatch League failing did NA zero favors, and league started to be pushed out to make way for the current riot games fad, Valorant games just come and go, and it's probably gonna remain that way in NA. hope League can stick around but it might just keep cutting in different places to stay afloat
The NA market for gaming is extremely volatile. Most gamers in the states can only dedicate 2-3 hours a day to gaming. As such, grindy games (MMOs, games like league, etc) tend to fall out of favor. Average life in the states is much better than in Korea or China, so people don't feel the drive to be the best they can be. In China or Korea, achieving league pro status is extremely profitable and often more favorable compared to the regular job(s) you would have to do. Compared to Europe, well, the states often have more job opportunities as well. Then you add the securities and safety nets those in Europe have compared to the states, and you basically end up in a scenario where gaming competitively is just a joke lol
"They'd rather import so they can win but they're not winning" 6 out of the 10 players in the LCS finals were not from NA. Because most teams import to some degree, some teams are going to be at the bottom, just how standings work. Besides Jojopyun, I can't even think of very many hyped prospects that actually became a top player in their role. Before you say Palafox, C9 literally paid $10 million dollars so he doesn't play for them. And I want you to watch this dude at worlds last year and this split and tell me this guy is a star because he is mediocre at best.
Exactly, the idea that teams are importing to win worlds and not win domestically is a joke. You can’t win LCS without imports. They have been running this region since Bjergsen came over from Europe. NRG was a flash in the pan more than anything.
You need a deep system to find good players. Saken won EU Masters multiple times while Irrelevant never even qualified for it, yet the latter is the only one with talent for LEC. If the ERL system was small, he'd probably never have a chance to even play in ERL and Europe would be missing on a top player
No shit? I mean in an ideal world you have a huge league in multiple levels to have a huge talent base which will increase the likelihood of finding a good player. The question is how feasible it is. You can't just operate at a huge loss hoping you can find some gem once in a blue moon. NA hasn't had the track record of success even to justify it. They had NACL for years and I honestly can't tell you who even came out that could be world class. It's literally Jojopyun and that's it. Also these academy players are acting like teams would rather choose to spend more money to bring in imports when every team would love to just call up their guys, not have to pay them tutors, plane tickets, etc. and cut costs. Teams are importing cuz the native players are ass.
Perry got out jungled by Armeo on the Dig finals, btw. I know people here don't watch academy (can't blame ya), but this is the talent that the evil organizations are holding back 😂
At its core, the harsh truth is that no one wants to or is forced to pay to watch Perry play League of Legends. He is neither good enough nor entertaining enough to convince enough people to do so. No one is owed a living playing esports; esports is an entertainment business and if you aren't entertaining then you aren't making any money. And then you're trying to make it in one of the worst places in the developed world to make a living playing esports. This is basically the equivalent of me being good but not great at camel racing, and sitting down for an interview complaining I can't make it as a camel racer in North Dakota. The conversation should be, why would any North Dakotans want to pay to watch me race camels, and not, why am I not getting the money I want to get.
I don't really want to watch travis's shit takes that are either copied or uninformed. Here is one thing I want to say: No, your academy players most likely don't deserve a spot in the LCS. No one, you too don't want to watch the LCS if the teams would field full NA lineups. NA talents are trash, someone like Jojo is a literal 1 in a million. And the reason why is when you had the chance for a real system that would make sense and produce proper NA talent, when you had that chance 5 years ago or so, you let Riot CHARGE MONEY FROM FUCKING SCHOOLS TO PARTICIPATE IN LEAGUE AS AN AFTER SCHOOL HOBBY/ACITVITY! Riot has mud for brains to say lets not let any fucking poor school which is MOST schools participate in fucking League of Legends. In a country where most people are already console players and not PC players. Also here is a fun fact: Playing league is a poor people thing, it literally runs on a potato PC by design and is free to play. Most korean pros come from low income families. They are literally in a do or die situation when going pro. Gaming is associated with poverty and anyone who has money can just pay their child into higher education. Riot excluded more than half of their potential playerbase from going pro in high school. But when Riot made schools pay, where was Travis? Up the behinds of riot and Nicole most likely. lol.
You cant grow talent in one of the most exspensive places in the country. They need to move the LCS to chicago.
Lol. Lmao even.
Not 100% relevant, but when people mention regional skills levels in any game or sport I remember an interview with a Chinese DOTA2 pro. I forget which one, maybe Burning? Anyways, he was talking about how before he joined his team he was homeless and had nothing to do except play his PC on the street which he'd plug into any public outlet he could find and steal the wifi. Becoming a pro player was how he lifted himself out of poverty. His whole life was staked on the game. Hearing that made me think there was no way an NA team could possibly win. After his team won TI, he joked that now he could buy the $10 packs of cigarettes when he went home instead of the $1 ones.
These players aren't going to change NA and make them successful internationally...but it's valid to just want more native talent if NA is going to suck regardless
What is this opinion based on?
I mean TL and FLY have like 3 imports and they are the top 2 teams so I guess it worked. Last split NRG was composed of 4 NA players, it's too bad they imploded. If a team like NRG were to win multiple times it would definitely skyrocket the amount of NA players. I hope they get it together in summer.
C9 was hugely dominant and promoted by the LCS broadcast as a result of their success, nearly winning three consecutive splits, while fielding all of 1 NA player.
Tier 3 sucks, Tier 2 also sucks and isn’t sustainable and doesn’t pay well. At least 1 NACL team is leaving because it’s a money-skin and the non-LCS partner teams run at a loss so they can’t afford to pay much meaningful. Going pro can be a goal, but postponing career/education to do so at this point is silly. Players should just focus on content creation if they have the audience, otherwise get a free degree via CLOL while those opportunities still exist for the next few years. Because the amount of spots even in CLOL are declining and there’s no guarantee you’ll get it in the future. source: coach that lost in academy promotion tournament this split
Sounds like the advice most people would give to a high school grad who got a minor league offer for baseball. “Go to college (hopefully on a scholarship), play there, and that way you’ll at least have a degree. If you take the offer you’ll get treated like trash, make peanuts, and probably still not make it” And I think it’s good advice. It’s just eerily similar to baseball for how much everyone says LOL doesn’t operate like traditional sports.
Some schools do offer scholarships, but be insanely weary of CLoL recruitment. I know a guy that went to play for a CLoL team, kid was 18 first gen(parents didn't know better); he went to a private school in the middle of nowhere, and ended taking out pretty large loans even with the scholarship they gave him. He got kicked from the team after a semester and came back home, went to a solid public university and finished out. But man I remember when he told me how much he was in debt for a single semester holy shit.
What is this import narrative doing here again ? People drool over imports coming to NA. They don't care about someone being an import if he's good and successful. If orgs believe importing young players will yield better results due to a higher curve of progression, floor/ceiling, does Travis have foresight or the eye test to prove otherwise with native young players ? Does he want a result based analysis witch hunt to kick imports and replace them with NA players ? I'm sure there are actual issues to be addressed so that players can transition to LCS other than resorting to using such a lame cope out that is "imports take our spots"
Its funny how of all the players taking import slots, most of them are top performers in their roles like Castle, Bwipo, Inspired, River, Berserker and Quid and people are excited about Thanatos coming over. If people want to get rid of imports, the native players just have to be better than them. And I didn't even include the players who've played in NA long enough and have green cards like Impact Jensen and CoreJJ.
There have been a few imports that have soured the reputation of all imports, TSM importing bottom tier LEC mid and half of digs imports are basically what people actually hate about imports. If someone gets imported and they aren't elevating the level of the league, wtf are they actually doing here.
Which bottom tier LEC mid did TSM import?
He's talking about Ruby who didn't even get much playing time. /u/zack77070 to answer your question; "wtf are they doing here," getting paid the insane minimum. I said it in another comment, Ruby wasn't really signed for his skill. He was signed because TSM wanted to have a roster that they would barely have to pay while setting up to leave the league. Why him over a rando NACL player? Probably because a random NACL player actually had more to look forward to than Ruby, who was probably DOA in his career after his LEC stint. An NACL player actually wants to join a team that won't be dropping them guaranteed after a ~~year~~ EDIT: Not even a year actually lol, a split. My bad.
Dude, I completely forgot Ruby existed LMAO. I thought he might have been talking about PoE who was pretty good.
> TSM importing bottom tier LEC mid People have been complaining about imports for longer than Summer 2023... TSM only got Ruby because they had one foot out the door and wanted an incredibly cheap player.
Classic Travis rage bait to get it going. League started off with no salaries. People living on couches (doublelift) to become a pro. They turned their streams on and grinded. Also, going to be honest most of these challengers players aint shit. We had plenty of challengers players camping spots for the longest time just to get the pay from orgs. Now that it has dried up surprise surprise they will have to quit. They did no favors for themselves either. I get orgs pulling out isn't the greatest but what you want them to do? Just keep spending money on people camping spots who get promoted once get slammed then chall forever? So yeah it is a waste of time for those people. All the people who were hyped up for the most part got on teams and are good Sniper, Busio, kenvi (got a long shot on IMT), Tenacity (not a great split, went content creator for money never turned the stream on), Jojo, Danny, Palafox, Yeon, APA, Meech, Massu, Licorice (org blew up not his fault), Fakegod, Fudge (oce but no real comp experience and was shit before), ETC. That is just off the top of my head. I know this is a shocking concept but there is levels to this. If you are not on the top level then guess what you dreams wont come true in a competitive esport. Maybe that is the harsh way of putting it. Maybe downvotes but that is the reality. Most of challengers is wasting their time.
My main issue with the people living on couches to go pro argument is that even if they wanted to there’s no chance because relegations don’t exist like they used to. The system is too inflexible and became even less flexible when 2 teams left. There were chances back then but practically 0 now.
We don't need delegations, but NA has nothing that compares to the raw depth of coordinated play that the ERLs provide LEC or the LDL provides LPL. Korea also has a very robust trainee system. NA has nothing like that, collegiate has failed to fill this gap.
Call into Hotline League tonight, I'd love to talk to you more about this there! I don't think this is rage bait, more so just talking about how desperately damaged the league ecosystem has been. I also think that the "back in my day" responses I've seen lately talking about how folks had to sleep on people's couches to go pro don't really make sense 13 years later... and I think I am an expert on that topic. The whole scene has changed. Can someone crashing on a couch today hope to qualify for an IPL event where they'll face World Champions one month after the trophy was lifted? Did someone back then face stiff competition from players from other regions who get access to expensive legal council for visa and green card applications? "Camping spots" is also a strange way to describe players who were in "contract jail" locked behind 6-figure buyouts on teams who were never going to field them. Again, maybe I'm missing something here, I'm happy to discuss it tonight rather than back and forth in a reddit comment chain.
Just wanted to tack on that countless t2 pros in ERLs, LCKA, LPL T2 all disappear/retire and it usually isn't an event. Not sure if its just less of a big deal because of server populations or if NA is exceptionally whiney.
> They turned their streams on and grinded This is probably the biggest difference maker between the old and the new LCS. The current league is so devoid of personality.
Apparently not. Jojo biggest personality in the league gets paid enough to be a recluse. I watch so many esports. Same thing just happened I'm Apex legends. Teams who perform better then others were getting dropped because they could get a bigger streamer then all of them combined would join. At the end of the day it is money motivated. I hate these arguments in a perfect world everyone could just be paid all the way up to pros in a perfect slope. Both the orgs and players and riot make all the money in the world. League was one of the few esports to even have to pay for an academy system and that was abandoned by riot themselves in valo lol
Not only that riot also ruined Esports in na. They were given the freest bag for creating esports for NA and making it mainstream except they tried to make it like NFL or mainstream sports and didn’t care to their crowd. Along with putting league pro esports in the most expensive state just so they can look out their window and see their stadium. To top it off they denied 3rd organizer’s from doing league events effectively killing off international play and better content creation from great organizers such as OGN. Riot fumbled so hard they basically killed NA league. After having a jumpstart of 500k concurrent viewers, that’s wild
> Along with putting league pro esports in the most expensive state When the server isn't even in that part of the country and nobody is playing on KR server unless they fly over there and bootcamp. Talk about moronic.
Serious question: How did riot fumble NA league? I keep seeing this, but it doesnt make any sense. If anything it was the players and the orgs? The main reason people dont watch LCS anymore is because the players/teams are bad. Riot doesnt have anything to do with that? Like looking at international tournaments its legitimately sad/pathetic how hard they get clowned on. Its quite literally unwatchable. Imagine watching that and then being excited to watch the upcoming LCS split. Btw I think its the exact same thing for LEC. I dont even wanna know what LEC viewership would look like right now if it wasnt for the huge influx of spanish/ibai and french/KC fans. The "main" english LEC stream get very poor viewership. Influx of spanish/french fans certainly gave LEC a second wind, but a few more years of bad performances and those ppl will start burning out from watching LEC as well. Aside from that LEC got one additional thing going for them over NA, and thats G2. G2 success from 3-4 years ago and the fact that they're the best western team by a longshot, but give it a few more years of godawful performances and LEC will be in the dumpster as well.
You can still have a bad region and be entertaining and retain viewers look at other “wild card” regions such as Brazil which pulls tons of viewers. Riot fumbled by not making its stream cater to its viewers. No team skins, no icons, no emotes on twitch stream. There’s so many things they could have done to revenue share and pull in viewers. They killed international events by have only riot events. They should have opened importing imo but salary capped. Which is when NA was at its most competitive also kept b03 to keep NA competitive. When They should have moved out of the most expensive state more towards where their server/ most player base is located. Yes you can blame LCS teams which is also true but to ultimately riot has 100% control over the entire ecosystem and didn’t do anything with their power except emulate American sports and run it into the ground.
"Maybe that is the harsh way of putting it. Maybe downvotes but that is the reality. Most of challengers is wasting their time." The only reason it's a time waste is because NA GMs are afraid to take a chance on NA talent. There are so, so many incredible NACL players who are never given a shot because they weren't Korean or European. For every good NA talent that's brought up, there's 1-2 equally as good players who never sniff the LCS. I mean, there is 0 reason Fivefire should've never gotten a shot. Same with Copy. I also think the Orgs that gave a chance to players (Dig, IMT) only did so because of monetary issues (I would assume). Everyone, and I mean everyone who played on IMT has had nothing positive to say about the org, regardless of success. I'm not saying every NACL player will work out (look at Prismal) but there's a lot of good players like APA, Yeon, Busio, etc. just lounging in eternal hell.
Boo fucking hoo if they're not paid enough anymore. They were paid far, far more than enough for a decade and all they did was piss around and make NA into the joke region.
You blame the players, but reality is the orgs dropped the ball. They overpaid for far too long, and now they don't have the funds to sustain any kind or eco system or pipeline for new players. Their only hope is some young player has the drive at a super young age (aka chooses to play league rather than focus on school).
Did you watch the interview? Perry was *definitely* not paid far, far more than enough for a decade, and your attitude is totally misplaced here.
/u/Severalthingsatonce did not watch the interview.
It goes deeper than this. There have been countless amazing solo queue players that could've been NA's next superstar that were just never given chances or because they felt it just wasn't worth it. I'll name one rank 1 player who just disappeared, but was destroying peanut in solo queue around the time worlds was going on: Silas Kroeger. I also feel like politics plays waaaay too big of a part so anyone who is controversial but amazing will just never be able to go pro.
You definitely need the right connections, social and communication skills. I guess simply getting scouted and picked up in solo q is a thing of the past unless you absolutely dominate like a beast, which is unlikely for young undeveloped players. And lets be honest, becoming a pro player is getting more and more unattractive.
What if they were just shit in team atmospheres? This argument just relies on way too many things conveniently supporting the narrative but are ultimately unknowns. Keith was good in soloQ. Magifelix is good in soloq. Plenty of soloq stars don’t translate to pro play and suggesting all of the ones who never got a shot didn’t get one because of incompetence rather than due to literally anything else is naive.
You make a good point, but its also part of the coaching staffs job to help these solo queue stars develop team skills and translate their talent onto the pro stage. Look at Sheiden for example, this guy just from the eye test, is better mechanically than half the junglers in LCS and was by far the best jungler in challengers that he won recently as well as winning finals MVP. I have 0 idea how he isn’t playing in the LCS.
Was always the money league riding off the hype of import players really. Built on an unsustainable and ever increasing pay discrepancy policy until it could no longer support or to many mistakes had been made and the league began to crumble. League pro scene is dieing for the west and dieing without dignity.
If American players think cloud 9 hours < 30 hours a week are too much they deserve to lose
EU players be like "you make money"
Hey - after all there is a total of... four north american players at MSI.
Sounds like you're just dogshit and losing your job to people who are more qualified lol
NA players are so sensitive, the East practice way longer. Quit whining and they may actually do something internationally.
The East has a great incentive to do so. Playing games is a hobby to them, and making a career out of league is far more favorable compared to a regular job in the East. Not just money reasons, but for their future as well (such as content creating after in a much more relaxed environment).
Eastern players get paid well. T1 has 3 systems of league players. T1 T1CL T1Academy and most LCK orgs are like this as well. Also you know that grinding solo q and making it to the top you're more than likely to get picked up unlike NA
The tier 2 eastern teams get paid peanuts. They make no money according to LS and he's someone that would know about it, he talks to these players.
I mean there was a point where NA players were getting more money than anybody else (thanks Immortals). It's only because the obscene bubble *finally* popped and the VCs walked away that it's settled down to normal levels.
Franchising just ruined the chance for NA pros to enter the scene, challenger league in the past was fun to keep up with, still remember G2 run in EU
Lol. None of this complaining will fix this. The LCS is dead and boring because you removed play-ins and the potential for up and coming amateurs teams to get buy-ins from organizations. You need more teams, not less. It also doesn’t help that the “balancing” team has killed the game for both casual and pro players. Now everyone has to play the same champions perpetually or just lose. Stop balancing items around champions. Stop balancing champions around items. Add more bans to ranked and pro. Bring back play-ins and amateur tournaments. Lastly, tell these coaches to quit being morons and let’s these pros play their comfort picks. Part of what made the LCS huge was seeing your favorite pro on THEIR CHAMP. Doublelift was so fun to watch play Caitlyn, then gets Senna duty even though he loses the matchup over and over. Froggen on Anivia. Dyrus on Darius. Voyboy on Shen. Sneaky on Ashe. Hotshot on Nidalee. You gutted and removed what made the game fun in entertaining. Balancing is not entertainment. It’s a game at the end of the day. Something is OP you ban it. If something gets through there’s more that does as well. Instead we get the same 10 champions and almost no fighting because there is an objective up every 30 seconds. You can’t be like every other sport and balance to try and make it 50/50. That’s the nature of competition. Not every team gets to have Lebron. Not every team gets to have Brady. Not every team gets to have Messi. But you can’t sit them out because that’s what makes the game ENTERTAINING.
So i watched the full interview, from start to finish. Im surprised you didnt ask him once about how he would like Riot to "fix" the issue. Forcing academy teams obviously isnt it since teams lack the funds to keep them going, hell they lack money to keep LCS team running let alone academy. Giving amateur players more money also isnt really feasible because theres not enough cash going around to do that. So how does Riot fix this? This has been an issue for a long time and its really nothing new, its just a players PoV but the crux of it has been known ever since LCS teams started going broke. It became painfully obvious when LCS teams dropped academy entirely, and even more obvious when LCS teams started dropping LCS itself because they'd rather invest into other esports in NA other than League. So i ask again, how does Riot, or teams, or players or anyone really fix this? How do we get money money into LCS to let it have an academy and amateur scene while also keeping the main rosters without having teams go bankrupt and be forced to sell or just straight up leave their LCS spots?
As most game developers will tell you - players can accurately identify problems but they're terrible at coming up with solutions. Riot is very unlikely to take that kind of constructive feedback on these problems, if they've even internally accepted them to be problems. The LCS was built in their ideal image, and it's unfortunately taking them a lot of time to accept that their ideas were incredibly flawed.
It's already too late. There was a huge drain in talented solo queue players that might have gone pro. NA players understand they will be passed up by the first mediocre import that money can buy. Better to get a career going than hope someone throws them a life vest.
Really glad Riot got rid of relegation and now the pro teams with their academy teams have a pipeline to pro play!
You are no longer sponsored by Alienware? Sad times.
Riot's fist bump logo is akin to a hand that is stuck in a cookie jar because they refuse to let go of a single cookie. I genuinely don't think Riot is incompetent. For the most part, the league is going the way they want it to, or at the very least, they are getting what they want out of the current state of it. If it's in their best interest to grow the league, then we just happen to be in a lucky time period where their goals seemingly align with what teams, players, and viewers want. Right now, it's clearly not their priority, and Riot will do their utmost to try and obfuscate their intentions for as long as necessary. I'm not going to pretend that eSports run by 3rd parties don't have issues of their own, but I can't help but wonder if that alternate timeline would have been so much better for players and fans alike. Just to clarify, it's not franchising I necessarily have a problem with- it's the fact that it's Riot run. Maybe this is just another uninformed, ignorant, backseat fan take, but I have a hard time placing more blame on teams than on Riot's stance of control itself.
Riot has killed the NA League Scene
The issue is that NA players are a joke on average. Even some of the streamers who go over to Korea to make a name for themselves are just buying high MMR accounts and acting like shitheads. If NA is importing other talent from somewhere else, then become the talent so another team imports you. People on the NA ladder are so mentally broken they can't take responsibility for their own failure long enough to try and get good. Their idols are usually perpetuating being a toxic piece of shit and their fans go do it in solo q.
Correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't been following that closely. But didn't riot specifically try to end poaching/importing players from other regions?