Hello and welcome back to League Lore into More. I want to start by apologizing for missing an episode last week. I was in quite a bit of mouth pain and just speaking for long sections at a time was not pleasant so I decided not to do an episode. I am obviously back this week and we are not starting our new Lore series this week.
We will actually start next week with that and that's within the last weeks I have been some major happenings within the League of Legends circuit specifically the North American League of Legends League series, their pro scene and they were quite large enough that they should be talked about and they are being talked about across the scene by much bigger voices than I am. However, the kind of the big thing that happened before this, I guess I want to preface it with yes, I have taken a harsh stance at times in the past on how North American pros go about their dedication to the game and their poor results when it comes internationally and I stand by those but also that shouldn't mean that I can't support the players in their current situation and what I mean by that is the the walkout that has been approved by the players' association in response to specific actions taken by Riot that is in the players' associations view hurting the competitive scene in North America. I am going to be reading an article today from a site called Dixerto that covers this because it just puts a lot of my thoughts and my knowledge of the situation into a concise or not necessarily concise but a more digestible language I guess. So starting with well it's titled Dixerto's website LCSPA so League Championship Series Players Association versus Riot Games controversy explained what is the LCS player walkout.
The LCS Summer Split has been thrown into uncertainty after the League's players overwhelmingly voted on May 28th to stage a historical walkout. The announcement highlights just how far apart Riot Games and the LCSPA are in terms of key issues regarding the future of North American League of Legends. Collective action of this kind is unprecedented in the LCS though there has been long-standing friction between Riot Games and the LCSPA. In March of 2020 the players' association voted to cancel the remainder of the Spring Split due to the global health emergency.
In the end however Riot decided to keep both the LCS and the academy league going in a remote setup. The LCSPA was disappointed that they felt as though they weren't taken into consideration. Unlike then however the association has now decided to take action but even if the LCS pros do walkout there's a very good chance that the matches will still go ahead with amateurs filling vacancies much to everyone's surprise. Now for those familiar with labor action here in the United States these amateurs would be referred to as like scabs.
That is what they're kind of referred to in different industries and occupations. Like a factory worker and then they go and get someone to go work in the factory while the actual employees are striking they're called scabs. So that's what these amateur players would be if they get someone to play in place of their their athletes. Here's a refix planer to help readers understand the significance of the moment.
What is the LCS walkout? On May 28th the players in the LCS North America's top legal legends competition voted in favor of a walkout following Riot Games controversial removal of the mandate that determined LCS teams had to field a roster in the North American Challenger's League. I'll read that again. The players were voted in favor of a walkout following Riot Games' controversial removal of the mandate that determined LCS teams had to field a roster in the North American Challenger's League.
So Riot took away the requirement to field a challenger team which is essentially a NBA GV team or an MLB AAA team. That is what this is. It's something that you are supposed to kind of be developing players and then eventually they'll be LCS talent. LCS teams had long stopped the possibility to opt out of the developmental league and they voted to drop the requirement due to financial concerns amid what has been referred to as the esports winter.
Within days all but three of the 10 LCS teams had announced they were dropping out of the NACL before the summer split. So if you're being like oh my gosh Ross 7 out of 10 teams dropped you have to understand that all 10 of the owners all turn on the organizations and the LCS voted to remove the mandate. Now three voted for it but are still keeping theirs and they gave reasons why they did that blah blah blah like they want you know the other teams to be financially viable because these decisions are being driven monetarily which is the case in business but it wasn't shocking that only three out of 10 kept their rosters. Only FlyQuest team liquid and evil geniuses opted to remain in the league.
Go questions remain about their plans beyond this year. Riot's decision prompted an immediate response from the LCS players association which accused the developer of pampering to the team's needs and putting the NACL's future at risk. Riot failed today to provide any plan to ensure the NACL remains a viable talent pipeline for NA the association said in a statement. LCSPA executive director Philip Oram said that Riot made the call without consulting the association which found out about the ongoing discussions between the developer and LCS teams through information lead online.
We have been lied to or Am said in an interview with Travis Gafford. We were told throughout the process this year from many people at Riot that that changes were being considered for 2024 and that is not what has happened. The LCSPA outlined a series of demands for the NACL for 2024 and beyond including a promotion system and a robust revenue sharing program. Those proposals were unaddressed by Riot forcing the LCSPA to call a vote on a walkout.
What is the LCSPA? The LCSPA was established by Riot Games in 2017 as the LCS was about to enter a franchising era. During those early years some of the association's biggest wins were the creation of a central contract database that allowed players to share salary and contract information with each other to improve bargaining power among players. The easing of streaming requirements and contracts and the creation of the first ever player summit.
In late 2020 Riot Games announced that it was ending its funding agreement with the LCSPA. Darshan Upedhaia, the association's president, said that the LCSPA would take this opportunity to completely rebuild from the ground up. Philip Oram, a former chief gaming officer at Evil Geniuses joined the LCSPA as executive director in April of 2021. In March of 2022 the LCSPA announced the multi-year partnership with one team, and that's not like one team is in a team in the LCS.
It's a company called OneTeam, to manage and commercialize the group rights for all 100 players competing at both LCS and academy levels. Members of the LCSPA also provide external support to the Americas Valorant players association according to a report. Each LCS team is represented by a player in the LCSPA with the executive council being made up of five people. The advisory board has six members including Oram.
So like the executive council has the name of earlier Darshan as the president, a player from team Liquid, a player from Cloud 9, a player from FlyQuest, another player, and then the advisory board is non-players. What are the LCSPA's demands? The LCSPA asks are the following. Point one, institute Valorant style promotion and relegation between the LCS and NACL.
We'll get that in a moment. Two, allow LCS works to partner with affiliates for cost sharing. Three Riot commits to a revenue pool for players salaries of 300,000 per NACL team per year. Institute eight, three out of five roster continuity roles provide players unreleased NACL roster's first priority in maintaining their slots in the upcoming NACL season if a majority continue to compete together.
And lastly, Riot guarantees LCS minimum contracts for the following year for the five players who win the LCS summer finals each year. One of the biggest changes proposes is the introduction of a promotion system that would tie the LCS and the NACL, similar to what's been done in Valorant. When announcing the revamped Valorant champions towards circuit Riot games establish the promotion and relegation system in the three international leagues, the EMEA, which is Europe, the Americas, and Pacific. In each region, the winner of a promotion tournament called Ascension earns a two-year slot in the International League.
In addition to having the opportunity to compete against the region's best teams, the promoted teams will also receive revenue share and can qualify for international events, like VCT Masters and Valorant champions. After those two years, the teams dropped down to the Challenger League and was qualified again. The possibility to have third-party entities help LCS teams run an NACL roster would be an incentive to keep supporting the league based on our calculations that could cut the cost of running an NACL team in half for an orc. Orum said, what happens now?
Will there be an LCS walkout? The ball is now in Riot's core. With a little over 48 hours to go until the LCS summer begins and at the time of reading this 24 hours, the possibility of the players walking out on Thursday if nothing changes feels very much real. All 10 LCS teams are scheduled to play on the opening day of the summer split, which will kick off the rematch on the spring finals between Cloud9 and Golden Guardians.
The media activities, except for May 30th, have been cancelled according to Travis Gafford. It's likely that there will be no promotional shoots for the league either. Media Day or also called Asset Day is something where basically all the players are there at or the LCS is like headquarters or where they're studio, where they play the games and stuff, and they're shooting promotional content, they're having their self-sphotograph for the images that you see during the broadcast, when they're talking about certain players and stuff like that. So it's kind of a big deal to have it cancelled.
It's a lot of content that is not that you can no longer have available for you to use because you don't have it for the entirety of the summer split and obviously you can get rescheduled, but as of right now they wouldn't have it. The LCS PA, since he really hopes Riot will overt this walk out by joining us in the coming days to have open and transparent discussions so that we can forge collaborative solutions to ensure the best futures for the LCS and the NACL, the LCS PA statement read. According to the Gamehouse Sanderhove, the Gamehouse is Sanderhove, so Sanderhove and employee for the company, the Gamehouse, the LCS Summer Split will go as planned even if many of the League's stars decide not to play. To the end Riot Games has reportedly given LCS teams permission to sign additional players after the roster lock.
It is a possibility that Oram himself had not ruled out a few days ago, saying if Riot or the teams want to use Chicanery and Messerown to try and circumvent this, they can do that. He said, they will be tried in public opinion at the very least for such actions. Later on May 29th, the LCS PA issued a statement confirming the rumor. The LCS PA has been aware of over a week of attempts to require teams to field-scab players at the start of the season.
The LCS PA noted that it is actively reaching out to players outside of the LCS asking them not to play for any LCS org as a replacement option. But based on our conversations, we believe players will stand in solidarity in any attempts to make scab rosters fail. To start the LCS season without interruption, there is only one solution. Meet with the players and agree to a plan that everyone can support.
Riot Games seems determined that the LCS goes ahead as planned. According to recent reports, the developers allowing LCS teams to sign additional players past the deadline and is even dropping solo queue ranking requirements at least for the opening weekend to make sure that every org has a roster ready to play. According to Travis Gafford, LCS teams face financial repercussions and for future games if they don't play. Riot Games does not yet commented on the walkout vote.
That is the gist of it. I think critical of players in the past, this is definitely a positive action to defeat the narrative of them being lazy. Now, this is, I guess you could spin it, that they're working to save their jobs that they don't necessarily work at. But this is to say the academy players, a lot of which are X-Pros, which shouldn't be the case, it shouldn't be wash up veterans playing in academy.
But there are some in there that are hungry and want to be in LCS and want to get better and they just lost their job overnight. And all because these organizations just had their bubble popped and everything comes to light that they're actually morons and can't run their organizations effectively and are constantly in the red. But it also goes to show that Riot is existing in a universe that, how do I put this? They are existing in a place with zero competition.
There's no other game, there are games that are the same style as league, but nothing is anywhere near the level of popularity as league. So they have no competition in this field, this genre of game, to cause them to want to actually be better. And it's caused them to behave as a company in a way that is them expressing that they want to have an iron grip on every single thing related and they don't want to relinquish any bit of power to the players. Or as little as they can to the orgs.
Because, and this kind of goes back to the whole broadcasting rights thing, right? Which yes, could inhibit audience viewership, it could also expand it. But in a way, like selling your broadcasting rights instead of streaming it live for free, twitch and youtube. And like their own site, which granted is great for me.
I love it. I get to watch it for free. Yes, there's advertisements. I don't have to watch those.
I can go to a different tab. I can mute it. Same with normal TV, granted, you know, I don't pay for cable, right? So if it's on like a, not that I'm even certain a cable channel would buy the broadcasting rights.
And I know there's a ton of factors here, right? Like, and I'm not saying selling the broadcasting rights is like the only, that's the solution. It solves the financial problems of the LCS and all that. No, because there's a ton of other factors into that, which is, you know, most notably that the audience of the LCS is people who are using YouTube and twitch and they're not watching cable TV anymore.
They're going to watch a streaming service, but you know, you're not going to, so it's possible, you know, Apple TV, Amazon, something like that could pick it up. But you're not going to get the same footprint in the same outreach that you're going to get with the way they do it now. So obviously, it's a kind of a pros and cons thing where you're just weighing how much you're going to be making off the broadcast rights, whereas like so with the NBA, they get a few billion. It's been jumping lately, but the next broadcasting rights deal is probably going to be several billion dollars for the NBA.
And that gets divided amongst the 30 teams. And that also to help determine what their salary cap is. That's another issue with like the legal legend system. One, there's no relegation and promotion, which is what the PAs arguing for that incentivizes teams to not care because they have a guaranteed spot.
Secondly, there's no salary cap, which in order to have a salary cap, your players have to have a union. The player's association is not a union. They could become one, but they're not a union yet, which is why I walk out is different from a strike. You won't hear the word strike being used in this.
If there was a salary cap, then, you know, it's it's much easier to call a spade a spade, I guess, when you're looking at a team that's tanking or something like this. Now, in traditional sports here in the States, right in football, basketball, baseball, hockey, there's a draft. Now, and players are going to tank for those for someone that they can see is a great player. And they want them with their first overall pick.
So they're going to not say that they're tanking, but they're going to tank. They're going to trade off their good players for pennies and get draft picks back. They're going to do things that make it clear without saying it that they're taking. Now, there's not there's been the scouting grounds where everywhere teams have drafted players in LCS.
This isn't really like a viable thing in the LCS, it might be because there's 10 teams in all the other traditional sports. There's 30 or 32. And in football, you have a 53 man roster, basketball, you have a 15 man roster, I believe, or a between 12 and 15. In hockey, it's at least 15.
It's probably 20 some baseball. It's I think you have 26 guys in the clubhouse. And then you have an entire farm system of teams. So, but also like the institutions have been around for so long that there's always players on a team that are aging out or that are out of contract.
Whereas, and so that you can draft players to replace them and the LCS players are playing longer and longer now. So less spots are open opening up. Now, and it's much harder to be able to spot a legal legends player playing in solo queue or playing in amateur level tournaments and stuff and be like, that guy's got that guy's got the goods. He's going to be a star or whatever compared to an NBA, a senior in high school, a freshman in college who's seven foot tall, shoots the three, has handles, and you know, guards the rim.
It's much harder to so many cases of LCS, you know, oh, it's guys gonna be good, and they just fade into obscurity. And so like the league just hasn't been around long enough. It's not big enough in terms of player pool to be able to warrant like a draft and a salary cap and to make it more similar to normal sports. So it's in a very weird spot.
It's really hard to see where this is going to go. Unfortunately, we're probably going to have games with just a bunch of nobodies, probably the team's staff is going to have to fill in for the games. I don't know if I'll watch, I know there's a call for just the fans to kind of do a walk out of their own and not watch. Also, I think I said earlier that as I was reading the 24 hours, but May has 31 days.
So it is 48 hours from now that they have to come to an agreement to prevent the walkout that is Riot has that time. The players already decided to walk out, but they can't decide not to, obviously if, you know, Riot meets them somewhere that they are agreeing to. But yeah, that was that was it for today's episode. Again, sorry for missing last week.
I will be back next week though with our new lore series and maybe I'll just toss an update at the start about how this goes because it will be something will happen within the next few days. Go to our bad, but kind of the future of the LCS in general is kind of hanging in the balance right now. And yeah, so kind of some worry sometimes because I do love watching it. You know, I don't really watch traditional sports much anymore outside of highlights and stuff like that.
But you know, I've watched the LCS for nine years now. So I would be pretty even more sad if it were to go away than I already am with TSM choosing to leave the LCS and move to a different region. So this would kind of be a second kick in the nuts. But we shall see and I will see you guys next week.
Thanks for letting me stand on my soapbox here. But yeah, we'll be back and do some more lore like we're used to but thanks for listening and catch you next time.