eSports Giants Try to Address Lacking LoL eSport Scene

With eSports becoming a growing industry, with more people and more money flowing into it, the issue of compensating teams and athletes who participate in the scene is becoming more and more important. And while League of Legends, the largest MOBA on the planet and currently one of the most-played PC games, is currently the king of the eSports world, its reign has been less than benevolent, paying their players and shout casters less, offering less benefits, and having smaller prize pools than much less successful games, such as Smite or Rocket League.

Well now that the 2016 League of Legends world series is over, and we find ourselves preparing for another season of eSports in 2017, the teams most closely associated with Riot Games in Europe and America have decided now’s the time to speak up against Riot’s mismanagement of the eSports world.

And what better first step than a letter? Here’s the reader-friendly stuff at the start of the letter, but you can read the rest here:

Marc, Whalen, Jarred and Jason:

Over the past year, the NA and EU LCS teams (the “Teams”) have been working with their respectiveRiot counterparts to address issues related to the Teams’ participation in the LCS. As part of that effort, both the NA and EU teams have identified critical related issues which have been communicated to Riot.

Problems to Be Solved
The goal of the ongoing discussions held between the Teams and Riot were meant to solve a number ofserious problems, including:
1. The lack of job security, fair compensation and longer careers for players caused by insufficient compensation and relegation;
2. The damage to the Teams’ ability to invest in LCS players caused by insufficient compensation and relegation;
3. The weakening relationship between fans and LCS caused by relegation;
4. The harm to Team sponsorships caused by relegation and LCS’ restrictions on sponsors;
5. The effective elimination of the path to pro caused by the Teams’ need to redirect resources from LCS to Challenger as a result of insufficient compensation and relegation.
6. The financial hardship suffered by the Teams caused by insufficient compensation paid to the Teams.

The letter is signed by most of the giants of the western LoL eSports world: Cloud 9, Team Digitas, Counter Logic Gaming, Envy gaming, Pheonix1 eSports, Immortals, Team Liquid, Team SoloMid (TSM! TSM!) Team Fnatic, Giants Gaming, G2, H2K, Esports Now, Origen Gaming, Splyce, Unicorns of Love, Redwing, and ROCCAT GMBH. It seems pretty serious, and that makes sense: it doesn’t seem fair that the biggest eSport should lag behind others. If Riot Games is willing to lose talent simply out of greed, then they’re going to find themselves falling behind other rising stars in the eSports world, such as Overwatch.

Will this be enough to get them to open up those hearts and wallets of theirs? Seems unlikely. But, stranger things have happened.  As of right now, no one from Riot has responded to the letter publically (they may have done so privately), but I expect some kind of public announcement will be made within the week. 

We'll keep you all posted.