early this week league of legends Players “overwhelmingly” voted to strike against a rule change plan to cut the number of participating teams in the North American Challengers League from 16 to seven, just launched last year.
The LCS Players Association, the body representing professional players in the region, said the plan would put an estimated 70 people out of work, including players and coaches. Riot, on the other hand, argues that layoffs were necessary for the North American league to remain “sustainable.” [and] economically viable. ”
Tensions were further heightened the next day when news broke that professional teams were actively considering “acquisition of scab players”, but the LCSPA said that “crossing the line undermines a player’s bargaining power”, so the move. has rightly claimed that it would “endanger the future of all players”. .
The LCSPA met with Riot earlier today and shortly thereafter: Riot posted a lengthy statement on its site Deal with strikes. You don’t need to read too much into it to understand that the company has decided to stick with it.
The bulk of this post is devoted to telling North American players why other regions can monetize their leagues, but you can’t. The most poignant example is the following sentence: Riot has flatly rejected the LCSPA’s request to “commit a revenue pool of $300,000 a year in player salaries per NACL team.”
It’s simply not sustainable. And to be brutally honest, it shouldn’t be necessary. There are other Tier 2 leagues growing on their own around the world, and we believe the NACL can reach that status.
However, Riot’s comments on the league’s upcoming schedule have been left with the harshest language, with the company basically saying that if no agreement is reached within the next two weeks, not only will the entire LCS summer season be cancelled, but the , says the LCS will also be canceled. The team does not qualify him for the 2023 World Championships either.
It is our hope that this two-week period will provide time for productive dialogue between the LSCPA, teams and leagues, and that LCS competition will resume this summer. The LCS will not penalize teams for not preparing their rosters during this two-week period so that everyone can focus on constructive dialogue. We do our best to ensure that LCS employees, contractors, and others who support LCS are not adversely affected by delays.
If we are more than two weeks late, it will be nearly impossible to hold a legitimate competition, and we are prepared to cancel the entire LCS summer season. Carrying on from this, if the LCS summer season is cancelled, his LCS squad, which is qualified for the 2023 World Championship, will also be wiped out. To be clear, this is not the result we want, but unfortunately it is the reality of ensuring a fair and competitive global system.
Importantly, despite the length of this post and the number of points it covers, Riot never once commented on the team’s potential use of a “scab” player. The LCSPA has yet to issue its own comments after the meeting. We have reached out to them, but have yet to hear back at the time of publication.
Updated at 11:55 PM ET: In response, the LCSPA said in a statement:
Tonight, one thing is clearly in focus again. It’s that the player is his LCS. Without players, there would be no leagues and no esports. From day one, the LCSPA players were voted out due to their exclusion from the decision-making process.FuNACL and LCS content is too big to be decided overnight without player consideration.
We have met with Riot Games today and requested a daily meeting, or more if necessary, to resolve the issue. Starting tomorrow, we plan to start discussions that will lead to meaningful collaborative actions for our players to return to where they belong: competing for their fans on the LCS stage.
We would also like to express our gratitude. We remain deeply grateful to her LCS community for such a wonderful display of unity among players. Our fight is possible because of your support.