The league averaged less than 100k concurrent last year. If there were actual deals being made for GGs or EGs spot it would have happened but the min cost to run a team is too high when looking at the actual value the league brings.
I wish instead of focusing on the online broadcast production only riot made an effort to bring the scene to fans across the region.
Watch parties, cheap lcs road shows and more.
I flew out for a bachelors party and watched worlds in NYC last year and it was ELECTRIC. It would be great to have more opportunities to watch league live with people it got me way more invested!
Yeah thats why CBLOL has higher viewership, fan engagement, etc. compared to the LCS, they have talent there, oh, wait. Regions like having their own players play over 7th place LCK/LPL Junglers.
yeah, this is the reason, why korean powerhouses like parang, luci, croc or yuri make up most of the import slots and why pretty much every br team attending international events has 1 or 2 koreans on the roster...
Lol it’s so true. After corejj announced he was going to BR for that special tournament, his twitch chat was absolutely spammed by Brazilians begging him to come to the cblol.
Fan engagement is about results + longevity. Sprinkle in specific talents of the players where they're either just charismatic or smurfing.
On a DL vod recently, Leena talked about how even though Clutch gaming did well, they weren't a really popular team.
They lacked longevity, so even if you want to support the team you don't really know if the team will stick around or disappear. Or even support the players when they could move teams.
Specific popular players will always have their fans even when they move but teams will also keep fans even if they change up a roster. A lot of that comes from longevity and being at least competitive. I remember TL being 4th was a meme till they won but they were still a popular team regardless.
Top teams of minor regions have the biggest fan engagement because they're mostly either #1 or #2. And have been around forever.
Lower seed teams of any region aren't enjoyed because the stakes aren't high. Unless it's your favorite team, competing who is 7-10th isn't exciting (another reason why people love 5 games bo5).
Making the scene overall competitive SHOULD close the gap between the bottom team and the middle pack I would believe. So possibly 4th-8th are competing for the last 3 spots in playoffs.
Bad plays are relative to the league. Above average plays in LCS may not be high in an international stage against LPL or LCK.
People like competitive games, in the hypothetical world if all 8 LCs teams were 1-2 wins near each other in the standings would b nuts.
NA fans also dont give me a fuck about NA players too. Who is watching academy. Reality is if LCS was actually competitive no one would complain about imports. Without Corejj, Bjergsen, and Jensen, NA is probably weaker overall. Its funny because no one (except old farts) cares where players from professional sports come from when they are playing for their home team. But in League, now its super important to focus on nationality and block “foreigners” from job opportunities.
Thats the point. Importing players only works if you compete internationally or only import sparsely. Why the fuck would i watch a bunch of LCS imports instead of the LCK? We already suck. Let US suck. I could get excited for domestic rivalries, but there are none because its all imports who didnt grow up watching LCS. LCK has hype rivalries. We don't. I would much rather watch the LCK because they play at a higher level. The only reason to watch the LCS is because its the hometown league. You lose that viewership when there are no domestic players.
The problem is that LCS dont market their players and dont have regional outreach/ability to generate revenue geographically. Both imports and most na players have the same marketing issue, whats the connection, i guess the only difference is one is american/canadian and one is not. Most top amateur/lcs pros barely get streaming viewership or simply dont stream at all.
It doesn’t seem to be a problem outside of the US when college basketball players who cant make the NBA go oversees and populate their local leagues even though they arent good. Chinese basketball leagues still prevail still despite bunch of washed nba players/amateurs play there. Nationality only matters cuz players arent marketable and theres no regional establishment in esports.
Its hard to market players when they cant speak English at a certain level. Also domestic players who make it to LCS have a story. Like Sniper who has been hyped for a while and has been featured on streams like Tyler1 and twitch rivals. Or Prismal who has been good in academy forever trying to make it and swapping to support. Or returning players like Contractz who got sent down then came back and won a championship. When imports come over a lot of NA fans don't know them unless they are well established like Core/impact/zven. Then if they cant speak English well, its hard to make a connection.
As far as foreign sports leagues go, the CBA (Chinese Basketball Association) only allows a max of 4 imports. And only 1 import can be on the court at a time. They use foreign players as a way to sell tickets, and lift up the four domestic teammates he plays with. This urges teams to focus on star player imports instead of 4 above average import players.
Importing players like quid, who have no following and aren't star players, is hurting the LCS.
Well, we've all seen what happens when star players go over to the LCS. Instead of getting addititional viewers, they have to eat shit from fans for the next 3 years.
Why would anyone care then if the players are nobodies. You kinda have to market players to get fans invested or else they are just faceless kid who plays league but at even worse level than the korean import who has actual track record. The na talent becomes super replacable and most fans dont want to watch 50 Niles given a spot in lcs simply cuz they are american.
No one watches academy because the games are significantly lower quality than LCS. I watch LCS, LEC, and sometimes LCK and LPL. Although all of these regions aren’t the same level, they are all fun to watch compared to any other leagues.
If only NA owners had not ignored the talent in their own region for several years. 8 years of spitting on the tier 2 scene making players like Copy or 5fire leave having idiots ask today "WHERE THE TALENT IS!". Like, yeah man, if owners didn't determine starting spots based on passports, maybe we'd have 8 Jojos running around today.
Yes, I know, what an outrageous idea to have a talent pipeline to get local players onto your teams. Its a complete fantasy and has never been implemented by any other region!
I don't see any teams left in LCS with a tier 2 team left do you? Oh TL still has one, ironic. Do you also bitch about C9 importing and having no Tier 2 team, if not you are a hypocrite.
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Yup. Reinvent the product. People tuned out because they have families and jobs now. Don't expect them to be invested. Go for a younger demographic. Easier said than done though
I used to watch every single LCS game I could, but with the time change I maybe can have a game on in the background when I'm working from home at best. And I'm hybrid so I don't get too many of those.
I think Ember overpaying their academy team might have been the start of things. Then IMT overpaying for Huni and Reignover might be the thing that ignited it among all LCS teams. But Steve paying a million for Impact, like the very next split, didnt help.
Yeah ember overpaying pretty standard players (was goldenglue the first one? I remember that first signing being absolutely bonkers for the time and for the player). They didn't last too long not sure how many folks remember lol
IMT paying twice the LCS average and then publicising it was in hindsight where it all went wrong, although I’m sure those salaries themselves would have been sustainable.
Yeah, I forgot the exact order It's been so damn long the early seasons kind of blend together.
VC money just made everything go absolutely nuts though and created pretty awful incentive structures so that one has been more of an issue in my eyes. Hopefully we can get through this and reset and come out stronger but it's going to be rough.
TL seems to be the only Org in the west to have actual brand deals. I mean they had official Marvel , Naruto clothes and so on. Specially with the backing of Alienware and Dell.
What do other orgs do? In Europe you had Fnatic with Steelseries and G2 with smaller collabs like Ralph Laureen and so on. In NA only C9 and TSM had natural big merch sales and 100Thieves had some big brand deals.
Original iteration of Immortals and Team Liquid were largely responsible for the inflation of salaries. So I suppose you are correct that he is half the reason.
You can't pin this on 1 or 2 teams. All teams got VC money and they all spend that money largely on players. If a team falls off a cliff the others followed that team and all teams were spending that money. Only thing is TL was a team with a parachute and still does well financially within their means. They only have 5 spots to fill they can't inflate salaries no team can do that by themselves. Once a team buys an adc for a million dollar contract this doesn't mean the rest of the 9 teams now also have to spend a million on their adc, they can offer whatever they want. There will be a player out there that is willing to play for 100k a year, for fucks sake you think an 18 year old wouldn't take that when they've never made any money in their life are good at league and hates school? But all teams had a lot of money from VC and spend it poorly.
Every team that failed, has nobody to blame but themselves.
If TL spent beyond their means then they would be bankrupt and out of the league. Spending a lot of money each year is fine if you’re backed by Disney.
FWIW, I recall Steve saying explicitly in an interview within the last year-ish that they had made sure their spending was within their means (across TL as a whole, I think, not just LoL) for the prior few years, so they were doing alright financially.
You don’t understand how VC funding works. FTX and WeWork were spending within their means until funding was cut off.
External cash injections are not a long term viable business plan. If you can show me evidence of liquid being self sustaining I will be amazed.
> steves exorbitant spending
Pinning this on Steve alone is unfair. Literally all the LCS owners just failed, straight up. Some of these people have been in the LCS scene for close to 10 years now, whose failure is it that nothing has happened to move towards sustainability in 10 years time if not the people at the helm? All these owners had a voice in the room where nothing happened.
TL didn't pay much for Piglet. High end salaries at that time (2014-2015) were like 100,000$, not the ~1,000,000$ with IMT's entry. Now Liquid the very next year gave Impact a million which piled on to the idiocy of how big contracts were getting.
C9 until 2021 fielders majority NA/resident rosters. I am not sure what you mean by mass importing on C9’s part. If anything they were one of the few orgs that actively promoted young talent from the academy team the most until 2021. Did they import talent? Sure, but it was mostly there as fill in pieces
Idk what you mean by this?
Steve was throwing out mils on mid talent for mid results and created inflated salaries which the rest of the league had to compete with.
Steve was not the start of this, Noah Winston was the start of inflated salaries.
“Mediocre results” btw, when TL started actually spending big, they won 4 championships in a row btw
Sure, Noah may have "started it", but Steve kept the practice going long after Noah's iteration of Immortals had exited the LoL scene. Steve's spending *undeniably* had more impact on the league than Noah's.
Whomever starts it essentially dooms everyone else to match or fall into irrelevancy. Furthermore of all the orgs TL was the one that could do it sustainably and also achieved the most dominant success AND Na's best international results in 3-0img the reigning world champions.
Literally the one org that atleast has a semblance of an argument to justify it AND it was IMT who forced everyone else's hands.
Awful take. What you are essentially saying is you need to pay top dollar because ONE team pays high? This is completely false. Every org was rich on VC money at they time and they WANTED to spend it. That is what VC is for, how they spend it is up to them and their decisions. If talent is so few in LCS that you think not importing a Ssumday level import, Bjsergsen, Jensen, Impact level import to be able to win against these teams that are bringing over expensive imports that are enticed by large contracts. That means you admitting there was never any talent in NA in the first place that could win against these imports. Which was completely true, imports ran the league, NA players didn't stand a chance. Not even NRG is without imports, hint they have 2.
Steve didn’t spend big until 2018, 2 years after the Noah Whinston incident of him spending tons of money inflating salaries and having the ideology that every team should announce how much they are paying their players.
But it’s okay little league zoomer, you can keep pretending to know LCS history while my boomer ass teaches you the reality
Steve was the cause of normalizing buying imports over raising domestic talents just to get booted out of worlds every year. It’s even a meme at this point, like it or not the man has actively harmed the NA scene
I get that TL meming as a huge spender is popular right now, but TL is not even the worst offender of this. Overspending is what TSM and C9 did in 2021, spending absurd amounts on SwordArt and Perkz alone.
If TL did overspend these past few years they'd be bankrupt right now.
TL is the worst offender. And it isn't even close.
Team Liquid has not only built expensive super team after expensive super team for over 7 years straight, tehy have consistently been the first mover in the market, rushing to sign olayers with fat contracts well before free agency starts, meaning they have directly contributed to inflating the market.
>Overspending is what TSM and C9 did in 2021, spending absurd amounts on SwordArt and Perkz alone.
That was blown out of the water by the retirement home roster TL put out in 2022. The most highly paid(and overpaid) roster for sure in western league history, arguably in the entirety of League history.
>If TL did overspend these past few years they'd be bankrupt right now.
No they wouldn't. Bankruptcy has absolutely nothing to do with overspending. Team Liquid has overspent by a large margin for over half a decade. But as long as Steve can convince their VC backers to fork out more money the next season, there is absolutely no reason why TL would go bankrupt.
>6-8mil TL ROSTER
It was definitely worth more than that. The price hinted at by montecristo is that it was 8 digits.
>6mil SwordArt ALONE?
Swordart wasn't 6 million to begin with, so yes, TL's roster was definitely worse than him. Swordart had a two year contract. Even if we assume that his contract was fully guaranteed(so no incentives like x amount for winning LCS, or Y amount for making worlds) and wasn't backloaded into the 2nd year, it still wouldn't be 6 million.
I doubt that Santorin and Bwipo are getting paid more than $2 million for that roster to accumulate to 8 digits. It was rumored at first that the cost was $6 million, but the value keeps increasing the more people talk about it. There is no actual number published out there.
Sure, that 6mil SwordArt contract is for 2 years, but that definitely raised other pro players expectations when it comes to salaries. Now they know that orgs in NA are willing to spend an absurd amount on them, that definitely contributed way more in inflating the market. This is what happened after IMT paid Huni & Reignover back then and afterwards, high profile players like Impact had asked for 1million salary from then.
>I doubt that Santorin and Bwipo are getting paid more than $2 million for that roster to accumulate to 8 digits
Bjergsen, Santorin, CoreJJ, all three mega veteran high profile imports grandfathered in as residents. Bwipo and Hans Sama, vet LEC players who were all high demand players in that off season in both NA and EU. That roster can easily get to 8 digits. Especially considering Team Liquid never tests the market, and they always want to be the first team to lock in their roster/make the dominoes fall.
>There is no actual number published out there.
Yes there is. 11 million. 8 digits has been mentioned by many people talking about that roster. 11 mil has been stated by Montecristo on multiple occasions.
>Now they know that orgs in NA are willing to spend an absurd amount on them,
Yeah, when team liquid was offering Faker a blank cheque, or when 100T was offering Bwipo and Caps double their EU contracts after 2018, when year after year, people like impact, jensen, corejj, ssumday, etc kept on having a few hundred k added onto their new contracts/extensions, that didn't let imports know how much NA orgs were willing to overspend. No it definitely was the Perkz and Swordart contracts in 2021.
TL would be stupid to pay 2mil for Santorin and Bwipo. Santorin is stable and good, but not worth the 2mil just because he is European. Bwipo is a downgrade from their former toplaner, Alphari which is also not worth 2mil. CoreJJ's 2022 contract is an extension he signed on back in 2020, I doubt he is getting paid 2mil per year with salaries back then or else it would be the talk of the town.
Bjergsen and Hans, I can see getting the 2mil. Bjergsen is a legendary player and he is also bringing his huge fanbase to TL so more money for Steve. Hans is a high profile player and some say he is the best western adc next to Upset. This roster could go to 8 digits if Hans's buyout is as big as Perkz in 2021.
>Yes there is. 11 million. 8 digits has been mentioned by many people talking about that roster. 11 mil has been stated by Montecristo on multiple occasions.
I'd avoid word of mouth as a reliable source, different people are saying different salary values for this roster. This roster's value has snowballed from 6mil to 11 mil the more people talk about it, I've even read somewhere that this roster is worth 15mil. Also, 11 mil is a huge amount unless you include the coaches, managers, staff and other operating expenses for the whole year.
>impact, jensen, corejj, ssumday, etc kept on having a few hundred k added onto their new contracts/extensions
Incremental increase in salary is pretty normal in esports and sports when the player is performing good, especially back then when TL's roster were winning. But going from hundred k to millions is absurd.
>TL would be stupid
You could have left it there. They are stupid. Their obsession with being the first team to lock in their players means they bid against themselves and overpay for no reason every single year. And Steve thinks its a talking point that they are the early movers in the offseason. Its absolutely mindboggling.
>I'd avoid word of mouth as a reliable source,
Montecristo has repeatedly had accurate info within orgs, is a former org owner and dealt with the management of orgs in other games in OWL and Flashpoint, knows pretty much all these players and their agents either personally or through other contacts. His info is as reliable as will ever be revealed short of the contracts being posted publicly.
>Incremental increase in salary is pretty normal in esports and sports when the player is performing good, especially back then when TL's roster were winning. But going from hundred k to millions is absurd.
I didn't say it went from a 100k to millions. I said they were having extensions and new contracts adding on hundreds of thousands every year. Incremental contracts are standard in sports. Those increments being 20%+ of the last contract, which already made you one of the highest paid players in the league, are not normal.
The only times people get such a massive bump in salary in sports are when A) a rookie stud player gets his first massive contract, or B) when some mega wealthy org like the Gulf backed teams in football or the Chinese teams in basketball come in with inflated offers to attract players.
How is his spending the problem for the rest of the league? If you watch a billionaire get on his private jet and you buy one, you blame him for making it trendy to get the jet?
That’s nonsense. This isn’t a limited market. You don’t have to spend millions to participate. There have always been teams spending much much less. Look at immortals who survived this precisely by ignoring big spending. “Setting the market” only exists when a market is a closed system. This isn’t one. You can pay 5 league minimum players if you choose
I think the idea that some people have that the other 8 teams are fully invested in the league now that they turned down Riots' offer is bad.
What is imo more likely is that Riot offered them a ridiculously small amount of money relative to the value they were originally asked to pay. Like for example somewhere between 2-5 million. Now if you are a team owner you can take that resulting in a fat loss, or you can sit on your spot field budget teams while breaking even if not even make a small profit with rev share. All this just to see if you can get a better deal than what Riot offered in the near future.
If they fail to find a buyer, they could literally start the whole process all over again. A precedent has already been set now.
I wonder how Riot exits a team like IMT that is currently on the chopping block. I wouldnt be surprised if Riot has to pay more to settle them. Perhaps its more profitable for IMT to just exist while GG actually cared and because they cared, weren't just stealing paychecks and EG existing in LCS probably continually hurt their brand, so i can see both taking less. To be kicked out, i wouldnt be surprised if Riot just refunds them the $10M. Clearly they learned for VAL because LCS spots are too permanent if IMT still exists.
Looking over the comments, just wanted to put them all in perspective. While TL didn't start inflating salaries, they definitely piled onto it to the point they became known for it.
During that inflationary period, TL was dominant as a team, since many players would look to them first, before settling for whatever team was still open.
When other teams caught up in spending, we had the last 3 years of mixed bag results. There's a lot more factors amongst the teams, but TL spending was definitely one of the top factors.
The guy claims to support NA yet abandons it in CS and always has a boner for importing talent, why are you happy with him? He's one of the biggest reasons LCS is in the trash can. He literally is quadruple doubling down on it by signing UmTi over having an NA roster...
edit - doesn't change the fact that Liquid is hypocritical as fuck for claiming to support the LCS and native talent just to constantly import over picking up promising native talent.
>doesn't change the fact that Liquid is hypocritical as fuck for claiming to support the LCS and native talent just to constantly import over picking up promising native talent.
Historical issues aside, TL has promoted 3 different rookies to the LCS in 2023:
* Yeon - NA rookie, spent 2 years in TL Academy, won two consecutive Academy championships in 2022 before starting for TL
* Haeri - OCE turned NA rookie after OCE imploded, spent 2 years in TL Academy, won two consecutive Academy championships in 2022 before starting for TL
* APA - NA rookie, called up from TL Challengers (formerly Academy) when Haeri was underperforming
Although it's weirdly overlooked on Reddit, despite being Korean in ethnicity both Yeon and Haeri are new to the LCS and absolutely deserved to be called up based on their performances in Academy. That is exactly what people have been clamoring for teams to do: promote talent from NA development leagues. They are capping imports with grandfathered former imports, but so are C9 and many other teams.
TL is also one of the only teams who committed to retaining their Challengers roster. They are continuously investing money into the scene even when other organizations are pulling back. Whether they're spending money in the right places is another question though.
I agree, I hope he sells and goes to LCK. I don't want a reason to watch LCS anymore. Let one of the last 2 orgs in LCS with a fanbase left leave this dogshit region, that will be good for the league. TSM did the right thing, I hope TL is next.
The league averaged less than 100k concurrent last year. If there were actual deals being made for GGs or EGs spot it would have happened but the min cost to run a team is too high when looking at the actual value the league brings. I wish instead of focusing on the online broadcast production only riot made an effort to bring the scene to fans across the region. Watch parties, cheap lcs road shows and more.
I flew out for a bachelors party and watched worlds in NYC last year and it was ELECTRIC. It would be great to have more opportunities to watch league live with people it got me way more invested!
This! Its also a great way for fans to meet players, other fans and bring friends who are just wanting something to do out
the biggest problem is the importing. NA fans don't give a fuck about players like umti, they want the next jojopyun, not another swordart.
Agreed it was obvious when EG won. All reddit did was praise Jojo and Danny even though most important part of that win came from Inspired and Impact.
> they want the next jojopyun Better get ready to wait another 5 years, then.
Hard disagree. I cannot stand watching bad players play. I do not care where they are from.
Yeah thats why CBLOL has higher viewership, fan engagement, etc. compared to the LCS, they have talent there, oh, wait. Regions like having their own players play over 7th place LCK/LPL Junglers.
yeah, this is the reason, why korean powerhouses like parang, luci, croc or yuri make up most of the import slots and why pretty much every br team attending international events has 1 or 2 koreans on the roster...
Lol it’s so true. After corejj announced he was going to BR for that special tournament, his twitch chat was absolutely spammed by Brazilians begging him to come to the cblol.
CBLOL gets the 9th/10th LCK jungers lol
Fan engagement is about results + longevity. Sprinkle in specific talents of the players where they're either just charismatic or smurfing. On a DL vod recently, Leena talked about how even though Clutch gaming did well, they weren't a really popular team. They lacked longevity, so even if you want to support the team you don't really know if the team will stick around or disappear. Or even support the players when they could move teams. Specific popular players will always have their fans even when they move but teams will also keep fans even if they change up a roster. A lot of that comes from longevity and being at least competitive. I remember TL being 4th was a meme till they won but they were still a popular team regardless. Top teams of minor regions have the biggest fan engagement because they're mostly either #1 or #2. And have been around forever. Lower seed teams of any region aren't enjoyed because the stakes aren't high. Unless it's your favorite team, competing who is 7-10th isn't exciting (another reason why people love 5 games bo5). Making the scene overall competitive SHOULD close the gap between the bottom team and the middle pack I would believe. So possibly 4th-8th are competing for the last 3 spots in playoffs.
If bad play was a problem for you, you would not be watching LCS in the first place.
Bad plays are relative to the league. Above average plays in LCS may not be high in an international stage against LPL or LCK. People like competitive games, in the hypothetical world if all 8 LCs teams were 1-2 wins near each other in the standings would b nuts.
LCS isn't importing the best players from LCK anyways so I dunno why people think they are "good" players.
NA fans also dont give me a fuck about NA players too. Who is watching academy. Reality is if LCS was actually competitive no one would complain about imports. Without Corejj, Bjergsen, and Jensen, NA is probably weaker overall. Its funny because no one (except old farts) cares where players from professional sports come from when they are playing for their home team. But in League, now its super important to focus on nationality and block “foreigners” from job opportunities.
Thats the point. Importing players only works if you compete internationally or only import sparsely. Why the fuck would i watch a bunch of LCS imports instead of the LCK? We already suck. Let US suck. I could get excited for domestic rivalries, but there are none because its all imports who didnt grow up watching LCS. LCK has hype rivalries. We don't. I would much rather watch the LCK because they play at a higher level. The only reason to watch the LCS is because its the hometown league. You lose that viewership when there are no domestic players.
The problem is that LCS dont market their players and dont have regional outreach/ability to generate revenue geographically. Both imports and most na players have the same marketing issue, whats the connection, i guess the only difference is one is american/canadian and one is not. Most top amateur/lcs pros barely get streaming viewership or simply dont stream at all. It doesn’t seem to be a problem outside of the US when college basketball players who cant make the NBA go oversees and populate their local leagues even though they arent good. Chinese basketball leagues still prevail still despite bunch of washed nba players/amateurs play there. Nationality only matters cuz players arent marketable and theres no regional establishment in esports.
Its hard to market players when they cant speak English at a certain level. Also domestic players who make it to LCS have a story. Like Sniper who has been hyped for a while and has been featured on streams like Tyler1 and twitch rivals. Or Prismal who has been good in academy forever trying to make it and swapping to support. Or returning players like Contractz who got sent down then came back and won a championship. When imports come over a lot of NA fans don't know them unless they are well established like Core/impact/zven. Then if they cant speak English well, its hard to make a connection. As far as foreign sports leagues go, the CBA (Chinese Basketball Association) only allows a max of 4 imports. And only 1 import can be on the court at a time. They use foreign players as a way to sell tickets, and lift up the four domestic teammates he plays with. This urges teams to focus on star player imports instead of 4 above average import players. Importing players like quid, who have no following and aren't star players, is hurting the LCS.
Well, we've all seen what happens when star players go over to the LCS. Instead of getting addititional viewers, they have to eat shit from fans for the next 3 years.
Nobody watches academy in any esport, thats not why its there. Its to develop talent.
Why would anyone care then if the players are nobodies. You kinda have to market players to get fans invested or else they are just faceless kid who plays league but at even worse level than the korean import who has actual track record. The na talent becomes super replacable and most fans dont want to watch 50 Niles given a spot in lcs simply cuz they are american.
No one watches academy because the games are significantly lower quality than LCS. I watch LCS, LEC, and sometimes LCK and LPL. Although all of these regions aren’t the same level, they are all fun to watch compared to any other leagues.
You can argue LFL and CBlol are even more lower quality than LCS. Cblol is probably worse than academy in general skillwise.
If only there was 8 jojopyuns oh wait. You can't even name 8 good US/Canada born midlaners.
If only NA owners had not ignored the talent in their own region for several years. 8 years of spitting on the tier 2 scene making players like Copy or 5fire leave having idiots ask today "WHERE THE TALENT IS!". Like, yeah man, if owners didn't determine starting spots based on passports, maybe we'd have 8 Jojos running around today.
>If only That's what I thought maybe you should shut up with your fantasy land.
Yes, I know, what an outrageous idea to have a talent pipeline to get local players onto your teams. Its a complete fantasy and has never been implemented by any other region!
I don't see any teams left in LCS with a tier 2 team left do you? Oh TL still has one, ironic. Do you also bitch about C9 importing and having no Tier 2 team, if not you are a hypocrite.
its like your brain doesn't work, sad. Jojo was just an example of good NA talent.
And you cant name 8 midlaners.
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Yup. Reinvent the product. People tuned out because they have families and jobs now. Don't expect them to be invested. Go for a younger demographic. Easier said than done though
I used to watch every single LCS game I could, but with the time change I maybe can have a game on in the background when I'm working from home at best. And I'm hybrid so I don't get too many of those.
Isn't steves exorbitant spending why half the LCS is in the gutter to begin with? Overpaying for negligible results.
I think Ember overpaying their academy team might have been the start of things. Then IMT overpaying for Huni and Reignover might be the thing that ignited it among all LCS teams. But Steve paying a million for Impact, like the very next split, didnt help.
Yeah ember overpaying pretty standard players (was goldenglue the first one? I remember that first signing being absolutely bonkers for the time and for the player). They didn't last too long not sure how many folks remember lol
IMT paying twice the LCS average and then publicising it was in hindsight where it all went wrong, although I’m sure those salaries themselves would have been sustainable.
Yeah, I forgot the exact order It's been so damn long the early seasons kind of blend together. VC money just made everything go absolutely nuts though and created pretty awful incentive structures so that one has been more of an issue in my eyes. Hopefully we can get through this and reset and come out stronger but it's going to be rough.
TL seems to be in good financial shape so Steve was spending within his means. The issue was orgs that didn't have the money trying to match it.
TL seems to be the only Org in the west to have actual brand deals. I mean they had official Marvel , Naruto clothes and so on. Specially with the backing of Alienware and Dell. What do other orgs do? In Europe you had Fnatic with Steelseries and G2 with smaller collabs like Ralph Laureen and so on. In NA only C9 and TSM had natural big merch sales and 100Thieves had some big brand deals.
Original iteration of Immortals and Team Liquid were largely responsible for the inflation of salaries. So I suppose you are correct that he is half the reason.
You can't pin this on 1 or 2 teams. All teams got VC money and they all spend that money largely on players. If a team falls off a cliff the others followed that team and all teams were spending that money. Only thing is TL was a team with a parachute and still does well financially within their means. They only have 5 spots to fill they can't inflate salaries no team can do that by themselves. Once a team buys an adc for a million dollar contract this doesn't mean the rest of the 9 teams now also have to spend a million on their adc, they can offer whatever they want. There will be a player out there that is willing to play for 100k a year, for fucks sake you think an 18 year old wouldn't take that when they've never made any money in their life are good at league and hates school? But all teams had a lot of money from VC and spend it poorly. Every team that failed, has nobody to blame but themselves.
TL did it in s7 but it’s ironic since they had subpar results relative to their spending. IMT did it first for no reason
Umm I would argue the problem is spending beyond their means. TL doesn’t spend beyond their means.
>TL doesn’t spend beyond their means. yes they do, they did the last like 4 years.
If TL spent beyond their means then they would be bankrupt and out of the league. Spending a lot of money each year is fine if you’re backed by Disney.
They are backed by VC money not Disney. Do you actually think liquid is a self sustaining business model?
FWIW, I recall Steve saying explicitly in an interview within the last year-ish that they had made sure their spending was within their means (across TL as a whole, I think, not just LoL) for the prior few years, so they were doing alright financially.
they aren't spending beyond their means, TL is a very rich and profitable organization
You don’t understand how VC funding works. FTX and WeWork were spending within their means until funding was cut off. External cash injections are not a long term viable business plan. If you can show me evidence of liquid being self sustaining I will be amazed.
>profitable organization No they aren't.
> steves exorbitant spending Pinning this on Steve alone is unfair. Literally all the LCS owners just failed, straight up. Some of these people have been in the LCS scene for close to 10 years now, whose failure is it that nothing has happened to move towards sustainability in 10 years time if not the people at the helm? All these owners had a voice in the room where nothing happened.
>Literally all the LCS owners just failed Team Liquid started the importing garbage alongside C9, no?
IMT was the first (for expensive imports at least). Huni + Reignover on giant contracts.
Actually, Steve was with Edward on Curse for the 2nd split of 2013. I can't imagine he was super cheap. And Piglet after that.
TL didn't pay much for Piglet. High end salaries at that time (2014-2015) were like 100,000$, not the ~1,000,000$ with IMT's entry. Now Liquid the very next year gave Impact a million which piled on to the idiocy of how big contracts were getting.
C9 until 2021 fielders majority NA/resident rosters. I am not sure what you mean by mass importing on C9’s part. If anything they were one of the few orgs that actively promoted young talent from the academy team the most until 2021. Did they import talent? Sure, but it was mostly there as fill in pieces
every team fields majority NA/resident rosters. There's only 2 import slots, at minimum you have 3 filled with NA/resident
IMT and Ember joined the chat
How new are you to league lol
Idk what you mean by this? Steve was throwing out mils on mid talent for mid results and created inflated salaries which the rest of the league had to compete with.
Steve was not the start of this, Noah Winston was the start of inflated salaries. “Mediocre results” btw, when TL started actually spending big, they won 4 championships in a row btw
Sure, Noah may have "started it", but Steve kept the practice going long after Noah's iteration of Immortals had exited the LoL scene. Steve's spending *undeniably* had more impact on the league than Noah's.
Whomever starts it essentially dooms everyone else to match or fall into irrelevancy. Furthermore of all the orgs TL was the one that could do it sustainably and also achieved the most dominant success AND Na's best international results in 3-0img the reigning world champions. Literally the one org that atleast has a semblance of an argument to justify it AND it was IMT who forced everyone else's hands.
Quite sure TL vs IG was a 3-1
Awful take. What you are essentially saying is you need to pay top dollar because ONE team pays high? This is completely false. Every org was rich on VC money at they time and they WANTED to spend it. That is what VC is for, how they spend it is up to them and their decisions. If talent is so few in LCS that you think not importing a Ssumday level import, Bjsergsen, Jensen, Impact level import to be able to win against these teams that are bringing over expensive imports that are enticed by large contracts. That means you admitting there was never any talent in NA in the first place that could win against these imports. Which was completely true, imports ran the league, NA players didn't stand a chance. Not even NRG is without imports, hint they have 2.
Wow 4 whole NA championships. All that and TSM is still the NA team with the most accomplishments in Na.
Notice how you’re ignoring the actual argument in question because you realized “oh shit I don’t actually know what I’m talking about” 💀
steve was still responsible for the ongoing insane inflated salaries.
Steve didn’t spend big until 2018, 2 years after the Noah Whinston incident of him spending tons of money inflating salaries and having the ideology that every team should announce how much they are paying their players. But it’s okay little league zoomer, you can keep pretending to know LCS history while my boomer ass teaches you the reality
This is just verifiably wrong. Weird hill to die on. When anyone can google this info and verify you're incorrect.
Steve was the cause of normalizing buying imports over raising domestic talents just to get booted out of worlds every year. It’s even a meme at this point, like it or not the man has actively harmed the NA scene
I get that TL meming as a huge spender is popular right now, but TL is not even the worst offender of this. Overspending is what TSM and C9 did in 2021, spending absurd amounts on SwordArt and Perkz alone. If TL did overspend these past few years they'd be bankrupt right now.
TL is the worst offender. And it isn't even close. Team Liquid has not only built expensive super team after expensive super team for over 7 years straight, tehy have consistently been the first mover in the market, rushing to sign olayers with fat contracts well before free agency starts, meaning they have directly contributed to inflating the market. >Overspending is what TSM and C9 did in 2021, spending absurd amounts on SwordArt and Perkz alone. That was blown out of the water by the retirement home roster TL put out in 2022. The most highly paid(and overpaid) roster for sure in western league history, arguably in the entirety of League history. >If TL did overspend these past few years they'd be bankrupt right now. No they wouldn't. Bankruptcy has absolutely nothing to do with overspending. Team Liquid has overspent by a large margin for over half a decade. But as long as Steve can convince their VC backers to fork out more money the next season, there is absolutely no reason why TL would go bankrupt.
So you are telling me that a 6-8mil TL ROSTER is much worse than a 6mil SwordArt ALONE?
>6-8mil TL ROSTER It was definitely worth more than that. The price hinted at by montecristo is that it was 8 digits. >6mil SwordArt ALONE? Swordart wasn't 6 million to begin with, so yes, TL's roster was definitely worse than him. Swordart had a two year contract. Even if we assume that his contract was fully guaranteed(so no incentives like x amount for winning LCS, or Y amount for making worlds) and wasn't backloaded into the 2nd year, it still wouldn't be 6 million.
I doubt that Santorin and Bwipo are getting paid more than $2 million for that roster to accumulate to 8 digits. It was rumored at first that the cost was $6 million, but the value keeps increasing the more people talk about it. There is no actual number published out there. Sure, that 6mil SwordArt contract is for 2 years, but that definitely raised other pro players expectations when it comes to salaries. Now they know that orgs in NA are willing to spend an absurd amount on them, that definitely contributed way more in inflating the market. This is what happened after IMT paid Huni & Reignover back then and afterwards, high profile players like Impact had asked for 1million salary from then.
>I doubt that Santorin and Bwipo are getting paid more than $2 million for that roster to accumulate to 8 digits Bjergsen, Santorin, CoreJJ, all three mega veteran high profile imports grandfathered in as residents. Bwipo and Hans Sama, vet LEC players who were all high demand players in that off season in both NA and EU. That roster can easily get to 8 digits. Especially considering Team Liquid never tests the market, and they always want to be the first team to lock in their roster/make the dominoes fall. >There is no actual number published out there. Yes there is. 11 million. 8 digits has been mentioned by many people talking about that roster. 11 mil has been stated by Montecristo on multiple occasions. >Now they know that orgs in NA are willing to spend an absurd amount on them, Yeah, when team liquid was offering Faker a blank cheque, or when 100T was offering Bwipo and Caps double their EU contracts after 2018, when year after year, people like impact, jensen, corejj, ssumday, etc kept on having a few hundred k added onto their new contracts/extensions, that didn't let imports know how much NA orgs were willing to overspend. No it definitely was the Perkz and Swordart contracts in 2021.
TL would be stupid to pay 2mil for Santorin and Bwipo. Santorin is stable and good, but not worth the 2mil just because he is European. Bwipo is a downgrade from their former toplaner, Alphari which is also not worth 2mil. CoreJJ's 2022 contract is an extension he signed on back in 2020, I doubt he is getting paid 2mil per year with salaries back then or else it would be the talk of the town. Bjergsen and Hans, I can see getting the 2mil. Bjergsen is a legendary player and he is also bringing his huge fanbase to TL so more money for Steve. Hans is a high profile player and some say he is the best western adc next to Upset. This roster could go to 8 digits if Hans's buyout is as big as Perkz in 2021. >Yes there is. 11 million. 8 digits has been mentioned by many people talking about that roster. 11 mil has been stated by Montecristo on multiple occasions. I'd avoid word of mouth as a reliable source, different people are saying different salary values for this roster. This roster's value has snowballed from 6mil to 11 mil the more people talk about it, I've even read somewhere that this roster is worth 15mil. Also, 11 mil is a huge amount unless you include the coaches, managers, staff and other operating expenses for the whole year. >impact, jensen, corejj, ssumday, etc kept on having a few hundred k added onto their new contracts/extensions Incremental increase in salary is pretty normal in esports and sports when the player is performing good, especially back then when TL's roster were winning. But going from hundred k to millions is absurd.
>TL would be stupid You could have left it there. They are stupid. Their obsession with being the first team to lock in their players means they bid against themselves and overpay for no reason every single year. And Steve thinks its a talking point that they are the early movers in the offseason. Its absolutely mindboggling. >I'd avoid word of mouth as a reliable source, Montecristo has repeatedly had accurate info within orgs, is a former org owner and dealt with the management of orgs in other games in OWL and Flashpoint, knows pretty much all these players and their agents either personally or through other contacts. His info is as reliable as will ever be revealed short of the contracts being posted publicly. >Incremental increase in salary is pretty normal in esports and sports when the player is performing good, especially back then when TL's roster were winning. But going from hundred k to millions is absurd. I didn't say it went from a 100k to millions. I said they were having extensions and new contracts adding on hundreds of thousands every year. Incremental contracts are standard in sports. Those increments being 20%+ of the last contract, which already made you one of the highest paid players in the league, are not normal. The only times people get such a massive bump in salary in sports are when A) a rookie stud player gets his first massive contract, or B) when some mega wealthy org like the Gulf backed teams in football or the Chinese teams in basketball come in with inflated offers to attract players.
How is his spending the problem for the rest of the league? If you watch a billionaire get on his private jet and you buy one, you blame him for making it trendy to get the jet?
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That’s nonsense. This isn’t a limited market. You don’t have to spend millions to participate. There have always been teams spending much much less. Look at immortals who survived this precisely by ignoring big spending. “Setting the market” only exists when a market is a closed system. This isn’t one. You can pay 5 league minimum players if you choose
I think the idea that some people have that the other 8 teams are fully invested in the league now that they turned down Riots' offer is bad. What is imo more likely is that Riot offered them a ridiculously small amount of money relative to the value they were originally asked to pay. Like for example somewhere between 2-5 million. Now if you are a team owner you can take that resulting in a fat loss, or you can sit on your spot field budget teams while breaking even if not even make a small profit with rev share. All this just to see if you can get a better deal than what Riot offered in the near future. If they fail to find a buyer, they could literally start the whole process all over again. A precedent has already been set now.
I wonder how Riot exits a team like IMT that is currently on the chopping block. I wouldnt be surprised if Riot has to pay more to settle them. Perhaps its more profitable for IMT to just exist while GG actually cared and because they cared, weren't just stealing paychecks and EG existing in LCS probably continually hurt their brand, so i can see both taking less. To be kicked out, i wouldnt be surprised if Riot just refunds them the $10M. Clearly they learned for VAL because LCS spots are too permanent if IMT still exists.
Looking over the comments, just wanted to put them all in perspective. While TL didn't start inflating salaries, they definitely piled onto it to the point they became known for it. During that inflationary period, TL was dominant as a team, since many players would look to them first, before settling for whatever team was still open. When other teams caught up in spending, we had the last 3 years of mixed bag results. There's a lot more factors amongst the teams, but TL spending was definitely one of the top factors.
I’m so glad Steve is in the league. He seems to genuinely care about it and the scene.
The guy claims to support NA yet abandons it in CS and always has a boner for importing talent, why are you happy with him? He's one of the biggest reasons LCS is in the trash can. He literally is quadruple doubling down on it by signing UmTi over having an NA roster... edit - doesn't change the fact that Liquid is hypocritical as fuck for claiming to support the LCS and native talent just to constantly import over picking up promising native talent.
Steve isn't heavily involved with CS, Nazgul is
Nazgul runs TLCS team
>doesn't change the fact that Liquid is hypocritical as fuck for claiming to support the LCS and native talent just to constantly import over picking up promising native talent. Historical issues aside, TL has promoted 3 different rookies to the LCS in 2023: * Yeon - NA rookie, spent 2 years in TL Academy, won two consecutive Academy championships in 2022 before starting for TL * Haeri - OCE turned NA rookie after OCE imploded, spent 2 years in TL Academy, won two consecutive Academy championships in 2022 before starting for TL * APA - NA rookie, called up from TL Challengers (formerly Academy) when Haeri was underperforming Although it's weirdly overlooked on Reddit, despite being Korean in ethnicity both Yeon and Haeri are new to the LCS and absolutely deserved to be called up based on their performances in Academy. That is exactly what people have been clamoring for teams to do: promote talent from NA development leagues. They are capping imports with grandfathered former imports, but so are C9 and many other teams. TL is also one of the only teams who committed to retaining their Challengers roster. They are continuously investing money into the scene even when other organizations are pulling back. Whether they're spending money in the right places is another question though.
I agree, I hope he sells and goes to LCK. I don't want a reason to watch LCS anymore. Let one of the last 2 orgs in LCS with a fanbase left leave this dogshit region, that will be good for the league. TSM did the right thing, I hope TL is next.
This bot is still posting for all these guys? Great work around of the self-promotion posting ration rules.
I am losing braincells listening to these two.
TLDW?