Riot delays, and threatens to cancel, League of Legends’ NA esports season amid player walkout

Riot games will delay the opening of its North America League of Legends esports summer series for two weeks after professional players voted “overwhelmingly” to walk away. The announced strike meant that players would not participate in the tournament if Riot Games failed to address the concerns of the League Championship Series Player’s Association (LCSPA) about the future of the LCS and the amateur North American Challengers League. If the two groups cannot reach an agreement within two weeks, Riot Games said it will cancel the summer season. If the summer season is canceled, a North American team will not participate in the 2023 League of Legends World Championship.

The LCSPA represents the interests of all North Americans League of Legends professionals and is led by an executive council of five players. It also features several player representatives and an advisory board led by executive director and former Evil Geniuses director Phil Aram. The LCSPA was founded in 2017 by League of Legends publisher Riot Games, and it split from the company in 2020 – a separation planned since the organization’s initial inception. (The LCSPA still has a pool of money from Riot Games’ original investment.) Competition players have announced their intent to walk away, refusing to participate in the upcoming LCS summer season – dubbed the Summer Split – after Riot Games announced a new direction for second tier development in North America League of Legends league, the NACL.

Earlier in May, Riot Games announced it was scrapping a mandate requiring LCS teams to fund an NACL team in addition to their LCS roster. Riot Games said it was asked to do so by the teams’ ownership; each team paid $10 million for an LCS spot when the league franchised in 2018, moving from a promotion/relegation system to 10 permanent partners in the league. The company described the removal of the NACL mandate as a way for teams to “unlock greater operational and financial flexibility” and “support the continued long-term success of the teams and the professional esports ecosystem in North America.” Shortly after the announcement, teams like Cloud9, 100Thieves, TSM, and Immortals dropped their development rosters. (TSM looks from his side to completely sell its LCS slot and move to another region. This comes just after CLG has sold its slot to NRG if the two companies merge.)

The LCSPA called it an “unprecedented decision to destroy the NACL”, causing “as many as 70 players, coaches and managers” to lose their jobs. If Riot Games abided by this decision without player input, players would walk away.

The group also claimed that Riot Games’ announcement was in “direct contradiction” to what it told the LCSPA earlier this year – that the NACL would not be changed in 2023. The LCSPA is looking for Riot Games to support the NACL as a way to keep the North American League of Legends esports scene healthy as a whole, and to ensure that players can make a living there while participating in the competition. It cited second-tier leagues in South Korea, Europe (which has recently and successfully expanded to second-tier regional leagues) and China as examples of successful, thriving League of Legends communities.

The League of Legends fan community was outraged by the decision – with anger aimed at both the teams and Riot Games. The LCSPA put its demands on Twitter after the decision, seeking a promotion and relegation process between professional and amateur leagues, a Riot Games-funded revenue pool to pay NACL teams’ salaries, an agreement for LCS teams to collaborate working with NACL teams for cost-sharing, guaranteed one-year LCS contracts for players who win the LCS Summer Finals, and agreement that NACL players from dropped teams can keep their spots in the league if they want to compete together.

Behind the scenes, Riot Games reportedly dropped a rank requirement that required professional players to maintain a certain rank Competition to participate in professional play, according to esports insider Travis Gafford. Removing this mandate would have allowed contestants to play at a distance and at any rank, a move that some said would have allowed teams to field “scab” players — people to fill in for standout players. The LCSPA asked amateur and collegiate players to deny these requests and “stand in solidarity” with LCS players. Several broadcasters also expressed support for the strike and the seasonal delay, noting that it was not interested when participating in a broadcast of scabies. On Tuesday night, Riot announced that it would instead postpone the season and possibly cancel it if an agreement was not reached.

Riot Games worldwide League of Legends esports head Naz Aletaha addressed the demands in a post Tuesday on the company’s website. Aletaha declined the majority of the requests, but said the company will invest $300,000 in a one-time payment to Rally Cry, the NACL tournament organizer. The money will be used to “support NACL teams as they transition to the new structure.” Aletaha also said the company already allows cost sharing between LCS and NACL teams. He argued that Riot Games supports a “robust, thriving development pipeline” with its amateur and collegiate scenes. “[We] know that we need to do more to nurture those communities and bridge the gap between them and the professional scene,” Aletaha wrote.

When reached for comment, the company declined to comment further on the record.

The Players Union followed Tuesday evening via Twitter confirming that it has met with Riot Games and asked for daily meetings “to work out a solution”.

“One thing is clearly in the spotlight again tonight: players are the LCS,” wrote the LCSPA on Twitter. “Without players there is no competition and no esport. From day one, exclusion from the decision-making process caused the LCSPA players to vote to walk out. The future of the NACL and the LCS is too big to be decided overnight without considering the players.”

As players and Riot Games collide, the expected growth of the esports industry is stagnating, according to the New York Times. You can see this in the number of teams that laid off workers and cut players. Even in regions touted for success in this area, esports teams are struggling: Arnold Hur, CEO of Korean esports team Gen.G, said on Twitter on Tuesday that Gen.G, despite being a top sponsor revenue earner, has “never turned a profit”.

“We have continued to invest in the esports scene, but macroeconomic conditions continue to deteriorate,” he said. “A new business model is needed.”