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On June 10 2017 02:06 Gahlo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2017 01:18 Redox wrote:On June 10 2017 00:55 Numy wrote:
Franchising being better for business isn't necessarily a given, especially at the top end. Teams like G2/Fnatic/TSM/C9 may not really get any actual benefit from franchising as they are in a position that there is never a risk to them. And yet they (well the NA teams) were asking for it and ready to pay 10 mio to get it. It is not so much Riot that needs franchising to happen. Of course investor money will also play a big role with the established teams. Weldon in his AMA was also predicting salaries in NA to rise and EU becoming jelous soon. Not to mention that in franchising, the teams get a cut of that $300m that Riot got from MLB over the next 6 years. In the recently linked video, Reginald said that getting sponsors was difficult at times for him because relegation existed. If the owner of the team that has never fared worse than 2nd in LCS/since S2 is getting people tip toeing about investing, that shows how big a deterrent it was. NA salaries will rise as they're currently underpaid for their reach, but the economics of the scene in their current state makes it prohibitive to spend more. I don't know how EU is going to get around this hump unless more futball teams hop into the scene.
That sounds pretty fucking suspect to me. You telling the head of marketing or a marketing rep at a company will look at TSM and say "Hmm there's a 0.001% chance they fall out of the league but even then there's possibly that only cuts reach by a few % points, I'm just not willing to put that money in then because of this!!!!". Riot made it virtually impossible for team to get relegated in LCS now as well before this change. Not to mention there's all this money flowing in to the league at the same time there's this massive issue of can't find sponsors? Sounds like the biggest load of horse shit I have ever seen.
Why would they need franchising to get the cut of the 300m? Also where did you get the impression NA players are underpaid? All the talk is how massively inflated their worth is due to VC money coming into the scene like the ember guys pushing salaries through the roof. They are supposedly losing money on league, that doesn't sound like underpaid to me.
I don't know man. The whole NA LCS scene just reeks of terrible business hoping for some magical payout from Riot to save themselves. Well guess they going to get the magical payout eventually at this rate. Wonder if they will actually start trying to run an efficient business once Riot does this. It's essentially a bunch of people trying to be first ones to the door while not worrying about creating something in the current, they'll just worry about it later.
edit: I realize this may come off a bit strong, didn't intend for that. I just dislike taking anything these owners say at face value as we've had years of them misrepresenting the truth or outright lying to us. The way I see it is that there are two aspects of business or anything involving money. Money and control. Companies tend to lean towards having control over making money. This move maximized their control in the scene. It's debatable if it maximized the money as well but that seems more secondary to me.
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On June 10 2017 02:06 Gahlo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2017 01:18 Redox wrote:On June 10 2017 00:55 Numy wrote:
Franchising being better for business isn't necessarily a given, especially at the top end. Teams like G2/Fnatic/TSM/C9 may not really get any actual benefit from franchising as they are in a position that there is never a risk to them. And yet they (well the NA teams) were asking for it and ready to pay 10 mio to get it. It is not so much Riot that needs franchising to happen. Of course investor money will also play a big role with the established teams. Weldon in his AMA was also predicting salaries in NA to rise and EU becoming jelous soon. Not to mention that in franchising, the teams get a cut of that $300m that Riot got from MLB over the next 6 years. In the recently linked video, Reginald said that getting sponsors was difficult at times for him because relegation existed. If the owner of the team that has never fared worse than 2nd in LCS/since S2 is getting people tip toeing about investing, that shows how big a deterrent it was. NA salaries will rise as they're currently underpaid for their reach, but the economics of the scene in their current state makes it prohibitive to spend more. I don't know how EU is going to get around this hump unless more futball teams hop into the scene.
Reginald is likely misinterpreting negotiating positions for the actual beliefs of sponsors (who's job it is to pay the least for the most exposure). The reason LCS teams have been getting squeezed is VC firms were anticipating this $300M broadcasting deal and that teams would get a cut. Now that the deal has been finalized, and the revenue splits announced, salaries will hit an equilibrium point. The $10M fee to get in is irrelevant, because there is no way to access that money (or really any LOL money) without paying it. Indeed, as people have discussed as well, the entire appeal of franchising is it will likely drive down, or at least stem the increases in player salaries.
And Numy, you aren't coming off strong, you are just not buying the "Official Lie"
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On June 10 2017 04:35 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2017 02:06 Gahlo wrote:On June 10 2017 01:18 Redox wrote:On June 10 2017 00:55 Numy wrote:
Franchising being better for business isn't necessarily a given, especially at the top end. Teams like G2/Fnatic/TSM/C9 may not really get any actual benefit from franchising as they are in a position that there is never a risk to them. And yet they (well the NA teams) were asking for it and ready to pay 10 mio to get it. It is not so much Riot that needs franchising to happen. Of course investor money will also play a big role with the established teams. Weldon in his AMA was also predicting salaries in NA to rise and EU becoming jelous soon. Not to mention that in franchising, the teams get a cut of that $300m that Riot got from MLB over the next 6 years. In the recently linked video, Reginald said that getting sponsors was difficult at times for him because relegation existed. If the owner of the team that has never fared worse than 2nd in LCS/since S2 is getting people tip toeing about investing, that shows how big a deterrent it was. NA salaries will rise as they're currently underpaid for their reach, but the economics of the scene in their current state makes it prohibitive to spend more. I don't know how EU is going to get around this hump unless more futball teams hop into the scene. Reginald is likely misinterpreting negotiating positions for the actual beliefs of sponsors (who's job it is to pay the least for the most exposure). The reason LCS teams have been getting squeezed is VC firms were anticipating this $300M broadcasting deal and that teams would get a cut. Now that the deal has been finalized, and the revenue splits announced, salaries will hit an equilibrium point. The $10M fee to get in is irrelevant, because there is no way to access that money (or really any LOL money) without paying it. Indeed, as people have discussed as well, the entire appeal of franchising is it will likely drive down, or at least stem the increases in player salaries. And Numy, you aren't coming off strong, you are just not buying the "Official Lie"
What official lie? Like yours and Numys posts read like you reveal something but I can not figure out what it actually is.
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On June 10 2017 03:54 Numy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2017 02:06 Gahlo wrote:On June 10 2017 01:18 Redox wrote:On June 10 2017 00:55 Numy wrote:
Franchising being better for business isn't necessarily a given, especially at the top end. Teams like G2/Fnatic/TSM/C9 may not really get any actual benefit from franchising as they are in a position that there is never a risk to them. And yet they (well the NA teams) were asking for it and ready to pay 10 mio to get it. It is not so much Riot that needs franchising to happen. Of course investor money will also play a big role with the established teams. Weldon in his AMA was also predicting salaries in NA to rise and EU becoming jelous soon. Not to mention that in franchising, the teams get a cut of that $300m that Riot got from MLB over the next 6 years. In the recently linked video, Reginald said that getting sponsors was difficult at times for him because relegation existed. If the owner of the team that has never fared worse than 2nd in LCS/since S2 is getting people tip toeing about investing, that shows how big a deterrent it was. NA salaries will rise as they're currently underpaid for their reach, but the economics of the scene in their current state makes it prohibitive to spend more. I don't know how EU is going to get around this hump unless more futball teams hop into the scene. That sounds pretty fucking suspect to me. You telling the head of marketing or a marketing rep at a company will look at TSM and say "Hmm there's a 0.001% chance they fall out of the league but even then there's possibly that only cuts reach by a few % points, I'm just not willing to put that money in then because of this!!!!". Riot made it virtually impossible for team to get relegated in LCS now as well before this change. (1) Not to mention there's all this money flowing in to the league at the same time there's this massive issue of can't find sponsors? Sounds like the biggest load of horse shit I have ever seen. (2)Why would they need franchising to get the cut of the 300m? (3) Also where did you get the impression NA players are underpaid? All the talk is how massively inflated their worth is due to VC money coming into the scene like the ember guys pushing salaries through the roof. (4) They are supposedly losing money on league, that doesn't sound like underpaid to me. (5)I don't know man. The whole NA LCS scene just reeks of terrible business hoping for some magical payout from Riot to save themselves. Well guess they going to get the magical payout eventually at this rate. Wonder if they will actually start trying to run an efficient business once Riot does this. (6)
1. Again, going to bring up TL. A team who was consistently 4+ in league play and always made playoffs for the last 3 years. Then this year happened and it took DL to put on a superman cape and save TL from relegation at a slim 3-2 margin.
2. Some of these teams are only kept afloat by VC backing because of expected franchising down the line. Sure, TSM has a bunch of sponsors, but how many does teams not named TSM, C9, CLG, and TL have? VC are going to put in enough money for these teams to stay afloat and little else. If they think they can't get franchising, they're gone. In the case of Ember, they didn't want to wait through another split of Challenger and they all left.
3. The MLB deal is with Riot. There is no revenue sharing in the current ecosystem. Could Riot distribute that outside of a franchising system? Yes, but they have shown no desire to do so outside of the stipend before this deal, which includes franchising. They don't want to hand off loads of money to a crap team who can just then tank, get relegated, and walk off with a huge payday.
4. When Ember came about and had super high contracts, there was a discussion in one of Thorin's videos with Monte about how large they were for who they were. Monte said that even then they were still undervalued. The demographics that esports hits is one that is harder and harder to advertise to due to so many people not having TV anymore. Esports players also have massive social media followings which adds further outreach. He cited a conversation he had with investors that dealt with fucking surfing competitions that were baffled these guys got paid so little.
5. Then tell me why last year we had a big pushback from Riot against franchising but all of the sudden they're super on board with it? There's a reason why the "I love me some Regi" meme exists. Riot was under the impression that teams like TSM were taking money they got from League and shifting it off into other esports and instead of complaining they need franchising to keep that money in the League ecosystem. But, Regi said in a video with Rioters present, that he personally showed his books to Riot and showed him how crappy League was profit wise. In another video, Regi said he was making more off of CSGO than League. This was a time when he had at worst a top 2 NA League team and a CSGO team that couldn't even making it into a fucking major.
6. You can say that all you want, but everything we've heard is that the ecosystem in the current setup is in a really poor spot as far as expanding further. Until franchising, this is pretty much as good as it can get. This isn't Korea where most of the teams have chaebol(s?) behind them or China where some billionaire's son thinks it's a cool hobby to own a team. Team owners have laid out how the system currently is and why it's bad. I haven't seen Riot push back against that for a while now and are going along with this willingly. Montecristo, despite not even being in the League scene anymore, is still fully in favor of this while not even having anything to gain from it.
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If someone is making you no money and you pay them a ton of money how is that undervalued? While I understand your points and definitely can see where you coming from I just can't see this being the case. What metric is he using for value? Some mythical "potential"? Are they saying that the other expenses are so high that even with underpaying their players they still can't make money? Geez where is all the money going. Monte is a massive blizzard shill now so I don't really know how much credence his opinion should have on workings. The guy is a little loose at the best of times.
The current system is bad partly because of all these VCs coming in with the promise of franchising. I do wonder if it would have gotten to this point if riot flat out said no franchising all those years ago and instead talked about other ways of sharing revenue without it. Just think this isn't necessarily the way to build a sustainable league of legends scene going into the future that will benefit both the players and me as a viewer.
Would TL being relegated be so bad? Riot over the years had made it insanely favoured for LCS teams to the point where I think it's virtually impossible for the 2nd to last place team to get relegated and pretty hard for last place team. TL has kind of hovered at the just outside the top competition forever and slipped down over the years. Would it have been so bad if they took a season off? I know this is in the context of sponsorship money but still think it's worthwhile question to ask. Also don't really understand, do sponsors not want to have 1 year deals or multi year deals with clauses in?
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Well I mean it has to pay well enough to put off college forever or enough to be able to go to college full time after you retire. So while it sounds like a lot of money for a "unprofitable" team. The cost-benefit for the player still exists.
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Do you think running a team is cheap? They're paying for the house, transportation, food, coaching, possibly a sport psychologist, maybe a challenger team, maybe a chef, healthcare, etc. They aren't underpaying players because they can(that would quickly lead to other teams pricing them out of the market when it comes to free agency), they are doing it because they have to. That's why salaries took a bump when VC came in. The players should have been paid more, but now they could be.
If you want to get a look at a League scene without the prospect of franchising, look at EU. Players there are paid far less on average than NA from everything I've heard. Whether they could have implemented revenue sharing or not without franchising, I don't know, I just know they haven't made an effort to outside of the laughable team icon shares. If teams have more money, they can pay players better. They can make sister teams without having to develop new talent without the risk of losing it if they qualify or take a loss if they can't.
As for TL, I don't have much care if they're in or not. The point was that they had decent, stable results for years and then suddenly took a nosedive this year. Nobody is immune to this. That is something that makes sponsors tentative at best and drives them away at worst. No team in NA has been relegated and came back. The closest thing was Dignitas getting relegated and bought out for their name by the Sixers. Otherwise the team would still be called Apex. Most teams that get relegated dissolve immediately because they no longer have funding in any form. I haven't seen or heard about how long sponsor deals are, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was on a per split basis.
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On June 10 2017 05:44 Redox wrote:
What official lie? Like yours and Numys posts read like you reveal something but I can not figure out what it actually is.
It basically boils down to all of the people "in the know" all have the exact same incentives regarding franchising (its good for them).
Here is the TLDR narrative: The current LCS model is unsustainable because expenses are greater than revenue. Franchising is the way to fix this.
Reality: The current LCS model is unsustainable because there was an investment boom (that could have been a bubble, but has turned out not to be, probably) because investors anticipated there would be a media rights contract & that teams would get a cut of those media rights. Riot could have deflated the bubble at any time by announcing: 1) It was unlikely that there would be a broadcast rights contract anytime soon or revenue sharing in that contract; or 2) Signing a rights deal and announcing the rev sharing numbers. Once 1 or 2 happened we would no longer be in a speculative environment and salaries/valuations would stabilize at or around a level where teams can be rev neutral or profitable. Franchising is just scenario #2 + a windfall for teams that are selected.
In other words, LCS was only ever unsustainable because Riot did not communicate their intentions clearly about rev sharing and franchising, so the teams seized the narrative to push franchising. This also happens to appeal to Riot's preference to micromanage the professional LOL scene, so they like the narrative as well.
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I mean, that sort of breakdown is an anti-franchiser's worst case. The difference between #1 and #10 is less than a million per year? That is 10 years at the top to recoup the franchise fee, more if your salaries ever exceed the 35% number.
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On June 10 2017 11:42 cLutZ wrote:
I mean, that sort of breakdown is an anti-franchiser's worst case. The difference between #1 and #10 is less than a million per year? That is 10 years at the top to recoup the franchise fee, more if your salaries ever exceed the 35% number.
The 10m buy in is 5m upfront and the rest is over time.
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I feel like the current LCS model was unsustainable because no one has properly monetized any of these people. (granted my example is taking TSM, one of the most popular brands, but regi was the one saying he cant' make money off lol)
How much do you think TSM could make if they got a deal where everyone on thier team tweeted about a product. Literally point at the followers bjerg/doublelift have, check out thier age group and you're telling me no company will pay tens of thousands for some sellout tweets?
Its like they're just as popular, if not more so, than most streamers, but can't monetize properly because they're not streaming? Someone needs to explain to me why they can't make good money of a dude with literally a million twitter followers.
If bjerg tweeted out that he just beat doublelift in an *oreo* eating contest, how much do you think that would be worth?
I dunno. maybe someone with more info or a better viewpoint sees something i don't, but I look at thier popularity, and the market segment they reach (insanely hard to reach otherwise) and I can see a lot of big companies that would want a piece of it.
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On June 09 2017 14:30 zer0das wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2017 06:10 Zato-1 wrote:I disagree. I see an arrogant tone from him in this interview, but whenever they interview one of his teammates, they say he's a really nice guy. Of course they say he's a nice guy in an interview. If they don't, odds are they're going to get booted off the team in short order. If Link were ever on the starting lineup for TL, he would probably write a 10,000 page treatise on everything wrong with Piglet's attitude after leaving. I'm actually really sad he never got to start, because I was looking forward to the potential there. Been saying it for a long time, Piglet has been the problem for ages. And it is rooted in management bending over backwards for him, while simultaneously being really awful decision makers on top of that. Of course the two of those are intrinsically linked, because if they weren't awful decision makers they probably would have never picked up Piglet in the first place. The cynic in me says they knew what they were getting and they picked him up because of his "star power" to attract fandom, and not because of talent.
Yeah, no.
Covering your ass in front of the cameras sounds like this: "Yeah, I get along just fine with Piglet". What I actually hear his teammates saying is more along the lines of, "Oh yeah, I get along great with Piglet! People from the outside speculate that it's hard to get along with him, but that's not true at all, he's a really nice guy!"
I'm not going to go looking for the video where I saw that, but the impression I got was not of someone being politically correct, but rather of someone genuinely getting along really well with Piglet. I also haven't heard of anyone in TL getting along poorly with Piglet. Ever.
I've never been a fan of Piglet, myself. I historically thought he was an overrated player and not someone you should build your team around. That said, I also don't think it's fair to blame Piglet for all of TL's failures, and that it's wrong to accuse him of having serious attitude problems. To quote again the post that started this exchange:
On June 09 2017 00:11 JimmiC wrote:
Too me the issue is piglet doesn't have the carry potential to make it worth his import slot, and his attitude. They have moved a lot of other pieces around to try to accommodate him and its not working.
I agree that TL trying to build a team around Piglet hasn't worked; that much is pretty evident. I just don't see any evidence whatsoever of Piglet being toxic.
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Saying you don't get along with a teammate even in an indirect way sure worked out for Adrian
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Xpecial to P1
Adrian and Altec to Dig
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On June 17 2017 06:26 Gahlo wrote:
Xpecial to P1
Adrian and Altec to Dig
Upgrades all around. At worst Altec might be a sidegrade
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Surprised Adrian is still around. Hasn't he been bounced between 3 teams now?
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Rift Rivals: NA vs. EU Format Update
To achieve this, the event is being expanded to include a double-round robin Bo1 Group Stage with a Bo5 final between the top team from each region based on Group Stage results. This means that Rift Rivals will now be a 4 day event, with the Group Stage spanning 3 days and Finals on the last day.
This means that there will no longer be a Last Man Standing final. Although Last Man Standing is an exciting elimination showdown between two regions, executing Bo3 in that format would have lead to a potentially long final day of games that would require us to start the broadcast at an inconvenient time for NA viewers. It is something that we’ll consider in the future, but we think that the current format offers a healthy mix of varied matchups as well as a conclusive final.
Yay?
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EPT
