In its first big test, the NA LCS players association has failed to even register on the radar, as the furor over Cloud9’s treatment of Marcin “Selfie” Wolski rages on.
With the announcement of Academy team rosters coming thick and fast, and pretty much every starting spot in both Europe and North America locked down, a surprising free agency announcement came out as former Tempo Storm mid laner, Selfie, announced his free agency rather unfashionably late. It seemed almost comical for Selfie to announce his free agency only two weeks out from the start of the professional season, and many wondered what had gone wrong.
A few hours later Selfie expanded on his situation, revealing that due to contractual payment issues with the transfer of his contract from the failed NA LCS franchise, Phoenix1, to Cloud9, Selfie was unable to gain free agency from Cloud9 in time to realistically be signed by a team for the Spring split. It seemed as though Selfie had once again fallen into misfortune.
The Silent Issue: Dead contracts
After the announcement of the teams that had been accepted into the NA LCS franchising for 2018, fans were understandably focused on the loss of their favorite organizations. However, a silent issue was not being discussed. As players had been contracted to organizations that had their League of Legends branches essentially liquidated by Riot’s decision to deny their franchise applications, these players would have to have their contracts bought by teams that had been accepted into the LCS. This meant that a firesale of contracts was conducted, with the most publicised purchase of the contract rights to players being Team Liquid’s acquisition of a majority of the contracts previously under Immortals. While Liquid quickly decided which players they would keep and which players they would be selling contract rights, it could have been a potentially sticky situation where Liquid hoarded talent, potentially creating a bubble as teams overpaid for contract rights.
In Selfie’s situation, it seemed as though he was not afforded the same quick transition. After being acquired from Phoenix1, it seemed clear to many that he would take a spot on Cloud9’s academy team. However, he was a noticeable omission from Cloud9’s roster announcement, and many wondered what exactly was transpiring behind the scenes with the talented player.
Selfie reported that a day before Cloud9 announced their LCS and academy rosters, he was informed that he would not be offered a position on the academy roster and instead would be given the option to be a substitute for the academy roster. Selfie also relayed that he hadn’t been in North America since his time with Tempo Storm in July, meaning he was not even offered the chance to compete for the academy spot.
With a contract that ran until 2019, Selfie was faced with the prospect of not playing a single professional game for three splits. He declined the offer, however, due to the aforementioned pay issues, he was unable to secure a release from his contract. And while Cloud9 has yet to offer any reply to Selfie’s transcript of the events that led to his delayed free agency, another party that should have been involved in the issue remained silent as well.
Where’s Wally? Players’ Association Stays Silent
It has been seven months since Riot announced their plans for franchising in the NA LCS, and with it, the plan to enact a players’ association to represent the players in what was the biggest change in the history of North American LoL esports. There were, of course, eyebrows raised at the effectiveness of a players’ association which was linked to the publisher and producer of the game. However, most people decided to forgo these issues as the positives of a developed players’ association outweighed the negatives. A players’ union had often been raised, but until Riot stepped in to jumpstart the project, the talks had always failed to bring about any meaningful progress.
One month after the announcement of the players’ association and it looked like good progress had already been made. The players had voted on a head of the association, and all looked to be going swimmingly. The former counsel for the NBA players association, Hal Biagas seemed like the perfect person to lead the newly formed association.
Players declared they were confident that Biagas’ experience in player association would help demonstrate the importance of association to players who had previously displayed lackluster enthusiasm when it came to associations. However, six months on from Biagas’ appointment and almost no new developments have occurred. Players have reported that a few seminars have been organized by the association, with the main focus on their rights and how contract negotiations should be conducted but other than that, the association has been mostly silent.
Where to now?
For now, we wait for Cloud9’s response to Selfie’s claims, whether they even decide to respond that is. It seems unlikely that the Players’ Association can even do anything now as the damage has been done. What seems clear, however, is that with players signing longer contracts and their contracts holding real monetary value, teams could very easily keep players stuck in contracts with no plan to give them play time to show their value to other teams. Whether the players’ association takes note of this issue and works privately to ensure this issue doesn’t occur in the future is the big question.
For now, it looks like the players’ association has earned a fail in their first big test, what comes next could decide its effectiveness in maintaining a balance in the NA LCS, and the perception of association esports across the board.
Cloud9 has released an official statement on the issue which can be found here.
Nice write up, did you seriously pump it out in one day after the drama started brewing?
I think the thing to take away is Selfie decided he valued play time over being on a roster. I'm unsure how much he would be payed, but it probably was a decent amount, NA is swimming in money lol. Your article is spot on, by signing the contract he would have risked sitting on an academy team bench for a long time. If he believes he's good enough to be a starter for an LCS team, then signing was not in the interest of his future career. On the other hand, he might have been able to travel to NA, and shown his abilities in scrims and soloQ.
I really don't understand how the PA failed anybody here. Selfie obviously didn't know he was getting kicked until he got kicked, so he wouldn't have been in contact with the PA until then. And it's been less than 24hr since he got kicked, and by his own admission the team did nothing wrong. So what was the PA supposed to have done?
On January 05 2018 05:14 GrandInquisitor wrote: I really don't understand how the PA failed anybody here. Selfie obviously didn't know he was getting kicked until he got kicked, so he wouldn't have been in contact with the PA until then. And it's been less than 24hr since he got kicked, and by his own admission the team did nothing wrong. So what was the PA supposed to have done?
Actually he was kicked 3 weeks ago (17 December). He was just given free agency later on. And (according to him) he never came back to NA to try out for the academy spot. It was, "oh by the way, we got goldenglue for academy. You can be his sub for peanuts and in a 2 year contract. Sound good?" Again according to him. Had the PA stepped in would he not have gotten his release earlier perhaps?
On January 05 2018 05:14 GrandInquisitor wrote: I really don't understand how the PA failed anybody here. Selfie obviously didn't know he was getting kicked until he got kicked, so he wouldn't have been in contact with the PA until then. And it's been less than 24hr since he got kicked, and by his own admission the team did nothing wrong. So what was the PA supposed to have done?
Actually he was kicked 3 weeks ago (17 December). He was just given free agency later on. And (according to him) he never came back to NA to try out for the academy spot. It was, "oh by the way, we got goldenglue for academy. You can be his sub for peanuts and in a 2 year contract. Sound good?" Again according to him. Had the PA stepped in would he not have gotten his release earlier perhaps?
Indeed. Its overall odd that the PA was not significantly involved with the entirety of the so-called "firesale" of contracts.
while its understandable why it failed, I dont' think it could have been prevented easily. Things were expected to go smoothly so selfie didn't put any protections into place to ensure he wouldn't get screwed.
In hindsight everything looks much easier to prevent, but these situations are exactly the kind of... learning experience... that someone has to eat before the involved parties are prepared for the next round.
the hope is that the PA can prevent it from happening again. And i think they would've if they were reached out to.
On January 05 2018 05:14 GrandInquisitor wrote: I really don't understand how the PA failed anybody here. Selfie obviously didn't know he was getting kicked until he got kicked, so he wouldn't have been in contact with the PA until then. And it's been less than 24hr since he got kicked, and by his own admission the team did nothing wrong. So what was the PA supposed to have done?
Actually he was kicked 3 weeks ago (17 December). He was just given free agency later on. And (according to him) he never came back to NA to try out for the academy spot. It was, "oh by the way, we got goldenglue for academy. You can be his sub for peanuts and in a 2 year contract. Sound good?" Again according to him. Had the PA stepped in would he not have gotten his release earlier perhaps?
Oh I see. This wasn't clear at all from the article. Then, I guess, the question is, did Selfie ever ask the PA for help? Basically it just feels really odd to headline this situation as a failure of the PA, given that I would bet dollars to donuts that Selfie never got them involved. I totally forgot they even existed; I don't think a single pro player has even mentioned them since it got formed.
The more i read about this, the more i think its just shit happened, and selfie is also an idiot that doesn't know how to deal with these situations and should've tried soliciting advice. but whatever a FB post is the best PR right?
Even selfie himself says that the late announcement was because of problems with the P1>c9 contract buyout and salary payments. Unless c9 was purposely dragging thier feet on these or something, i don't see what the problem is. Why didn't he announce it earlier too? what's stopping him? why did he not just ask c9 if he could announce his impending free agency?
sure he can't say he's a free agent now, but I'm pretty damn sure he could've worked with c9 to say something like, c9 intends to release me, so I'm looking for a team.
It's not on c9 to advertise for selfie, sure owners like steve and regi helped thier players find new teams, but that's above and beyond the norm. It just seems like selfie has no clue how to look out for himself and would rather cry on FB than actually do something about it.
According to him (see 10:40 mark), there are rumors that the rate of attendance to the PA meetings is abysmal (< 20%)...
I also have some constructive criticism for your article:
Talk a bit more about the PA association, what are its mandate, etc. since it is still a new organization and people might not be familiar with it. For example, Travis talked about it to give more context to his video and showed this link to the LoL Esports article that talks about the PA's goals: http://www.lolesports.com/en_US/articles/evolution-of-the-na-lcs
You wrote that "Players have reported that a few seminars have been organized by the association, with the main focus on their rights and how contract negotiations should be conducted". Could you provide a source that backs this up (e.g. player tweet)? If not, it would at least be good to know where you got that info, even if it's just some rumor you heard through the grapevine. It's the first time I heard of the PA meetings and its content.
Overall, I think it was a good article that sparked discussion beyond this forum and it's exactly the sort of content I wanted out of LL for its "revival".
On a somewhat related note on Thoorins LCs preview show, Jensen said he personally requested Goldenglue for the Academy team. He said he thinks the Goldenglue scrim god meme is actually true and he thinks he gets the best practice by scrimming Goldenglue.
This statement clarified the nebulous spot of what Selfie meant with his salary issues.
Found it weird that only Selfie had issues with his contract when Wiggily (who was also bought from P1 at the same time as Selfie) got the starter spot on their Academy roster. I'm not sure why he would decline to negotiate a new contract with C9 provided all the NA money from franchising; maybe he thought he was worth a LCS starter spot right now? Now he has no real money since he lost his spot with C9 Academy, so his decision is questionable...
so basically, he didn't reach out to anyone to help manage the situation and he couldn't get what he wanted cause he's a dumbass.
This is exactly what the player association is supposed to be there for, to give advice on how to proceed. Not denying that it sounds like Selfie played it out poorly, but he's also quite young and probably has no idea what he's doing. I seriously wonder if he received advice from anyone, maybe even his parents, or just thought he could work it out himself.
It really sounds like he expected to be picked up by another LCS team, that's a really dumb gamble, sets him back even further in his career.
yeah, that's the problem. many of these guys don't think the PA is worth thier time. I beleive travis said that attendence for meeting was low? He also makes a poor FB post that fishes for sympathy and generates drama when there really is none.
its like they don't want to go out and get advice, even after getting burned multiple times.
I mean it sucks, but its like 99.99% his own making, so i can't even have sympathy for him at this point, I'm more just annoyed he can't get his shit together.
The resources for players wasn't great, and it was a common complaint, but when they DO get resouces, he just continues to shoot himself in the foot. Meanwhile the guys who actually call up the PA head are getting good advice and working out thier contracts properly.
Circling back, the PA is supposed to look out for the players, but if the player doesn't say anthing, and just makes a stupid FB post for sympathy, I dont' think its fair to blame the PA. From what travis has said and the actual esports lawyer working on contracts, the PA is doing work and helping.
This situation is basically a high school kid who hoped and waited for his crush would ask him/her to prom, but the crush asked someone else, and now the kid has no date. I would put 20% of the blame on C9 and 80% on Selfie here. There's 5 things that caused this situation:
1) Selfie's deal to get 2mo extra pay is a sound protection, but he didn't expect it to be triggered under such circumstances, I assume. Under ordinary circumstances, there's no reason for him to turn down that money, so I don't think he thought through the implications of taking the money here.
2) Selfie should have known he was joining a team with very limited play opportunities. Obviously he's not replacing Jensen. And obviously C9 already have an academy mid laner. He can't just be blind to the fact that they might want GG over him; not everyone drinks the LS Kool-Aid on how great Selfie is. (Apparently none of the teams in NA do.)
3) Selfie didn't want to be GG's backup on their academy team. I don't blame him, but it's not really the worst job in the world, and probably better than having no team at all.
4) Given all of that, Selfie cannot afford to just be sitting on his ass waiting for C9 to call. He had 100% of his eggs in the C9 academy basket when it should have been blatantly obvious that the combination of his contract + his special buyout situation + C9's mid laner situation + his desires had a high chance of clashing. Either he needs to be in contact with other teams, ready to go immediately, or he needs to give C9 an ultimatum so his rights are protected.
5) C9 could have told Selfie much earlier they were going with GoldenGlue and not Selfie. Maybe they didn't make the decision until December. Maybe they made it earlier and didn't tell Selfie because they hated him, forgot, or were inconsiderate of his needs. No one knows the real answer here. But once the situation happened, C9 did as much as they reasonably could under the circumstances short of just re-hiring
On a side note, the PA could have only intervened here on Selfie's side, i.e., telling him what he should have figured out for himself. The PA could not have gotten involved on C9's side, because even if C9 really did fuck over Selfie deliberately by waiting so long to go with GoldenGlue, they can always just say "No, we just needed that much time to decide between GG and Selfie", and the PA couldn't overrule that.
EPT
