Korean SC2 Salary Cap Collusion Revealed

On November 22 2016 15:11 Probe1 wrote:
Is it really? $60,000 USD is a very comfortable salary. What would be better for everyone? Why are we upset ProLeague is gone?

Well for that last one there's two parts.
1. No ProLeague games
2. Players no longer have stable income and it will be difficult for some to continue being progamers without it.

Having a salary cap (which is ubiquitous in sports) spreads the money a team has to more players. How would we address this if it was revealed from the opposite side? "Report: Flash receives $120,000 yearly salary, next highest teammate receives $20,000". We'd be bothered by that too right?

On November 22 2016 16:12 RoninKenshin wrote:


What most people have to realize before addressing this is that while $60,000 is a comfortable salary for most people in regular life, it's a garbage cap for these pros. Why?

The majority of pros starts their career in middle school or high school. Due to the rigorous training schedule required to reach the top, meaning the status of Pro-gamer rather than the top of the Pro-gamers, most pros sacrifice their education. They may graduate, but they will not be able to score on on standardized tests which will allow them to enter top schools that lead to good jobs. This is especially serious in Korea where the University graduated from can be the main criteria for job searches. I know there's a few exceptions like Polt or Stephano, but most people cannot cannot balance both Pro SC2 and school.

After playing for 10 years and retiring from SC2, there are really very few options. Some liked personalities will be able to get jobs in gaming like MC, although that may be temporary as well. I remember seeing a "where are they now" article a long time ago, and it was incredibly bleak. A couple really lucky ones will get a job with their sponsored company. The probability of getting another job that comes even close to $60k a year or one that will eventually even give raises to that amount is probably close to zero.

The cap is garbage because getting into the career of competitive anything is essentially gambling that you can get to the top, make a living off of it, and coast through almost the rest of your life on it. You sacrifice all your other options for this risk. You don't just sacrifice your past and present, you sacrifice your future as well. If every player was paid $60,000 a year, then sure, that's fine. That would mean getting into pro-gaming would be a safe and comfortable job that yielding great reward for the few that could reach pro-gamer status. But instead there are tonnes of pro-gamers who got paid peanuts or even nothing. They're going to finish their 10 year careers with nothing in the bank and no future, and the top players are going to finish their career with some money in the bank and no future.

Also the idea that the cap was there to prevent the rich teams from stealing all the players is ridiculous. Nothing stopped SKT from stealing every single player that showed the slightest bit of potential. Caps only work if all the teams have at least some money, and we know that a lot were tapped or didn't care to invest more. All the caps did was hurt the futures of the players.

On November 22 2016 16:23 Phredxor wrote:
With how little interest SC2 had in Korea I don't think it matters that much. Can't imagine the team would be willing to pay big bucks regardless.

On November 22 2016 17:50 swissman777 wrote:

Flash said that he was really disappointed so I think it means that getting more was possible. We should not dwell too much in his reaction, but to say it in such a way while having lots of contextual knowledge, I bet kespa pulled a terrible move there.

On November 22 2016 17:50 swissman777 wrote:

Flash said that he was really disappointed so I think it means that getting more was possible. We should not dwell too much in his reaction, but to say it in such a way while having lots of contextual knowledge, I bet kespa pulled a terrible move there.

On November 22 2016 18:23 Nerchio wrote:
Still a huge salary compared to 99% of foreign pros and people expected us to go full time and compete with this

On November 22 2016 19:02 fishjie wrote:
let the market determine the salary. capping it silly. 60k is very low. esp since they've sacrificed their entire lives. if pro gaming doesn't work out, they dont have any education to fall back on, no other skills to speak of, they are screwed for life

On November 22 2016 19:29 RoninKenshin wrote:


The team owners gained the ability to not have to pay their top end players more money. Say there's no cap and Dark is doing awesome and his contract is coming up, then SKT suddenly has to offer him like $150k or whatever the top end is in negotiation to stay. They would pay the money as well, and are perfectly capable of doing so, in order to prevent him from going to other teams. All that the cap did was prevent Dark from receiving the full value of his skills.

Now say Zoun's contract is coming up. There's a cap... SKT doesn't care, you get whatever the minimum is. There's no cap.. SKT doesn't care, you get whatever the minimum is. All the cap does is stifle the top end players from getting what they deserve.



The thing is, whether the cap is there or not, the low and mid-tier players are not affected. A removal of the cap makes it more rewarding to be the best, such as in the Bisu Flash Jaedong era, where we saw the hardest working players play the most amazing games of Brood War in history. With a cap, you have no incentive to drive yourself to mental exhausting to be a tier above everyone else. Instead it's fine to be just good enough and earn your paycheck. Whether Dark makes 70k or 250k, the rest of the SKT guys who make less than 70k will earn the same amount of money. The potential earnings don't get redistributed, it's the teams that save money. Removing the cap will allow the fair market value of the players come to pass. If I'm working 16 hours a day for 10 years trying to be the best pro-gamer in the world, I better well get paid good money for that effort.

On November 22 2016 19:37 Charoisaur wrote:

you act like there would be enough money in the korean sc2 scene to pay Dark 150k. That isn't the case.

On November 22 2016 19:45 Salteador Neo wrote:
TBH 20k a year is stupid low for this kind of job. These guys basically spend the 100% of their young/young adult life dedicated to a game, don't get any studies/skills, little social life, only work in it for a few years... and then what? Hell some of them even get their wrists fucked up.

If I ever were a progamer and noticed I would never become a superstar, I'd get out asap and go back to university.

On November 22 2016 21:50 duke91 wrote:


pure speculation. BW had these salaries for many years

On November 22 2016 20:29 Clonester wrote:
Since the matchifixing scandal the inflated payments couldnt hold up without being problematic for the teams balance and with the swap to SC II, there was the right chance to correct this matter. Without this correction, maybe ProLeague would have disbanded in 2016 or 2015, when "legends" still gained over 150k$.

On November 22 2016 21:29 sharkie wrote:


Where did you get 20k figure from?

On November 22 2016 19:02 fishjie wrote:
let the market determine the salary. capping it silly. 60k is very low. esp since they've sacrificed their entire lives. if pro gaming doesn't work out, they dont have any education to fall back on, no other skills to speak of, they are screwed for life

On November 22 2016 23:13 stuchiu wrote:


You mean the most beloved player in Starcraft and icon of his game , looked up to by every player in his league.

How could he possibly get information about their contracts.

I wonder.

On November 23 2016 00:33 geokilla wrote:
On the one hand, $60k to play a video game seems ridiculous. On the other hand, professional athletes make more than $60k annually. Heck some of them make $60k in a day! I'm not sure how I feel about this..

On November 23 2016 00:14 Scarlett` wrote:

you know its still possible to go to school when you're older than 18-19 or whatever

On November 23 2016 02:06 palexhur wrote:


You said everything, 60k for a game that was never popular in Kr. is a great salary, I am sure that even without the cap there woulndt be anyone above that money.

On November 23 2016 02:51 RvB wrote:

Then why have the cap?

On November 23 2016 04:01 Charoisaur wrote:

to make sure the money is spread more evenly amongst the players?
imagine the team has 150k available to pay salaries.
without a cap they might be tempted to give the best player 100k a year and the other players like 10k a year.
With a cap the most a single player can get is 60k and the other players get more.

On November 23 2016 03:57 nimdil wrote:

So poorer teams can be competetive in terms of salary? Maybe there were thinking about eSF teams as well or I don't know.

On November 23 2016 04:01 Charoisaur wrote:

to make sure the money is spread more evenly amongst the players?
imagine the team has 150k available to pay salaries.
without a cap they might be tempted to give the best player 100k a year and the other players like 10k a year.
With a cap the most a single player can get is 60k and the other players get more.

On November 22 2016 23:11 opisska wrote:


$60K per year is roughly five times what I get. Surely, I live in a cheaper country, but by far not by that much. So pardon me if I find it difficult to feel sorry for this terrible exploitation.

Again, it's completely pointless for anything and anyone but those selected few individuals to pack so much money into a handful of progamers, when there are hordes or non-paid or severly underpaid ones. If someone should support the limitation on top-heavy salaries in esports, it is the progamers in the first place.

And what reason does a team have to pay more to other players? Their value won't suddenly increase because a top player gets paid less. The team will pocket the difference between 100k and 60k for itself.

On November 23 2016 20:30 Espers wrote:
What a stupid point, the landscape of your industry is completely different from that of a competitive esports game. The salary cap forces parity, prevents it from becoming the same few teams winning every time (European football anyone?) and gives smaller teams a chance. Not saying I agree or disagree with this collusion (surely it's illegal, as a cartel agreement?) but they're clear advantages to it. Maybe a couple high-flyers have to suffer a bit for the betterment of the sport.

On November 23 2016 17:40 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:

I'm not necessarily against salary caps. I definitely think that it can be good for a sport to have them (soccer is insane). However the way to do a salary cap is to have a player union sign off on it for the betterment of the sport. A player union has all player rights in mind and when a potential top player is still a rookie he will have to be a part of the player union and thus everything is organized in a way where it benefits the vast majority of players (except the very best like Lebron James) and teams. This way they can protect the guys at the bottom who otherwise might be getting fucked from a completely open market. A mutually agreed upon (between companies) salary cap without proper agreements in place would be nothing more than an anti trust cartel behavior violation.

On November 23 2016 21:22 opisska wrote:


And that was exactly what I was talking about blaming capitalist ideology for the argumentation in this thread. Yes, totalitarian communist regimes are wrong - but so are all totalitarian regimes. I come from a formerly communist country and the regime we had was terribly sick and faulty and I do not want it back. That doesn't mean that you get a free pass of shouting "communism! communism!" at every time you meet a person that opposes pure free market economy.

I am, by today's standards, a socialist and I am not ashamed about it. That doesn't mean I am a Marxist. I do not want state-planned economy, I do not want the country to be run by working class and unions. But I do want redistribution of wealth. I do think that pure free market system tends to makes the rich even richer and that it is detrimental to the whole society. I do think that economy is just the means, not the goal. The enrichment of the rich is made possible only because the whole society has created the infrastructure for them to do that, we do not owe them anything more.

Maybe you can say that I am dragging politics into this, but you started with your communist parallel. In any case, I think that the argument actually is mainly ideological and the stance of people in this case will be highly correlated with how they see actual politics.

On November 23 2016 21:48 Nakajin wrote:
How is it "communism" if it is the compagny themself that put the salary cap in place?
In fact it is the opposite of communism, it's a cartel, free market at his best, compagny working together to fix the price of a market for their common benefice, and funny thing if you want to stop it you have to create MORE regulation so the state can stop the collusion from happening.

On November 23 2016 22:11 BartCraft wrote:
I don't get why people can't see the bigger picture. If they didn't cap the salary there was no way that we had proleague last year. We know now that without proleague there is no incentive to have teams in Korea. With the salary cap they ensure that there would be enough teams. Ofcourse it is not ideal but i don't see an alternative that would work out better.

On November 23 2016 22:20 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:

This is pure speculation. It's possible that without the salary cap top players wouldn't be throwing matches (life) and/or would still be active (Bisu, Flash) and thus drive interest. It's also possible that the closing of Proleague was a political game between Kespa and Blizzard. If Kespa wanted to do a salary cap all they needed to do is allow for a player union and set up an actual conversation the way it is done in the NBA. I would advise being very careful of making the mistake of agreeing to a salary cap (which I agree with as well) for okaying it to be done behind closed doors.

On November 23 2016 22:33 Nakajin wrote:


That's exacly what I meant, but I would argue that there is no such thing as a free market and that it lead to corporatism if you don't regulate it, or/and have unions to create a counter power.

On November 23 2016 22:45 disciple wrote:

The general idea is that if politicians receive large enough salaries they wont be corrupt or lobby for companies to make money, so I agree with the logic about match throwing

On November 23 2016 23:11 disciple wrote:

Well if you assume the worst in people then representative democracy isn't for you. While those salaries might not be enough to tempt every politician, its enough if they do it for a sensible majority that won't sell out and actually act in the interest of their countries first.

On November 23 2016 23:38 disciple wrote:


Can you guess what will happen if you remove party subsidies and politician salaries? Lemme help you, it wont result in your parliament getting filled with altruistic and benevolent leaders.

On November 23 2016 23:41 sharkie wrote:


Dude, I am not arguing that at all. All I am saying is more salary won't fix anything. Definitely not prevent match fixing or corruption.

On November 23 2016 23:51 Thieving Magpie wrote:
I can't believe so many TL folks are okay with unionized companies. It sickens me.

On November 23 2016 22:57 TsogiMaster wrote:
Wow, some people here are really saying that 60k per year isn't enough money? What kind of jobs do you have to call this low? I work almost 100 hours per month and earn less than 1k. And if i finish my college and get to the better job, then i will probably earn 2k-3k per month, which is 30k-40k per year. So you guys are telling that progamers, who play just and game earn more money than most people, are earning low? Tell me your professions, maybe i would change my subject.... And i live in Germany, in case of possible questions towards the place I live.

On November 24 2016 02:40 TsogiMaster wrote:

Well of course its useless if I talked about the players income, but i didnt. I talked about the people here in the thread whom 60k salary in a year is low.
About the players income of course that 70M WON will be only earned by the best players, so I assume that lower players earn lesser than that, so like you said, to discuss about it, its useless, since we have no idea about it.

On November 23 2016 17:40 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
I'm absolutely shocked by some of the reactions here. How do you guys justify something like this by saying "it is still good money"? It's an absurd point of view to take. If Flash is worth hundreds of thousands then he should get paid hundreds of thousands. That is life changing money he would be missing out on. Comparing it to traditional wages is fucking stupid. Athletes that are the absolute best in their sport should be compensated fairly for it. The guy has taken infinitely more risk in picking his career than anyone you know and achieved infinitely more than some random $60K desk job clerk will ever do.

I'm not necessarily against salary caps. I definitely think that it can be good for a sport to have them (soccer is insane). However the way to do a salary cap is to have a player union sign off on it for the betterment of the sport. A player union has all player rights in mind and when a potential top player is still a rookie he will have to be a part of the player union and thus everything is organized in a way where it benefits the vast majority of players (except the very best like Lebron James) and teams. This way they can protect the guys at the bottom who otherwise might be getting fucked from a completely open market. A mutually agreed upon (between companies) salary cap without proper agreements in place would be nothing more than an anti trust cartel behavior violation.

On November 24 2016 21:32 tskarzyn wrote:
Good lord, we have a bunch of marxists on TL. Teams colluding to avoid paying top talent what the market says they are worth is a disgrace. If they want to cap team salaries, they can certainly do that. You see team caps in almost every American sport. What they've done is far worse.

To those saying $60k is comfortable, compared to what? Homelessness? These players sacrificed everything - school, friends, opportunities alter in life - in exchange for a brief career in eSports, and they deserve to get every last penny the market bears.

On November 24 2016 21:32 tskarzyn wrote:
Good lord, we have a bunch of marxists on TL. Teams colluding to avoid paying top talent what the market says they are worth is a disgrace. If they want to cap team salaries, they can certainly do that. You see team caps in almost every American sport. What they've done is far worse.

On November 24 2016 21:32 tskarzyn wrote:
To those saying $60k is comfortable, compared to what? Homelessness? These players sacrificed everything - school, friends, opportunities alter in life - in exchange for a brief career in eSports, and they deserve to get every last penny the market bears.