Academy Rush

Hey all, Salec here.

So I just read the post about the 2020 LCS changes. I'm excited about most of it, but Academy Rush has me a bit confused. Not the concept of it, I've watched NFL RedZone (in fact that's the analogy I used when describing it to my friends).

My issue is that League of Legends is not like Football. And here's what I mean: An NFL game is about a 3 hour affair with long drives and some potentially big plays that you want to see. I'm going to use some League terminology here to help convey what I'm trying to say.

It's a lot of Laning Phase. So you can simultaneously show three or four games (e.g. Sunday afternoon slate) and bounce between them with relative confidence that the ebb and flow of the game itself will produce entertaining content.

The issue with League is that it is 1/6 the length of that football game and as a result it doesn't ebb very much once the teams start moving around the map. Sure a key gank or team fight might break out early and spice stuff up, but most of the time those first ten minutes are setting up the real show.

League flows FAR more than it ebbs and as a result, the situation will arise where the casting crew is trying to cover 4 teamfights simultaneously and that simply won't be quality entertainment.

If I were running the production here, I would either bump the start time up 30 minutes or push the 5th game back 30 minutes and stagger the starts. Game 1 at 5:00, Game 2 at 5:10, Game 3 at 5:20, Game 4 at 5:30, and Game 5 at 6:30. This way you're more likely to have the few ebbs that do happen late in a game of League not happen at the same time in multiple games you're trying to cover.

That will use the game's natural flow to it's own advantage and produce a more entertaining viewing experience.

Sorry for the long post, hope this helps the production team. I'm looking forward to the new season for LCS and Academy.