Idea for Riot Esports (Global)
I'm going to preface this by saying I'm using the model of some American Sports as the basis of this premise and how it can be essentially (roughly) implemented into the Global E-sport of League of Legends.
- Make ALL players go through Academy for a Certain amount of Time (in NFL it's 3 years they MUST spend in College)
- All players MUST be a Certain Age (20-21) before actually joining the Main Roster
So you guys maybe looking at this and i'm sure it'll have mixed reactions so I'll just give the thought process as to why I think these 2 changes in particular would benefit the Sport on a Global perspective.
For starters it makes teams HAVE to invest in their young talent. Even if players are on a Academy team right now there aren't too many rules to stop them from coming up outside of Age and if the spot is available. All regions need to take time and actually develop their players as well as allowing Coaches a more hands on style to directly influence those players so that they will have a style of play already worked out before they ever become part of the Main Roster.
Now this has a few things that I want to really stress, the first is the major influence that a Coach can have when they MUST develop players (as well as just ORGs in general). TBH the idea of players swapping Teams every year is part of the game but as the game goes forward these Orgs need reasons to get involved and sure some Regions are better than others but what this does is let those players who are rough around the edges get time to develop BUT it also slows down the process of players just getting called into the Main Roster and by passing Academy / Development altogether; Many players get to develop faster because they are forced to (they are playing in the actual Main Roster from start) develop and it's basically sink or swim, now this is good and bad in it's own right but essentially ALL players need more time to actually develop and truly become "Professional"
Most of these players are Kids, they have no idea what's expected of them, they have no idea how to develop their talents because most of the talented Coaching are already Focused on Main Roster Moves, it's very lackluster and I'm not trying to be Mean to any of the Academy Coaches but right now the Orgs as a Whole are Failing to invest in New players growth and development; What we see right now are the players who are "The most Talent/Gifted" get the immediate start and they ofc grow at a level that is frankly unnatural for most Players
This also gives more time for players who maybe are "SoloQ Masters" but maybe not quite ready to just get thrown into the Ocean of Professional E-sports, Time to Develop, Time to learn the Fundamentals that they need as well as being able to get personalized Growth development and attention since ALL players would have to come up from Academy at some point that means (eventually) there wouldn't be ANY players who just skipped Academy.
Furthermore it gives more power to Coaches to actually prepare for long term with players as well as develop "Game plans" as well as Strategies unique to their team.
Overall Riot E-sports MUST do some form of this to be taken seriously, this also has the chance to make a overall better product in terms of the Players themselves since if a Team DOES pick that player up it makes more sense for those Players to be there for much longer than just 1 split and that means the Brand has a chance to develop individual Faces of their teams.
This is a simple Premise and I'm sure some will think it's a stupid Idea but many Major/Traditional Professional Sports already have stipulations in place that are actually much more strict then the ones Riot has been toying with over the years.
The idea that Riot had was good before "Get the best players on stage ASAP" but that idea is going to fall very short long term as we are really seeing now and this is the most Fair to ALL Regions which is why it's something I would actually applaud them for doing (or something similar)
(Alright, if you read this thanks)