NA's Venue vs EU's Venue

Lancér·Apr 8, 2018·1 votes·584 views

I'd say there's no question that NA is a little bit ahead of EU in progression to franchising and having a little more hype around their games and what not, but there's something off here about the NA venues vs the EU venues that I don't quite understand.

The EU Venue was huge in comparison and honestly, I gotta say, the NA finals venue for spring was a JOKE... Laughable, really. Any thoughts on that? Why do NA Venues suck these days? What gives? Is Riot being cheapskates?

8 Comments

Virgin RayApr 8, 20181 votes

Why does it matter where the finals take place? NA players made so much more money with franchising, and to be honest if I'm a pro player in NA I'd take a salary increase over a venue increase any day.

BigBellBruteApr 8, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Why does it matter where the finals take place? NA players made so much more money with franchising, and to be honest if I'm a pro player in NA I'd take a salary increase over a venue increase any day.

If I'm a finalist, I'd think Miami Beach would be great. Don't really care about the size of the venue.

GeminiRuneApr 8, 20181 votes

Personally, I can't judge the venue for not being there. It wouldn't feel right to judge compared to that of being there like MSI 2015. Realistically, does it really matter? Just because there's franchising doesn't mean they should pour thousands among thousands into Worlds tier venues. The venue got the job done where they decided to locate it. And like that of a predominantly college civic center to host but so few events, it didn't have to play favorites based on size and location.

BigBellBruteApr 9, 20181 votes

I think I like the theater type venue with the stage over the stadium

Sure it's harder to get in. But if you get in, I think it's a better view.

LancérApr 8, 20181 votes

It just seems lazy, and anyone who actually wants to attend has less of a chance. Granted, most people are going to be watching from home, but do you really think that Miami wouldn't manage to fill up a stadium? Lol. They would have had an awesome crowd, rivaling EU's showing of fan support, but no. We chose a little two story studio, lol. yuck

Virgin RayApr 8, 20181 votes

{quoted}

It just seems lazy, and anyone who actually wants to attend has less of a chance. Granted, most people are going to be watching from home, but do you really think that Miami wouldn't manage to fill up a stadium? Lol. They would have had an awesome crowd, rivaling EU's showing of fan support, but no. We chose a little two story studio, lol. yuck

Alright but there are things to consider with the venue, what if it's more expensive, or as expensive, or less expensive than past venues? If it's more expensive it could be for location reasons, San Fransisco charges so much more money for houses even though they give you extremely small houses, it's location, you get a really small house for at least 500k in SF and in Texas you can get a really nice 2 story house, that could be the case for LCS as well, if it's equally expensive, it's the same reason as before, it could be smaller but just as expensive as Canada because of location. Not to mention Canadian dollars are weaker, thus riot has an easier time to rent their venue with the stronger US dollar right now, if it's less expensive maybe they didn't plan it that way, maybe they wanted the location to be different aside from Canada all the time, or maybe they substitute their venue money to give to the players since they had a salary increase ever since franchising came out.

LancérApr 9, 20181 votes

I can grant you that locationally it's likely more expensive to have these events in places like Miami and San Fran, sure, but that doesn't change the fact that in the last 2-3 years the whole venue getting smaller thing has been more trend than it has been random happening. I'm concerned because there's a CLEAR difference between NA and EU, and it just looks cheap. It looked like the NA finals was played in front of maybe a thousand or so people, but EU had them center stage in an ARENA and it was clear that there were thousands and thousands of fans included in that event.

I just think it sucks, and if we're being honest, there are few games, maybe not any, that can claim the same level of success that Riot's League of Legends has claimed. Sure, you could make an argument for Counter-Strike, and Fortnite looks to be burning up the scene recently, so it'll likely get pretty big too, but there are few, if not no games to compare league to as far as viewership and player base and flat out MONEY they earn. The Riot guys have PLENTY of money to hold a big event, and they're not paying the players nearly as much as you may think. Remember that most of the money that players are making from season to season play in NA is through their contracts after franchising. Yea, they're doing very well for themselves NOW, but Riot isn't shelling out a ton of money the players per contract. Their ORGs are paying them the big money. Riot is only responsible for supplying event and seasonal based winnings. They also supplement worlds winnings a little bit, but they still make MORE money than they actually give back to the players.

To me, it just sounds like Riot is being cheap and they don't want to pay for halfway decent venues. That sucks, in my opinion, and shortchanging fans who actually want to come to these events by only providing like 1500 seats for an event when EU is selling out Arenas will be why League of Legends dies in NA eventually. I mean, people that are connected to the Riot scene have even expressed concern over this, so please don't think, I'm just complaining for the sake of complaining. Other people are noticing the constantly shrinking venues they've been crapping out the last couple of years. It's not something that will go on unnoticed. I mean, the crowd at Spring Finals looked maybe three times bigger than their average, weekly base of spectators back in Cali.

That's pretty weak...

Virgin RayApr 9, 20181 votes

{quoted}

I can grant you that locationally it's likely more expensive to have these events in places like Miami and San Fran, sure, but that doesn't change the fact that in the last 2-3 years the whole venue getting smaller thing has been more trend than it has been random happening. I'm concerned because there's a CLEAR difference between NA and EU, and it just looks cheap. It looked like the NA finals was played in front of maybe a thousand or so people, but EU had them center stage in an ARENA and it was clear that there were thousands and thousands of fans included in that event.

I just think it sucks, and if we're being honest, there are few games, maybe not any, that can claim the same level of success that Riot's League of Legends has claimed. Sure, you could make an argument for Counter-Strike, and Fortnite looks to be burning up the scene recently, so it'll likely get pretty big too, but there are few, if not no games to compare league to as far as viewership and player base and flat out MONEY they earn. The Riot guys have PLENTY of money to hold a big event, and they're not paying the players nearly as much as you may think. Remember that most of the money that players are making from season to season play in NA is through their contracts after franchising. Yea, they're doing very well for themselves NOW, but Riot isn't shelling out a ton of money the players per contract. Their ORGs are paying them the big money. Riot is only responsible for supplying event and seasonal based winnings. They also supplement worlds winnings a little bit, but they still make MORE money than they actually give back to the players.

To me, it just sounds like Riot is being cheap and they don't want to pay for halfway decent venues. That sucks, in my opinion, and shortchanging fans who actually want to come to these events by only providing like 1500 seats for an event when EU is selling out Arenas will be why League of Legends dies in NA eventually. I mean, people that are connected to the Riot scene have even expressed concern over this, so please don't think, I'm just complaining for the sake of complaining. Other people are noticing the constantly shrinking venues they've been crapping out the last couple of years. It's not something that will go on unnoticed. I mean, the crowd at Spring Finals looked maybe three times bigger than their average, weekly base of spectators back in Cali.

That's pretty weak...

A lot of NA big events such as finals usually came from Canada, which again, has a weaker dollar and was probably an easy buy for riot. I don't think jumping to conclusions is a great idea right now because this season is when they changed it up from Canada to US, and again, the dollar here is stronger, and you also have to deal with an increase in rent due to location. I obviously don't know for sure riot's financial plan, as I am not affiliated with them, I'm just giving out the possibilities. Maybe they just rushed it and found a bad place to rent because other beautiful nice places near that finals place where TL and 100T fought were not available today. Hell, maybe even picking that particular place has something to do with franchising, I don't know. I obviously hope riot isn't in any financial dip right now, but if they are then there is no erasing the facts. Anyways according to this website, http://wwg.com/league-of-legends/2017/06/01/na-league-of-legends-pros-salary-increase-shared-revenue/ LCS players have a minimum yearly wage of 75k. While that may not seem like a lot given that they are pro, and comparing them to other pro players from other sports, it's important to keep in mind that the eSports genre is still pretty new, and this is the first year they start franchising. Other physical sports like basketball have already franchised for years compared to eSports, and considering how LCS players get free food, free shelter, transportation, and free computers 75k is a really good salary since they aren't paying for utility bills at all. Thanks to the tax cut right now, players who earn the minimum wage, aka teams that are at the lowest seeding, earn $58500 with the 22% of that going directly to taxes. Another website https://esportsobserver.com/franchising-220-percent-jump-player-salaries/ states that players already made big bucks at 150k last year, and now it bumps them up to 327k this year. Personally, I feel like this is too much too fast, but I don't know. If it's true, then they take home 219k a year with the 33% tax cut. That's absurdly high, given again, that they don't pay any bills at all. The only thing they are buying is entertainment stuff, like clothes or shoes, hell even their computers are paid by sponsors like Razer and Logitech. Going back to the initial response I think it's too early to tell whether riot is in any financial trouble right now, you should give it at least 2 years and see where they go from there.