League's survivability as an eSport

The following are some of my thoughts about what could be done better for League to survive as a professional eSport. It's quite long...

GEOGRAPHICAL DIVERSIFICATION: The lack of geographical diversification is probably the biggest hurdle that prevents LoL to become a successful professional eSport. Traditional professional team sports (NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, Soccer - the real football) showed that a team can have a strong fan base only when it is tied to a geographical location. The Packers are Wisconsin’s team, the Lakers are LA’s team, etc. Currently, all professional LoL teams are located in California, which eventually will be detrimental for LoL as an eSport. Sure, these teams have a fan base, but many fans are cult followers of some star players, and when the star player leaves they follow him. This creates a shaky fan base for the teams. A team that is connected to a geographical location has a much stronger (patriotic) fan base. Did Cleveland fans abandon the Cavs, when LeBron James left the team for Miami in 2010? No, they actually turned against LeBron and burned his jerseys. That speaks of a strong patriotic fan base. LoL must expand the franchises outside of California, if it wants to survive as a professional eSport. They have to place teams into big markets first, and they have to make sure that games are featured events in these markets (similarly to traditional professional team sports). LoL already has a City Champ Competition, and that could serve as an initial survey to identify markets where the game is really popular. Nevertheless, it is an educated guess, that a team could be placed in New York, Chicago, Florida, Texas, Boston. Couple of teams could stay in California (LA and the SF Bay area). Some of the current team ownership already have connections to locations outside of LA, which could also be a good starting point for the move. Placing teams in these locations naturally would require creating the infrastructure (such as arenas) and support from the cities and the owners. Successful geographical diversification will provide better revenue streams, because local fans will fill the arenas better and will purchase more team merchandise. Geographical diversification will also allow Riot to address the second problem of the sport: Format.

FORMAT: Traditional NA team sports show that fans are willing to spend ~3 hrs on games of their teams, and broadcasting networks are also willing to set aside the same time slot for a game. Currently, a regular season round in NA (when all 10 teams are playing) takes about 5 hours, which is too long and can be boring if a fan only wants to watch his/her favorite team. Riot right now chooses to address this issue by meta changes that shorten the game. These changes, however, are killing the strategic aspect of the game and favor the fighting aspect, which in the long run will be detrimental for the sport. LoL is primarily a strategic eSport (similar to American Football), and overnerfing its strategic aspects will lead to the loss of player and fan base. There are plenty of pure fighting games out there, and LoL cannot compete with them. LoL must stay within the strategic eSport niche where it is the strongest. Geographic diversification will allow to fit the fan experience in a 3 hr window and also preserve the niche of the game. Once teams are successfully placed into different geographical locations, they could travel to each other for a best of 3 series (2-3 hrs). The established local patriotic fan base would ensure that these games are well attended, and the game would be streamed for the fans of the away team. Best of 5 playoff games could be split into two days. The first 3 games would be played at the home of team with the better regular season record. If there is no sweep in these games, the series moves to the other team’s location (double revenue from attendance). This would also allow some extra preparation time for the teams before they continue the series. In this system, games can be played any days of the week, because fans are willing to support their local team any time (as seen in other professional team sports).

STABILITY OF THE GAME: One of the major characteristics of the successful professional team sports is that their rules are optimized, fairly stable and are definitely not changing in every two weeks. The changes that happen from season to season are generally mild and do not jeopardize the nature of the game. Can you imagine what would happen if the NFL implemented changes that would eliminate the play styles of wide receivers, running backs or linebackers? Players and fans would be up in arms. Of course that would never happen, because the NFL TEAM OWNERS would never approve it. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of LoL. It appears that Riot intentionally keeps the game out of balance, because they think that provides variety. Variety in LoL primarily means employing different strategies to achieve victory. Well, that is very difficult to achieve when the strategic aspect of the game is the one that is gradually eliminated. The current “meta” changes to shorten the game employ only one strategy: fight, fight, fight early to snowball the game. That is not variety. As I explained above, there is no need for shortening the games if successful geographical diversification is achieved, and 3-game series are implemented in a home and away match system. Riot also could explore other avenues to keep the game interesting, but stable. One possibility is a Pro Champion Rotation (similar to free champ rotation), which would limit the available champions for the Pros in a given week or patch. This could also provide more playing time to sub players, who might specialize on certain available champs. I am sure fans can come up with other ideas that keep the game interesting, without hurting its strategic variety and balance.

GOVERNANCE: I am not familiar with the governance structure of LoL, especially the relationship between Riot and the team owners in the new NA franchise system. In traditional NA professional team sports, team owners have to approve rule changes in every aspect of the games. In the past, Riot had unlimited power in rule changes, disciplinary actions even banning owners. If LoL wants to successfully move along the professional eSport path, it must adopt a governance structure similar to traditional professional team sports. This means more decision power to the team owners.