Boards›Esports

"Franchising" deal is an absolute disaster for players

Crysillion·6/6/2017, 8:09:24 PM·2 votes·552 views

The entire deal puts organizations and riot profit before players.

First off - it secures spots for the "top teams" sure. Fun cool, I get the business side of it.

However - you're simply shying players away from making an attempt to become professionals - if you have 10-16 teams in the LCS permenantly, they're going to cycle through players a whole lot less than they do now.

Currentt relegation keeps things exciting, it gives challenger series much clearer incentives. And it gives professional teams more incentive to suck.

Say you're TL right now - as an organization you're still popular, you're still big, people are still watching you, people are still buying your stuff - your league team is very bad right now. Large organizations that are successful in other games will have indcengive to partially ignore their league team and know they will not be relegated.

Now.... the bigger problem, the money, and the players.

Though we haven't been clear on where the money will come from, it simply doesn't add up from what we do know. Their merchandising plan is trash, riot wants to design all merchandise (IE LPL).

Now - the biggest problem.... the players association.

THE PLAYERS ASSOCIATION IS BEING SET UP BY RIOT. That is absolute nonsense and NO player should agree to that unless they're content being tak n advantage of, and abused by riot and their teams.

Players need a strong independent, non bias union in order to have fair negotiating rights for themselves. They need to have a group that will put what is right for them first, with one "organized" by their employer the cannot be the case. Between their unfair pay and rights. It would be a disaster.

12 Comments

Miror B6/6/2017, 10:25:50 PM3 votes

Probably not the best idea to use TL as an example (as the idea that people "watch" their games and "enjoy" their games is a bit weird, due to the fact that unless you're a massochist like me then it's kinda hard to watch a repeated car-crash in slow motion). If we're looking at franchises who could theoretically leave and have more success without league, then TL also becomes an obvious one due to how much better their other games/streamers are doing (let's not forget that Dom/their HS players are pulling in constant 8k viewership, in addition to their CSGO team which is always fun to watch).

I really wish I could seperate the rito-run player's union idea and make it a seperate post from the top part, as that's probably the biggest issue with this whole franchising thing and is a bit like the giant steaming turd on top of the decadent sundae. Instead of having their player's union run/set up by a third party (like what they plan on doing when it comes to the background/credit checks for the franchisee teams), they're setting it up themselves and from what I can understand will be the "final barrier" for who ends up being voted in/out of it (the players will consensus-vote who they want in, with rito then approving/denying those selections afterward). Now, unless rito is dumb, couldn't they theoretically stack the union full of pro-owner/rito players thus both giving and denying what they want at the same time?

Kal Vas Flam6/7/2017, 12:17:32 AM2 votes

Most if it should be a win for everyone. The farm teams should develop pro level talent much faster than the current system does. The pay for players will probably rise as well. Keep in mind that there is no player's union right now. Riot is actually a pretty liberal company and while there is room for conspiring with this set up, I believe Riot has the intention of giving players real representation. Also, the current management for most of these teams is trash. Bunch of a kids with no business running anything. This should make everything more professional.

BigBellBrute6/6/2017, 9:32:33 PM1 votes

{quoted}

The entire deal puts organizations and riot profit before players.

First off - it secures spots for the "top teams" sure. Fun cool, I get the business side of it.

However - you're simply shying players away from making an attempt to become professionals - if you have 10-16 teams in the LCS permenantly, they're going to cycle through players a whole lot less than they do now.

They may cycle through players quite a bit. But it's the same old retreads being recycled. At least with the academies, a team might have incentive to mentor and develop that new player.

Currentt relegation keeps things exciting, it gives challenger series much clearer incentives. And it gives professional teams more incentive to suck.

Say you're TL right now - as an organization you're still popular, you're still big, people are still watching you, people are still buying your stuff - your league team is very bad right now. Large organizations that are successful in other games will have indcengive to partially ignore their league team and know they will not be relegated.

As things stand now, TL knows they can just rent a player and not get relegated anyway. And that's exactly what they did. And what did they do after they stayed in? Why they started with the exact same roster that got them to potential relegation in the first place. They have no incentive under this system either.

Now.... the bigger problem, the money, and the players.

Though we haven't been clear on where the money will come from, it simply doesn't add up from what we do know. Their merchandising plan is trash, riot wants to design all merchandise (IE LPL).

Now - the biggest problem.... the players association.

THE PLAYERS ASSOCIATION IS BEING SET UP BY RIOT. That is absolute nonsense and NO player should agree to that unless they're content being tak n advantage of, and abused by riot and their teams.

Players need a strong independent, non bias union in order to have fair negotiating rights for themselves. They need to have a group that will put what is right for them first, with one "organized" by their employer the cannot be the case. Between their unfair pay and rights. It would be a disaster.

Unfortunately a players associating set up by the very organizations they're supposed to be negotiating against is a recipe for abuse of players.

Pippen The Short6/8/2017, 1:25:05 AM1 votes

Details have been super slim about how the Riots players association is going to be set up, besides being "funded by Riot". Which that could end up like what the NBA or NFL has. Which for those sports have been extremely effective systems and represented the players well. The vote on the representatives may be vetoed by Riot, but only if the person is known to violate Summoners code and some other ethical standards. IE, they wouldn't be able to vote in Tyler1 because he's had accounts banned at least a dozen times by now, if not more.

The new system offers enough protection for teams to implode a bad team one split and rebuild for the next split. The rewards system, which pays out better to teams that do better, is also an incentive for teams to perform well. So your worries about the league becoming less competitive isn't very well founded.

The money is going to come from the $400 million deal with BAMTech, merchandising efforts, and a percentage of any revenue from advertising and sponsors signed by BAMTech over a certain amount.

Did you see some bullet points and decide to blurt out your, uninformed, opinion on the matter? [zombie-brand-clap]