Proposed changes to player-team contracts for 2016

Riot·Nov 18, 2015·2 votes·37,657 views

As we get ready to head into our fourth LCS season, we wanted to take a moment to discuss some of the changes that we're working with team owners on for the 2016 NA and EU LCS, what we’re aiming for, and where we want to improve. One big issue we’re looking to improve on is the pro player experience when it comes to their contracts with teams.

We’ll be back later in the offseason to talk through some additional changes (i.e. looking at the LCS and Challenger formats, where we’ll be holding our international events in 2016), but first we wanted to address some specific changes we’re hoping to put in place for next season with an eye on pro player experience. These aren’t all the changes we’re making, but here’s some details on some of the first tweaks that we’re looking at.

First, we are taking a look at putting a cap on contract lengths. We’ve seen some teams tie up players with long-term deals (we know of at least one 10 year deal in a league outside of the LCS) that don’t guarantee compensation over the life of that contract. While we want to encourage the stability of team rosters in LCS, we believe contracts extending beyond three years at this point in time are not healthy for players or teams given the rapid growth of the League. In addition to helping players seek a fair market value, we also believe that long-term contracts are open to abuse when teams have no responsibility to pay them or keep them on the Active Roster. As a result, we’re looking to cap LCS contracts at 3-year maximums.

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We are also looking at requiring that reserve players in the LCS have a contract and that they have a minimum compensation this year. While we know that several teams have compensated their subs and have involved them to a significant degree, we’re hoping to standardize this. We believe this is healthy for the LCS and provides some stability for these players. We’re thinking that subs should be guaranteed a minimum compensation per split while they’re not actively playing (less than LCS starters, although they can certainly be paid more at the discretion of the team). Although this is helpful for reserve players, we’d consider this just the first step - we have a few more initiatives in the works to help all players - starters and subs - unlock their market value and see their overall compensation increase.

Finally, we’d like to introduce a few stipulations to prevent players from being unfairly tied to teams if personal or team circumstances dramatically change. The first change would ensure that players are not tied to a non-compete clause. This is an area where esports has lagged for too long behind traditional sports leagues - restricting players from joining another team once their contract expires is simply unfair and risks the player missing out on key months (or even years) of their career.

The second change we’re looking to make allows players to terminate their contract in the event that their team is removed from participating in the LCS due to rules violations, preventing them from being tied to an organization that can no longer compete. This would not take effect if a team is relegated, so in the past few years would only have been applied in the case of Lemondogs in 2014 or Rich Gang earlier this year. We’re hoping that this won’t need to be invoked except in extreme cases, but it’s important to avoid a situation where a team is removed from the LCS and then blocks their players from joining other teams.

Helping to ensure that players are represented as fairly and completely as possible within player contracts is one of the more impactful ways we can create a positive experience for pros competing in the LCS. It’s our hope that these changes, and other initiatives still in the pipeline, help to provide greater protection and security for players. We’ll be sharing news about more developments during the offseason, so stay tuned.

23 Comments

T RexHasTinyArmsNov 18, 20158 votes

I'm really surprised the changes are this limited. They don't seem to cover any of the major issues from a player or organization stand point. First 3 years is over half of league's life time at this point, so it's probably longer than will make a "fair" contract bc as e-sports grows the money coming in is changing really fast. If you looked at what would be fair pay in 2014 for someone like Bjergsen, that would be WAY under his market value this season, but it could be what he was still getting paid under a 3 year contract.

More importantly it leaves out the 2 biggest issues I think will come up in terms of players being treated fairly and organizations being able to retain talent and be rewarded for developing talent rather than just buying established names. Namely off season negotiation rights/options for players, and counter bid/franchise type options for organizations. Currently there is no standard allowing players to be approached before their contract ends to explore their off season options. If a player is great and knows they will get better offers it's easy for them, but if they aren't sure about what the opportunities are there is no way to explore them w/out at minimum being in a grey area regarding poaching. Giving a standard 1-2 months before the contract ends where organizations and agents can contact the player and organization would give players the opportunity to find out if they have higher market value than expected, and also let organizations know whether or not they may need to look for a new player at that position soon.

While it is important for players to be able to explore their options in ways they are not guaranteed now (depends on the organization), it is also important for organizations to have an opportunity to retain talent. The same way that requiring organizations to notify players of other interested teams and allow a month or two for off season offers before the contract ends, having a guarantee of matching the offer or making a counter offer before a player leaves is important for the organization. In the Svenskeren issue that occurred recently H2K tried to insist that Sven sign immediately or he would lose the deal. If a player gets a better offer and takes it immediately then the team they developed on loses out on an investment in a sense because they played that person while they were still becoming a premier talent and gaining their initial experience. Having the requirement that all offers must wait until the original organization is given the chance to match or exceed the offer would protect teams from losing talent easily and give them more incentive to develop skilled players and grow the scene.

There are probably some other major changes people were hoping to see when they read the title, but these 2 seem really out of place to not even be mentioned in terms of issues being considered.

RiotMagusNov 19, 20153 votes

Hey TRex (great name), let me address a few of the points you made. Thanks for being thoughtful around this - it's something we all care deeply about.

3 years is a long time, absolutely. In coming up with what we think is practical, we need to balance the desire of teams (and some players) to "secure" their future. Teams may want to lock down their superstar. Players may want to ensure their next few years are guaranteed. I don't see a world where both players and teams are happy with a 1-2 year maximum. Our intention with this change is more focused on limited abuse cases where unfavorable contracts are incredibly long. 3 years is a balance point for us which felt appropriate if teams and players want to opt into a long deal, but not long enough that a career could be ruined by a single unfavorable contract.
During-season negotiations is a tricky challenge - players want to be under contract while testing the market, and teams want to have exclusive negotiating rights. The League also doesn't want teams poaching players, threatening the sanctity of contracts. Some players are negotiating into their contract the rule that their team must inform them if they're approached by another team who is interested in them, and that's something we've considered making LCS-wide policy but decided not to this offseason. It's worth noting that a lot of teams are doing good stuff here and are willing to tell their players when they're being approached, so we're focusing on working with teams to make this happen rather than mandating it through rules.
To your point on teams retaining talent, we agree that it's important but think that teams already have a pretty good shot at retaining players. In the current LCS scenario, teams having the right to pre-negotiate with their players is already a pretty strong advantage to keeping them.

Beyond our current system, certain sports have a cool restricted free agency period which both allows a window where players with expiring contracts can negotiate with teams but their current team has the right to match/beat any offer. It's something we're interested in but don't think the structure of the LCS is quite developed/mature enough to build towards that - it very well could be something you see in the future though.

T RexHasTinyArmsNov 19, 20152 votes

Yeah, the 3 years makes sense bc it is a high end cap, it just seems weird bc smart players wouldn't sign a 3 year contract that didn't have a lot of flex for renegotiation or conditional pay or something.

I think negotiating during contracts definitely could be an issue, and I hadn't thought about the fact that teams will want to change rosters between splits and not just after worlds. I think a month free agency at the end/after worlds for large changes once a year would make sense and might be something the LCS is big enough for next year. However a solution to changes between splits would be better, and until the influx of money and high profile teams hits next split it won't be needed so at earliest it will be a problem after this split. I just hadn't thought about the fact there is a splits worth of time before new rules will really really impact the league if the landscape changes with the new money.

KoboldNov 19, 20151 votes

Just wanted to comment on #2 it sounds to me like you (riot) want to use a good faith system with the organizations and not enforce too much. While this may work in a perfect world it is likely that they will not act in a reasonable manner in these cases. Atm there is no guarantee to the players that they will be informed of offers before they expire.

datRAYRAYNov 18, 20153 votes

Does this mean you are allowing NRG to play this split?

Aika TsubeNov 18, 20151 votes

Not saying anything = Go for it fam Nunu

T RexHasTinyArmsNov 18, 20152 votes

I still haven't seen a compelling reason they shouldn't be allowed to. There are rules in place that seem to have somewhat conflicting regulations because they were developed to address specific issues and protect the integrity of the scene. People cite the whole 3/5ths thing, but the reason that came into being was very specific (NIP and LD issue) and it specifically mentions "rebuy" iirc, so NRG being a different organization isn't doing anything wrong in buying Coast's spot. I'd bet they checked w/ Riot regarding the rule ambiguity before they invested that much money, but maybe I'm wrong.

LintheNov 18, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=T RexHasTinyArms,realm=NA,application-id=9hBQwnEU,discussion-id=ceQPQmKB,comment-id=00000002,timestamp=2015-11-18T21:47:43.228+0000)

before they invested that much money, but maybe I'm wrong.

Do you happen to have any info on amounts?? I am very curious...

KinkyKittyKatNov 18, 20151 votes

Well Dignitas EU was sold for something in the vicinity of 1 million dollars but that included the players iirc. Either way 500,000$ seems like a minimum for such a deal.

TrunksuNov 18, 20151 votes

Plus the acquisition of Impact and GBM must have been costly.

T RexHasTinyArmsNov 19, 20151 votes

So there is probably a 500k-- 1 mil cost for the spot (if dig sale is a useful number). Whatever the price of buying out the contracts for gbm and impact was (they pay the other team for the contract rights and then have the contract to pay). To be competitive they will buy a gaming house so minimum 3 bedroom 2 bath if everyone bunks like dorm rooms, looking at like 5 bedroom house to have each player with their own room. Probably that is in the suburbs so not full LA real estate price but probably expensive. Then there is the basics of player contracts, coach/support staff being hired, buying 5 gaming computers to play on, anything they put in the house for replay analysis like in football with projector rooms for game tape, water and electricity for the house, etc.

TrunksuNov 18, 20152 votes

I think a rule should be: In order for an CS team entering the LCS to sell an LCS, team owner must have written consent of at least 4 players to sell the spot. That way they can't be screwed over by the owner and no one can complain when they don't play.

PyroGhostNov 19, 20152 votes

It's all up to the players though. I mean their contracts expired, it would have been better for Coast to replace almost all of their team anyway for upgrades. Thorin has a great video covering the whole fiasco with Coast and explains that sometimes a player is good enough to get into the LCS but maybe isn't LCS material. If the player was good enough i would bet the org would keep the player on the team.

T RexHasTinyArmsNov 19, 20151 votes

I think pekin or shrimp may get a spot with all the open rosters floating around, but yeah, maybe not that org, but somewhere.

T RexHasTinyArmsNov 19, 20152 votes

What if there aren't 4 players with active contracts? Do they just lose the spot? Do they have to sign players until they get to 4, and who do they sign? Say I have a team with 3 open spots bc contracts ended so no one is hired, can I hire myself and my family for the three and sell it with the agreement of one player (effectively moving from 80% consent needed to 50%)? That seems like it would lacking in far too many details to not be a huge problem down the line.

VsAcesoVerNov 18, 20151 votes

Definitely great steps in the right direction! 3-year contracts seems a bit long, but that's probably because it's meant to be the outlier.

KinjishiNov 18, 20151 votes

If teams or orgs sell their spots, players should be able to leave/terminate their contract. Why would they want to stick around with a team that quite literally doesn't want to compete or go anywhere? Only being able to leave if the team/org break an LCS rule is too restricting.

AngrybussNov 18, 20151 votes

What about the new issue of team buying where they turf all the players? Should force the organization to buy out the remainder of their contract if they buy the team and don't want the players.

T RexHasTinyArmsNov 19, 20151 votes

I'm assuming you're upset over the coast but out but the rule you are suggesting literally would change nothing about that. 3 players had contract that expired, one is on the team, and in that scenario you just keep the last player through their contract end and have them as a sub. If the contract is a full split the player can get paid what they negotiated for playing in the CS during that time (probably not much) and they won't play any games (just listed as sub), they can't negotiate with other teams or tryout bc the other team would face poaching penalties, and there isn't even the opportunity for promotion. In that case the player will probably choose to opt out of the contract without being paid the end (so they can sign with someone else and get exposure during that time), rather than basically sit out for a whole split where they get no competitive experience or exposure.

Meanie40Nov 19, 20151 votes

The one major change not listed I would like to see is to make all player contracts fully guaranteed. This would help balance the power between teams and the players.

Yes, it's a risk for the team. You're free to not sign the player, or sign him to a shorter contract, if you want lesser risk.

ExtinctFigmentNov 19, 20151 votes

Has there been any thought on preventing the following issues?

Firstly, a widely considered world class mid laner Alex Ich subs in at mid lane in order for TDK to break into LCS. From what I understand Alex had been a registered sub for TDK previously, but it seems odd to me that a player that is already signed to a team can sub for a team to help them get into the LCS knowing that he will not be playing with them after. It begs the question of does the team really deserve to be in the LCS. The competitive scene suffers when teams spend half their split trying to get used to new players. Has there been any internal discussion on this issue?

Secondly, the intended starting roster for TDK was missing two of its players for literally half the split due to visa issues, CLG had to change it's whole training regimen in anticipation of not being able to play Xmithie. Yes I know, the visa issues were quite unexpected, and hardly controllable, but I expect we can all agree that the LCS scene suffered because the starting rosters suffered. While not too widespread the impact of visa issues is massive in an organization like LCS, and in general I'd like to know if there are any plans in place to mitigate them.

LammahDec 1, 20151 votes

How about some insight on an issue that arose recently with the move of Huni and Reignover to the NA LCS. Apparently Fnatic was unable to financially compete with NA. Even Pro EU players mentioned the large pay gap between NA+Korea versus the rest of the world, especially EU. Citing NA teams pays twice more than EU teams. Which in turn looks a bit like poaching when EU teams just can't compete with those salaries.

What could Riot do ?