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Proposed changes to player-team contracts for 2016

Riot·11/18/2015, 8:04:22 PM·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 RexHasTinyArms11/18/2015, 9:40:38 PM8 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.

datRAYRAY11/18/2015, 9:22:03 PM3 votes

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

Trunksu11/18/2015, 11:35:49 PM2 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.

Kinjishi11/18/2015, 10:44:48 PM1 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.

VsAcesoVer11/18/2015, 9:25:06 PM1 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.

Angrybuss11/18/2015, 11:50:34 PM1 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.

Meanie4011/19/2015, 3:14:56 AM1 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.

ExtinctFigment11/19/2015, 9:27:19 PM1 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.

Lammah12/1/2015, 4:07:50 AM1 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 ?