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If you were going to re-design LOL pro leagues how would you do it?

ReginaldBro·5/10/2017, 5:38:21 AM·3 votes·1,041 views

I feel like were always talking about Korea and Gaps between this , that region and Korea. The constantly expressed concerns of not enough international tournaments and so on. I tire of seeing the Koreans dominate every competition ever and I do not think it will ever change under the current league system.

New League System I would pretty much adapt Major League Baseball's system. Split the existing teams of Regions into two different leagues. Fire league and Ice league. Each week half of each league would have home games the other away. If you think about LCS there are 10 teams in NA. So 5 would play at home and the other 5 would travel. So for example of the 5 traveling teams. *1 team would go play EU

*2 team would go play LCK

*3 team would go play LPL

*4 team would go play LMS

*5 team would go play Wildcards

      Traveling teams would fly out of home region Sunday night.  Arrive at destination Monday and on Tuesday start scrimming teams also in that region whether they be home or visitor teams.  Compete Fri. , Sat. , Sun.  then fly home Sunday night.

The system would just play out like that though the season until playoffs. Once you get to Quarterfinals each separate league comes together and it plays out in a "Worlds" like production.

MSI Becomes a tourney where the top 2 from every region come for a double elimination tourney. The winning region gets side choice for a game once per that regions teams at worlds. So basically TSM , C9 , etc etc from NA ( had NA won MSI )could for one series get side choice on any ONE game where they wouldn't normally have it. Normal prizes accolades and titles of MSI would apply.

Challenger Series The challenger series would stay much like it is to maintain the integrity of each regions 10 organically grown teams. Including promotion/relegation teams.

Closing Thoughts I think creating more exposure to foreign teams is good overall. Exposing lower tier teams to higher tier teams helps raise the bar for everyone and close the gap. Also it would be exciting to be able to purchase tickets to see your favorite foreign team play somewhere in your country (reasonably closer and cheaper to do). *Put me down for TSM vs SKT match tickets in LA. . As the sport grows and gains more exposure fans and revenue this system could easily be adapted so you have teams with unique geographical homes. Like Cloud 9 New York. The Chicago Immortals and so on. I also think this system and its evolution gives lots of new monetization opportunities for RIOT and teams.

Thought , criticism , alternatives? Discuss.

Concerns I've heard to the idea

The Travel - I rebute that NFL teams do it every other week with 50+ man team and 50+ support staff and hella equipment. These 300lbs men seem to be able to hit eachother with full force on the field, travel and compete at the same level as home. I think 5 - 8 nerds plus a coach & analyst can manage to take keyboards , mouse/pad to another place and compete well.

Cost - It is surely higher to have 1/2 of your teams traveling every other weak. But I would like to think that it would increase revenue and exposure for RIOT and the teams. As they are able to get more exposure in more markets.

9 Comments

Eleshakai5/16/2017, 3:09:07 PM2 votes

There's a difference between travelling 4 timezones from California to New York, and travelling 16 time zones from NA to Korea.

That's an ENORMOUS distance to travel regularly, and would make the league extremely taxing on people.

Bissin5/10/2017, 7:55:40 PM1 votes

So I can understand: 5 NALCS teams play domestically while 5 NALCS teams travel to other regions to play, leaving one team in each of those regions a bye for that week.

• Korea dominates the esports scene because of the players mentality towards perfection. They become micro-mechanically perfect in order to compete on the demanding stage of Korean esports. Other regions do not have this mentality and as a result are not as strong.

• The problem with the LCS is not necessarily how it is structured with regions or not. Instead the fact that there are 2 relegation periods seems to provide investors enough doubt to continuously invest in teams (Which interestly seems to be relatively a Western esports issue). Reducing the number of relegation periods may provide a more stable platform for investment, which means more overhead to bring in better players and to further develop the players you have. As for the traveling to other regions, there are very few NA teams that can stay even remotely competitive with teams from other regions. These teams also happen to be the ones that we usually see go to MSI and Worlds. By putting a bottom of the table NA team up against SKT T1 for example you achieve basically nothing beside showing how weak the NA region is compared to Korea. Or putting that same bottom of table team against G2 would result in similar results. In order to better perform internationally the region has to be strong domestically, you need to grow the competitive nature of the NALCS between the teams involved. As they improve domestically their performance internationally will follow.

I personally do not see this method as very effective nor as very viable. I posted my alternative earilier on the boards and I'll link it here for you. https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/esports/tnWXHF52-potential-new-structure-for-the-lcs-challenger-series-and-beyond

• One last thing. The Challenger Series has 6 teams in it not 10, further funneling the amount of attention --by fans and staff alike-- each team does get while in the league.

BigBellBrute5/10/2017, 10:19:04 PM1 votes

Allow only two Korean players per team regardless of region, including Korea.

ReginaldBro5/16/2017, 12:41:39 AM1 votes

MSI results just go to accentuate the point that current LOL Pro structure isn't working. The gap isn't closing and it will not close till other regions have regular exposure to Korean teams in a competitive environment.

Kal Vas Flam5/16/2017, 5:07:03 PM1 votes

I would structure it just like professional baseball. It's perfect.

Pippen The Short5/16/2017, 11:33:11 PM1 votes

The huge amounts of travel alone would not make it worth it.

Bissin makes a good point that Riot needs to fix the whole relegation process, but I don't think the solution is that simple. The Splits need to be done away with and Riot needs to move towards a single season, globally. While the NA LCS, EU LCS, LCK, LPL, etc, etc can all stay separate leading up to Worlds, there needs to be a simplification of the process. So move to a single season, move MSI to a season "global kick off Invitational", or however you want to brand it. Increase the number of matches during the season, move towards a points system (so every match is best of 3, each game is worth 1 point, a 2-0 sweep gets the winning team all 3 points). Which all of his I would label as fairly minor, but simplification as a means of attracting casual viewers.

Riot needs to do 3 things for the major markets though.

  1. There has to be franchising. Now, given the importance of relegation right now to the scene you have to keep that around. Which I don't have a firm idea on how you do that, but I think you could break down franchising as a lease period or something. So make Franchise tags for 3 years, establish an in writing, standard of qualification for a franchise, and all the teams that qualify get contracts for 3 years, and let them renew on their merit of success every 3 years. But tie that in with relegation, so that even if a team gets relegated they retain their franchise tag and benefits for the duration of their franchise agreement. Setup a process so a team that played fairly well for 2 years, then gets relegated in the last year of its contract can extend its franchise tag for reduced benefits for a year in the hopes of earning its way back into the "pros" and get another 3 year. Offer a slightly higher standard for teams that did not face relegation for 2 contracts (6 years) and reward these teams with longer franchise tag agreements, like 5 years. But, regardless of how you do it, whether its establishing a more traditional franchise agreement or doing something more unique as I've lightly suggested, it needs to exist. This is the means of providing stability for clubs to reap rewards for their risk, it makes the environment easy to navigate for investors, advertisers, and sponsors, which can poor money into the scene and create respectable revenue for.

  2. Riot needs to get rid of the "CS playoffs" for an actual minor league system. Now, no matter what system you develop, it needs to have space for "pro" franchise tagged teams to create minor league, or academy, affiliate teams, it needs to provide a clear path for up and coming teams to traverse, it needs to be stable enough for teams to actually maintain in from season to season, and it needs to incorporate a relegation process for non-pro affiliated teams to fall out by.

  3. There needs to exist a players union and a 3rd party platform for dispute between teams and Riot. The whole Renegades and Misfits fiascoes are huge concerns for investors and team owners alike and adds to the stability. Now, this 3rd party platform cannot be like what we're seeing develop in the CS:GO scene, where tournament owners are creating these groups and then barring teams from competing outside their tournament. You also need this as a means of moving towards more organized off-season events like IEM, etc.