If League is a pro sport, its players are sorely underpaid.

Zero Shingetsu·Nov 29, 2018·2 votes·2,003 views

I did a little research and discovered Faker, in three pro seasons, earned in the realm of $500,000 US from his League winnings, endorsements, etc. By most every account, he's the most successful League player in LCS history. I've seen more current figures estimating around $1.7 million for his net worth.

Contrast: The NFL has an entry-level salary that all bench players who will never likely never step on the field must be paid, bare minimum, just to retain them on the roster. That value is $450,000 per 16-game season. Higher tier players will make between $8 million and $50 million per year, before endorsement deals and other side revenue. (Granted, a portion of this generally goes to one's agent.)

In most sports, the amount of money players make is directly equivalent to how much demand there is for the sport. The more fans the sport gets, the more revenue a sport generates, and in turn the more the players generate in earnings. Professional badminton pays out around $40,000 per championship. Professional tennis players can make as much as ~$50 million by winning big events like the US Open. The lowest-grossing "big three" sport in America right now is the NBA, where the minimum salary is $507,336 per season.

This leads me to wonder... Is the LCS showing us a legitimate sport, or just a high-profile tournament game? If gaming is a sport, why are the best pros making so little? Is it lack of comparative demand, or are sponsors and/or tournament organizers being extremely stingy?

(Bonus question: MOBAs are being billed as having a collegiate circuit now. If the LCS is indeed a sport, should not these teams fall under the fold of the NCAA? US collegiate sports are managed by the athletic department of each given school, yet League teams are forced to compete as student-operated "clubs" that receive no official recognition from the NCAA. Seems strange.)

39 Comments

z63XnLCMwXNov 29, 20183 votes

It's almost as if the older sport has more time to mature and grow a large fanbase.

DynikusNov 29, 20183 votes

E sports are relatively new and have a niche viewership compared to something like basketball or football. I feel like football was a very cherrypicked example, as it has one of the highest pay rates of any professional sport. If you compare the earnings of a professional gamer to other sports, like the minimum salary for water polo or even soccer in the US, you'd likely find a similar pay rate.

MrFawknSunshineNov 29, 20181 votes

actually its not NBA and BASEBALL have high salaries its just NFL has more players

for example LeBron James signed a 4 year / $153,312,846 contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, including $153,312,846 guaranteed Aaron Rodgers signed a 4 year, $134,000,000 contract with the Green Bay Packers, including a $57,500,000 signing bonus, $98,700,000 guaranteed

now the big difference is in the NBA the contract is fully guaranteed regardless if lebron gets injured and never plays again or it the team buys him out.

aaron rodgers can get cut and not see any where close to that 134 mil.

and if we look at MLB Alex Rodriguez, Yankees: 10 years, $275 million (2008-17) In the middle of Game 4 of the 2007 World Series, Rodriguez's agent, Scott Boras, announced that A-Rod would be opting out of the final three years of his contract with the Yankees. (This was the contract he had originally signed with the Rangers prior to the '01 season, which carried over to New York when he was traded in '04.) which is fully guaranteed as well.

and we will see baseball contracts in the $300 millions

The Washington Nationals offered Bryce Harper the biggest free agent contract in the history of the four major sports They offered Harper $300 million for 10 years in a deal that included no opt-outs, according to multiple people familiar with the terms. Giancarlo Stanton's 2014 deal, which guaranteed him $325 million over 13 seasons, was an extension.

Zero ShingetsuNov 29, 20181 votes

No, I know, NBA and MLB has huge contracts, I meant more in terms of how much money the league generates in revenue. Right now the NFL is tops in America, far and away. This doesn't take into account European football, though, which is probably the most popular sport in the world and provides obscene amounts of money for its stars.

MrFawknSunshineNov 29, 20181 votes

ok and whats the difference between the NFL and LEAGUE?

well the NFL gets MILLIONS OF VIEWS PER GAME with BIG AD REVENUE on MAJOR TV and CABLE

where does league broadcast? on thats right youtube/twitch etc on line. where the viewer ship is a lot less and they cant sale a 30 sec ad spot for $5million like the NFL does during the superbowl.

league passed up the chance to get on cable tv to stay with twitch. when other esports like HOTS , CS GO, OVERWATCH are now broadcast on TBS, ESPN ect.

Zero ShingetsuNov 29, 20181 votes

{quoted}

ok and whats the difference between the NFL and LEAGUE?

well the NFL gets MILLIONS OF VIEWS PER GAME with BIG AD REVENUE on MAJOR TV and CABLE

where does league broadcast? on thats right youtube/twitch etc on line. where the viewer ship is a lot less and they cant sale a 30 sec ad spot for $5million like the NFL does during the superbowl.

league passed up the chance to get on cable tv to stay with twitch. when other esports like HOTS , CS GO, OVERWATCH are now broadcast on TBS, ESPN ect.

Yeah, and the LCS championship this year had over $5 million as its prize pool, while the big pot for Overwatch was $1.7 million, so I'm not sure that's helping them a whole lot. (Also why have I never seen ads for Overwatch or CSGO tournaments on TBS...? That might be entertaining and I'm missing it.)

MrFawknSunshineNov 30, 20181 votes

well the prize pool is subjected to what the Ownership sets up, and you dont know how the teams were paid up to that point.

but it was just 2 years ago? (not exactly sure) that the 1st place prize for winning worlds was 1 million and that was big, but even with the 1 million prize that dont just go to the players, that goes to owners, coaches, staff , pay for expenses and then the players.

but yea i have seen all 3 of those on TV even some kinda of VR drone flying racing shit too. im sure the viewership isnt great but its more likely to catch a nonplayer of the game to see it /watch it then league does who is totally online.

DynikusNov 29, 20181 votes

I think you missed that I said one of the highest, not the highest.

MrFawknSunshineNov 29, 20182 votes

hmm not one and the same

its not apples and apples

plus if you want to compare nfl to nba/baseball where contracts are full 100% guaranteed and in the nfl its not.

Zero ShingetsuNov 29, 20181 votes

{quoted}

hmm not one and the same

its not apples and apples

plus if you want to compare nfl to nba/baseball where contracts are full 100% guaranteed and in the nfl its not.

Then let's compare it to a sport heavily based in winnings, performance and endorsements. The UFC.

The average UFC championship fight purse is around $350,000, for one fight. This is without any sponsorships or fighter endorsement revenue accounted for. The UFC is widely considered to grossly underpay its athletes, yet defending a title three times - something more than one champion has done - nets a fighter more money than Faker made over the course of three seasons. Something is off here.

MrFawknSunshineNov 29, 20182 votes

how long has Esports been around? legit?

and how long has UFC been around?

in the 1st 10 years of UFC non of the fighters were getting any where close to 350k per fight

and if you go back to early days of the NFL those players all had part time job/off season jobs to in order to make ends meet.

The average football players salary in 1969 of $25,000

Zero ShingetsuNov 29, 20181 votes

{quoted}

and if you go back to early days of the NFL those players all had part time job/off season jobs to in order to make ends meet.

The average football players salary in 1969 of $25,000

To be fair, you could buy a Cadillac limousine for $10,961 MSRP in 1969. One has to account for inflation.

MrFawknSunshineNov 29, 20182 votes

ok so half their salary for a car

give or take a few after taxes ect

now where faker has made $350k (based on what the OP stated ) if he buys a GTR for about $90 k that isnt half his salary

Zero ShingetsuNov 29, 20181 votes

{quoted}

ok so half their salary for a car

give or take a few after taxes ect

now where faker has made $350k (based on what the OP stated ) if he buys a GTR for about $90 k that isnt half his salary

Half their salary for a limousine made by Cadillac. A standard full-size sedan was closer to $3,000 on average. You could pay that off in a year on a 1969 NFL salary and still have plenty of money left over for a $0.25 loaf of bread.

MrFawknSunshineNov 30, 20181 votes

and a league player making over 100k a year is alot of money compared to inflation today and cost of living.

Zero ShingetsuNov 30, 20181 votes

{quoted}

and a league player making over 100k a year is alot of money compared to inflation today and cost of living.

I dunno. You can make almost half that working in a steel mill. $47k is the average mid-level steelworker's annual compensation. Move to doctors? GPs run around $225k per year to just sit and talk to people about their cough. It still feels pretty low.

MrFawknSunshineNov 30, 20181 votes

go look how much a general doctor makes per yer and think about how much debt the go into in student loans and malpractice insurance etc etc and compare it to what the average league player is paid.

https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Physician_%2F_Doctor%2C_General_Practice/Salary

Zero ShingetsuNov 30, 20181 votes

Not sure doctors have to worry about student loans the way most professions do, they make a ton of money. Medical school is expensive, but I've never heard of any 30-something doctors swamped with loan payments.

Then again, I'm Japanese. We don't charge through the nose for university. :P The high end bachelor's degree will run you around ¥4,000,000 tops, for the entirety of the degree's length, in tuition. That's high end, with the average being closer to half that. That equates to around $35,000 US, which is only slightly more than the average private university's yearly tuition in the US.

Why the heck do you guys charge so much to learn? o_O

MrFawknSunshineNov 30, 20181 votes

it cost like $250k for a medical degree

MrFawknSunshineNov 30, 20182 votes

The median four-year cost of medical school (including expenses and books) was $278,455 for private schools, and $207,866 for public schools in 2013 according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. Is Medical School Worth it Financially? – BestMedicalDegrees.com https://www.bestmedicaldegrees.com/is-medical-school-worth-it-financially/

this dont include undergrad school

Zero ShingetsuNov 30, 20181 votes

{quoted}

The median four-year cost of medical school (including expenses and books) was $278,455 for private schools, and $207,866 for public schools in 2013 according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. Is Medical School Worth it Financially? – BestMedicalDegrees.com https://www.bestmedicaldegrees.com/is-medical-school-worth-it-financially/

this dont include undergrad school

Sheez, then it's no wonder American kids are running to pro gaming. You can become a doctor over here for around ¥5,200,000 worth of schooling. I don't think university in Korea is that expensive, though, so I'm not sure why this is such a thing over there... Osmosis, I guess? I mean don't get me wrong, Japan loves tournament gaming, we just view it as supplementary in most every case. We have fun with it.

That's what I want for League. I want the competitive scene to be fun and friendly, not rigid and organized and all about the money.

MrFawknSunshineNov 30, 20181 votes

yea school is stupid expensive here in the states. i went to a trade school and im a professional auto tech

school cost me $22k for 2 years after grants and scholarships. i still owe 16K. over all there is nearly a trillion dollars in unpaid student loans in America. with the rising cost of housing and transportation plus the cost of school you are in debt easily $100k before you know it.

i have a good job i make good money but i cant afford to buy a house yet and i have a used car i paid off. i make about $3k-$4k a month depending on business. i plan on trying to buy a house in a year. im still saving.

UnboundHadesNov 29, 20182 votes

people generally have to pay to watch normal professional sports so there is gonna be more money for the players than in an esport because of twitch being free

GeminiRuneNov 29, 20182 votes

Traditional sports and esports are two separate universes. There's a reason it's called LoL esports.

That being said, while competitive gaming has been around for almost 20 years now, it's only in recent years that noteworthy visibility has emerged mainstream. It's hella unfair to compare traditional sports leagues that have been around for several decades to esports leagues that have only been around for as little as even a year especially in this game where there's still developments to the competitive scene.

Zero ShingetsuNov 29, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Traditional sports and esports are two separate universes. There's a reason it's called LoL esports.

That being said, while competitive gaming has been around for almost 20 years now, it's only in recent years that noteworthy visibility has emerged mainstream. It's hella unfair to compare traditional sports leagues that have been around for several decades to esports leagues that have only been around for as little as even a year especially in this game where there's still developments to the competitive scene.

Fair, but why call it a sport then? Riot was extremely particular about calling it a sport, not just a tournament-driven game. I've been competing at the pro level for ten years and not once has my side job been called a "sport", nor probably should it have been. I'm loathe to call gaming a sport because sports tend to fall apart at the pro level, and I'd really like it if tournament gaming remained fun. If the LCS tries to run itself like a sport, bad things are going to continue to happen to the format of the MOBA, and what if it spreads to other games? That'd be terrible.

Keep our games games. That's my motto.

GeminiRuneNov 30, 20181 votes

Only my point is that I'm not calling it a sport moreso I'm speaking as to why it keeps coming up. I don't float around a lot of other communities sans FGC but them and communities such as Overwatch, CSGO, Rocket League, and so on, I've hardly ever seen the mention of sports get roped around as much as it does this community.

ValyrianBladeNov 29, 20182 votes

Wow are your stats ever off. Holy crap.

First, a quick google of "Minimum NFL Salary" shows that the minimum is 450K, not 750K as you claim in your post.

Second - that's NOT for players that will never step foot on the field. THOSE players, known as "Practice Squad Players" can have their salary found on the second result of the same search: $7600 per week. And I can only assume that they only get paid for 16 weeks, so that works out to $121.6K per season.

Third: the top 3 NFL salaries right now? Jimmy Garoppolo, San Francisco 49ers. 2018 Cap Hit: $37 Million. Matthew Stafford, Detroit Lions. 2018 Cap Hit: $26.5 Million. Derek Carr, Oakland Raiders. 2018 Cap Hit: $25.0 Million.

Sure, those are all between 8M and 50M as you claim, but you're implying 50M is possible. The top player makes 37M, and then 2nd and 3rd are only at HALF of your maximum...

Then tennis... oh tennis. Holy crap. I didn't know a thing about the NFL before writing this post and yet I knew you were full of it by how far off you were on tennis. A tennis player does not make anywhere close to 50M for winning the US Open. Where in the world are you getting that figure from? Roger Federer, the winningest player of all time, has career lifetime earnings of $120M. That's with 99 tournament victories, including 20 slam victories. Djokovic, the highest prize-money earner (due to recent tournaments paying DRASTICALLY more than prior years) has lifetime earnings of $125M with 72 tournament victories including 14 slams.

The most recent slam, the 2018 US Open, paid a grand prize of $3.8M. Your $50M figure? Well, that's pretty much the total prize money ($53M) paid by the US Open to ALL Competitors, INCLUDING THE WOMEN. And with equal prizes (somehow... when the men have to play 5 sets and the women only 3, talk about equality...) the men share a 26.5M prize money among 128 entrants. Players earn $54K for qualifying (i.e. playing in the main draw and losing in the first round). While that may still seem like a lot of money for losing, between having to pay their coaches, travel, accommodations, etc... a first round exit is definitely not a pay day.

And these numbers have gone up significantly!

Only 8 years ago, at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships, the victor received 1M pounds (about $1.3M USD, however at the time it may have been closer to 1.5M USD). A first round loss paid only 11250 pounds. At that time, a first round loss likely meant the tournament lost you money. And tennis has been around for over a century and it's only seeing the increase in the last 8 years or so. League of Legends has only been around for 8 years.

Onwards to the rest of your discussion: Most professional athletes make far more off the field than on the field. Federer is paid far more for his endorsements. For example, he recently signed a $300M contract with Uniqlo over 10 years - with a clause that will pay him for the full duration even if he stops playing tennis!

Likewise, most successful video game players make their money from their streams, not from prize money. Some may get sponsored. Beyond that though, in video games being "the best" does not necessarily equate to "highest paid" like it does in sports. Streamers earn money for their personality, for making the game fun. Faker probably isn't that interactive or good of a streamer. If you want to compare a streamer to Federer, you'd have to go to someone like Pewdiepie. Pewdiepie earned $12M USD in 2015, and one can only imagine that number has gone up since (unless he's slowed down his content, I don't follow him so IDK). Let's compare that back to tennis. Djokovic, the #1 player this year, earned a total of $15.9M USD in prize money this year. A pretty comparable amount to Pewdiepie's $12M in 2015 (and remember tennis' increase lately, the top player in 2015 probably made nowhere close to 15M). Of course I ignored Djokovic's endorsements here, but I'm sure you get the point.

At the end of the day, a league streamer has a very small audience. Even if league is the most popular game in the world (is it still?), your viewing audience is notably less than your playerbase. Most people that watch League probably only follow a handful of games. So a league streamer has a very small population to draw money from. In contrast, lots of people will watch the NBA Finals, The Superbowl, Wimbledon and the US Open of Tennis, the Stanley Cup Finals, The World Series, etc... i.e. not only do video games have probably only 1% of the viewers to start with, the games cannibalize viewers from each other while professional sports can share viewers.

So - no, professional League players are not underpaid. Not at all.

Zero ShingetsuNov 30, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Wow are your stats ever off. Holy crap.

First, a quick google of "Minimum NFL Salary" shows that the minimum is 450K, not 750K as you claim in your post.

Oh right, they did that big union thing... I wanna say a lot of the minimum salary from years back has been shifted to health benefits and such. Thanks for the reminder, I'll admit I was technically off base there. It's still more than the best League players make in a year, though.

Second - that's NOT for players that will never step foot on the field. THOSE players, known as "Practice Squad Players" can have their salary found on the second result of the same search: $7600 per week. And I can only assume that they only get paid for 16 weeks, so that works out to $121.6K per season.

You're off the mark here. When I said "never step foot on the field", I meant the playing field, not the ground of the stadium. I'm aware of the practice squad concept, and practice squad players aren't actually on the team's active roster. They're retained to help the active 52-man roster stay sharp by simulating opponents' plays and such in practices. They're basically nobodies (no offense to practice squad players...) I'm talking about bench players who actually dress for games, but will almost certainly never actually play unless something catastrophic happens like four linemen getting hurt in one game.

Third: the top 3 NFL salaries right now? Jimmy Garoppolo, San Francisco 49ers. 2018 Cap Hit: $37 Million. Matthew Stafford, Detroit Lions. 2018 Cap Hit: $26.5 Million. Derek Carr, Oakland Raiders. 2018 Cap Hit: $25.0 Million.

Sure, those are all between 8M and 50M as you claim, but you're implying 50M is possible. The top player makes 37M, and then 2nd and 3rd are only at HALF of your maximum...

With all due respect, there is absolutely no way Jimmy Garoppolo and Derek Carr are two of the highest paid players in the league. You're going by cap hit, which is calculated using a variety of factors and isn't the actual value the player is being paid. This is how much the player's contract is affecting the team's salary cap, which is a completely different thing the NFL uses in an effort to keep its competition somewhat level. It incorporates the overall value of the contract for the years remaining, as well as extra things like signing bonuses, workout bonuses, and performance incentives, none of which are guaranteed (well, signing bonuses might be). Those are probably the highest cap hits right now because they were the most recent high-value signings.

Then tennis... oh tennis. Holy crap. I didn't know a thing about the NFL before writing this post and yet I knew you were full of it by how far off you were on tennis. A tennis player does not make anywhere close to 50M for winning the US Open. Where in the world are you getting that figure from? Roger Federer, the winningest player of all time, has career lifetime earnings of $120M. That's with 99 tournament victories, including 20 slam victories. Djokovic, the highest prize-money earner (due to recent tournaments paying DRASTICALLY more than prior years) has lifetime earnings of $125M with 72 tournament victories including 14 slams.

The most recent slam, the 2018 US Open, paid a grand prize of $3.8M. Your $50M figure? Well, that's pretty much the total prize money ($53M) paid by the US Open to ALL Competitors, INCLUDING THE WOMEN. And with equal prizes (somehow... when the men have to play 5 sets and the women only 3, talk about equality...) the men share a 26.5M prize money among 128 entrants. Players earn $54K for qualifying (i.e. playing in the main draw and losing in the first round). While that may still seem like a lot of money for losing, between having to pay their coaches, travel, accommodations, etc... a first round exit is definitely not a pay day.

Could've been wrong there, I Googled that one. Not a big tennis guy.

At the end of the day, a league streamer has a very small audience.

So they're... most likely overpaid. Noted! That's been my general opinion too, I was merely trying to approach the topic from the opposite perspective in hopes I could glean some new wisdom through inverse discourse.

HethaleanNov 29, 20182 votes

It's almost as if there isn't as much money in ESports atm as there is in gigantic sports like NFL and wrestling.

Zero ShingetsuNov 29, 20181 votes

{quoted}

It's almost as if there isn't as much money in ESports atm as there is in gigantic sports like NFL and wrestling.

It's almost as if my point is legitimate!

HethaleanNov 30, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Zero Shingetsu,realm=NA,application-id=9hBQwnEU,discussion-id=i0o5jjI3,comment-id=00070000,timestamp=2018-11-29T23:55:59.107+0000)

It's almost as if my point is legitimate!

Have you really compared salaries of the comparative sports to the total monetary incomes / transactions between the sports?

For instance, if faker made $500k over 3 years, but the total income of all LoL esports was 600k as the entirety... that wouldn't be a bad deal for Faker... or are you just doing the standard thing these days of outrage addicts and seeing two numbers... one is bigger than the other. INEQUALITY!!!! without even looking at anything

Zero ShingetsuNov 30, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Have you really compared salaries of the comparative sports to the total monetary incomes / transactions between the sports?

For instance, if faker made $500k over 3 years, but the total income of all LoL esports was 600k as the entirety... that wouldn't be a bad deal for Faker... or are you just doing the standard thing these days of outrage addicts and seeing two numbers... one is bigger than the other. INEQUALITY!!!! without even looking at anything

The nuance may've gone over your head, so I'll lay it out straight:

I'm saying esports don't qualify as a sport at all. They require no athletics, and when compared to other professional sports there is almost no money in them. Esports revenues were roughly $700 million last year. That's total earnings across all esports. League. DOTA. Overwatch. HotS. Fortnite (ugh, they broke Fortnite...). Everything. The whole shebang.

America's Fox network made $500 million themselves just for broadcasting the Super Bowl in the same year. One game. This is what a network got in ad revenue to simply host the game. That's to say zero of ticket sales, bowl week revenue for the hosting city, paraphernalia sales, etc. Just the ad revenue of one network hosting one big NFL game nearly made as much as the value of the entire esports economy to date in the same year.

There's pretty much no comparison. No one game will ever last long enough for esports to stand toe to toe with the actual sports of the world. In other words, it's a tournament game. And that's fine. Problem: The League economy is blowing $5,000,000 and counting per year on prize money for worlds. Compare this to Tekken, the godfather of tournament games, providing at MOST $100,000 for its prize pool this year.

The point I'm trying to make is that League is not a sport and people need to realize it, because it's ruining the game. When you make something a profession, all the fun gets siphoned out of it. When you force players to play a game balanced around professional rules, you start punishing them for enjoying themselves. Going back to football, it's like if pickup games suddenly had referees, a full set of rules, and regulations on how you lined up, how many men you could field, how you could put them in motion, etc. Pickup games are fun because they don't have any of that.

Likewise, League was fun when people were trying crazy things. 5 ADCs. 3 tanks. LeBlanc support. Only Black Cleaver. You never knew what you'd be up against, and if things went poorly, well, at least you had fun. Not anymore. Riot enforces roles on their champions. Item builds have gone from "every role needs these" to "this is what you build on this champion, in this order, no exceptions". Rune pages have been replaced by role-cementing choices that go so far as enforcing Flash by having an ENTIRE KEYSTONE RUNE dedicated to the use of Flash.

Worst of all, players punish eachother for not living up to standards. Ranked is unplayable. It's not like Tekken where you can just casually climb the ranks from your couch and see how you fare among everyone else in the world. If you play ranked, you're in there with a bunch of hot shots who want to be pros, and if you don't live up to their expectations, heaven help you the storm is coming.

Faker is overpaid. Bjergsen is overpaid. Worlds tickets are overpriced. League is a tournament game and it needs to start acting like one, or it's going to lose the player support that currently props up its pipe dreams of being a legitimate sport, and then it'll be one less game for actual gamers to enjoy.

HethaleanNov 30, 20181 votes

SO my nuance probably went over your head. LoL being a sport was only one facet of your statements. I was only speaking to

[{quoted}](name=Zero Shingetsu,realm=NA,application-id=9hBQwnEU,discussion-id=i0o5jjI3,comment-id=,timestamp=2018-11-29T23:01:37.673+0000)

This leads me to wonder... Is the LCS showing us a legitimate sport, or just a high-profile tournament game? If gaming is a sport, why are the best pros making so little?

Because how much you're paid in a sport has little to do with how 'athletic' your sport is, and way more with how popular your sport is

For instance, the median salary of WNBA is about $80,000. So whether or not you think it is a sport, salaries aren't tied to the athletics or 'sportiness' of it. Also, Olympians aren't even paid. The US also pays out very very little in comparison to a 'salary' when you win gold even.

You're looking through such a narrow lense. You're comparing a burgeoning competition with a nearly 100 year old organization and one of the most popular (and far more watched sport). NFL did not even form until 1920. The early days of professional football seems to have started in the late 1800s. So was it not a sport then since it wasn't controlled by a league of some sort?

Your analysis of whether or not it's a sport is not tied to incomes or whether or not it'll ACTUALLY be a sport. If you don't like it, do what you suggest will happen. Make league lose one more player.

Zero ShingetsuNov 30, 20181 votes

I mentioned athletics because there's no fallback that way. Some people might just retort with "well who cares if they don't make a lot of money, it's still a sport because it's competitive and it takes a lot of skill!" but no, there are no athletics involved either.

Olympians aren't paid because the Olympics aren't a professional sports league. The Olympics are an international competition in which athletes compete to bring glory to their nation. Some Olympic events have crossovers with sports, but the Olympics themselves aren't "a sport".

Was football a sport before the NFL? Yes. Collegiate football in the US was a huge deal since long before the NFL, and there was a game that existed that fit the definition of "sport", which Dictionary.com defines as...

an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.

a particular form of this, especially in the out of doors.
sports, ( used with a singular verb ) such athletic activities collectively:

I disagree that golf is a sport, mind. Golf is another thing that unfairly receives classification as "athletics" even in this definition, but it grosses enough under the blanket of sports that it begrudgingly counts. Esports do not.

What I'm suggesting isn't so much that incomes determine whether or not something is a sport, but that incomes are byproducts of professional sports. Every professional sport that originated in America has a few interesting common denominators:

It's carried by major television and radio networks. (!)
The teams are clearly defined and tied to specific cities, who sponsor the team to a degree.
The players have a union that ensures their fair treatment. (!)
The players have complicated contracts with a variety of bonuses and stipulations. (!)
You can place a bet on it via Las Vegas oddsmakers. (!)
The players are drawn primarily from collegiate teams through an official draft.
The players generally played the sport in high school before going to college.

There isn't a single sport that started in America that doesn't have these in common. It's not an exhaustive list, of course, but these are the "interesting" ones; the ones that make my point valid. The ones I marked with (!) are all either derived from or feed into money. Money for the teams, money for the owners, money for the players, money for the coaches.

Did the NFL start with all these? No. But the NFL was founded in 1920, long before these were the norm. It's 2018. Sports have been around for a long time, and a precedent has been set by leagues like the NFL and NBA. You also seem to be assuming it took time to get there, and yeah, it did. Founded in 1920, the first player to legitimize the League with a six-figure contract was Red Grange, signing with the Chicago Bears under a contract that amounted to $100,000 over the course of 19 games. Guess when this happened? 1925. Five years after the NFL's inaugural season.

"But $100,000 is nothing compared to what even the worst League pro makes." In 1925, the average pay grade was $0.27 per hour for a 12-hour work day in America. You could buy a brand new Model T Ford for $290 in 1925. The average house would cost you $6,000 in that same year. The average NFL player in that year was making $100 for the same amount of games Grange played.

Red Grange was the man who reformed the NFL and ushered in the era of big-time contracts and sports agents, and it all happened only five years after the sport was founded.

When the UFC became official, it provided a lot of this as soon as it was able. No, it wasn't paying out $350,000 in prize purses from day one, but Zuffa bought it in 2001 and this is the UFC we know today. (Before then it was pretty much underground bloodsport for four years.) By 2005, it was already paying Randy Couture in the realm of $250,000 per fight, and this wasn't even championships. Chuck Liddell around the same time was reporting figures in the low millions from endorsement deals, fight purses, and pressers. He was paid $2 million - twice what a League champion made for wining Worlds - simply to endorse the movie "300".

All this only took the UFC four years. League has been around longer than this and look where we are.

I know people keep saying "Give it time, the NFL wasn't built in a day", but it happened much faster than you might think. League is past that curve already. Well past. And here's the most important point for esports as a whole: Online games don't last all that long. World of Warcraft is an oddity. Gamers are always looking for the next shiny new thing. The only reason games like Tekken and Street Fighter remain relevant competitively is they keep releasing new versions with new technology that keep people interested.

The NFL, the NBA, the UFC, any sports league... It has time to grow into its acclaim. The game stays more or less the same at its core. People learn it, they pass the knowledge and love of their city's team to their children, who pass it to their children, and so on. Esports will never have this, because video games don't last long enough. Fans will keep having to find new teams to root for, new games to learn the rules of, and nothing will be there to pass on to their children. Best to just enjoy the game while it's here, rather than waiting for some dream status that's not coming, I say.

MrFawknSunshineNov 29, 20181 votes

well with the changes to be a pro team in the LCS now contracts and pay for player will increase. they are now running it similar to the NFL/NBA style of all the teams being partners in LEAGUE/RIOT by being Franchises and there will be revenue sharing that will trickle to the teams and players for teams as the revenue goes up over all for the pro scene.

MrFawknSunshineNov 30, 20181 votes

The average starting North America League of Legends Championship Series (NA LCS) player salary is now over $320,000, with over 70% of the players performing on multi-year contracts.May 2, 2018 https://www.forbes.com/sites/darrenheitner/2018/05/02/a-look-inside-riot-games-from-320000-player-salaries-to-using-esports-as-a-catalyst-for-sales/#743f1a572c6a

Zero ShingetsuNov 30, 20181 votes

{quoted}

The average starting North America League of Legends Championship Series (NA LCS) player salary is now over $320,000, with over 70% of the players performing on multi-year contracts.May 2, 2018 https://www.forbes.com/sites/darrenheitner/2018/05/02/a-look-inside-riot-games-from-320000-player-salaries-to-using-esports-as-a-catalyst-for-sales/#743f1a572c6a

So that explains why Riot's dev team talent is slipping of late, I guess.

zPityNov 30, 20181 votes

Did Faker release his total earnings from endorsements and stream? Unlike the NFL, a "pro league" player can generate revenue playing the same game in different venues. Curious to how much he makes streaming vs how much he makes as a rostered player.

Zero ShingetsuNov 30, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Did Faker release his total earnings from endorsements and stream? Unlike the NFL, a "pro league" player can generate revenue playing the same game in different venues. Curious to how much he makes streaming vs how much he makes as a rostered player.

That is an interesting question, though I doubt his stream revenue amounts to an equivalent NFL superstar's side money. It's probably still not as much as a popular athlete should be making.