2018 Academy League Spring Split

Riot·Dec 19, 2017·2 votes·28,970 views

TL;DR:

The Academy League broadcast begins on Friday, January 19. Due to some changes we are making to broadcast times, we will be announcing what time the first game begins in January.
Games happen on Thursdays and Fridays. Thursday’s games will be played off-air, while Friday’s games will be broadcasted.
Spring Split is a double round robin Bo1, taking place over 9 weeks, similar to the NA LCS.
The top four teams will advance to Bo5 Playoffs, taking place over two weeks. All of the Playoffs will be broadcast live from the NA LCS Studio.

When we announced our plans for 2018, we shared our vision for rebooting the NA Challenger Series with the Academy League. Before the holidays, we wanted to share a quick update on what’s happening, including format, dates, and when you can expect additional details.

Format

Regular Season

Initially we were exploring doing just a single Bo1, broadcasting Friday, but the feedback from teams was that they wanted to get as many games as possible into the regular season (particularly given the Academy League’s developmental nature) even at the cost of exposure or time on broadcast. As such, we’ve decided to adopt the same format shift as the NA LCS, going to a Bo1 double round robin that plays over Thursday and Friday, but with only broadcast support for Friday.

The regular season of the Academy League will take place over 9 weeks. Thursday’s games will be played off-air, and Friday’s games will be broadcasted. The first week of Academy League Spring Split will take place on Thursday, January 18 (off-broadcast), with the first broadcast beginning Friday, January 19.

Playoffs

After the regular season, the top 4 teams will advance to the playoffs, which will be broadcasted live and on stage at the NA LCS Studio. Playoffs will be Bo5, with Semifinals on March 22-23 and Finals on March 30.

What’s coming next?

We wanted to share the Academy League format and Spring Split schedule before the holidays, and we’ll share more information in January including broadcast details, start time, match schedule, rosters, and VOD availability.

We’re excited about the upcoming launch the Academy League to develop and support the future stars of the NA LCS.

Derek “RiotIceChest” Dennis manages programs focused on amateur or upcoming talent including the Academy League and Scouting Grounds. When he’s not watching League of Legends (he always has a stream on), he’s watching football and soccer. Reach out to him on Twitter via @RiotIceChest.

20 Comments

Nate GGDec 20, 20178 votes

I think everyone is missing the point of this league. The main goal of the Academy League is to foster new and upcoming talent that the orgs could look to move into their main NALCS rosters in the future. Yes, the removal of promotion and relegation will mean there will be less reason to watch these games for fans but that's alright because it was necessary to stabilize the scene and allow for overall growth. Academy league is for the Orgs involved and not so much for the fans. Think of it like Minor League Baseball. Some people watch it for fun or whatever but few people really get passionate about these teams because the leagues goal is to find outstanding players to move to the MLB. I definitely expect to see a decline in high price imports playing in Academy like we have seen before, and over the next few years, expect to see a lot more new players coming from NA challenger. As for Romain's point, I also expect newer teams like Optic for example to take the route of using as little money as possible for their Academy teams, mostly because they are going to be focusing more on upgrading their main LCS roster first. We are most likely to see teams like TSM, CLG, C9 and Liquid fielding the best Academy rosters for the first few years since the other teams will be looking to upgrade their main LCS rosters before looking to grow talent over the long term.

TheNovaProspectDec 20, 20174 votes

Are we able to come to the studio and watch these games during the regular Season?

TheeBullDec 19, 20173 votes

I'm the first comment!!!! Whats my prize???

LuxannaVeritasDec 20, 20173 votes

Out of curiosity, since now there's no such thing as relegation, what are these Academy teams playing for? Is it just for satisfaction, or is there some risk/reward to this League?

Ale non è maleDec 20, 20173 votes

{quoted}

Out of curiosity, since now there's no such thing as relegation, what are these Academy teams playing for? Is it just for satisfaction, or is there some risk/reward to this League?

They are playing because Riot is forcing NA LCS franchises to create and pay these academy teams to foster new talent for the future of LCS, given that a franchised league effectively kill the purpose of every other minor league, since it make no sense for e-sports org and external investors to put money in LOL scene when they have no chance to play in the major league (and NA third party scene was yet basically inexistent, by the way), nor to get any return back (either directly or through advertising for other e-sports) when no one cares about an irrelevant league

Given the previous state of NA resident avilable player pool and competitive underwood, with a CS that was filled with imports and veterans with close to non chance for rookies to grow and develop, this is a positive development to expand NA resident player pool

P.S. And that's why it make no sense to have franchising in EULCS and did not make sense to eliminate EUCS this season rather than strengthen it, snce the situation in third party scene is vastly different

SnowplosionDec 22, 20172 votes

It's basically the AHL.

SciFi ScrivenerJan 5, 20183 votes

Money. The players that do the best will have a good chance to find themselves signing LCS contracts next split/season. Also, I'm sure there will be placement prizes for where the teams finish. Not to mention, this is a good way to get fan support for franchises and up-and-coming players.

Don't look at the academy teams as separate teams from the LCS, in stead recognize they are extensions of the LCS teams. As a TB Lightning fan in the NHL I'm always interested in how the Syracuse Crunch are doing. Many of today's Lightning stars were Crunch players last year. The same will happen with the Academy/LCS relationship.

LuxannaVeritasJan 5, 20181 votes

OK, thanks for the information!

AriCeiDec 20, 20172 votes

Pretty pointless for fans, but might be good for the teams? Might also just be another cut into their profits and a headache though. That would more be the riot special, so colour me pessimistic 😂

SciFi ScrivenerDec 20, 20172 votes

Looking forward to seeing the new talent that is found in the Academy league. I hope the Thursday games are able to be streamed VOD. Commentators are not necessary.

KAID0Dec 20, 20171 votes

Is the academy series like the challenger series where a tournament is played to see which team can get in or is it like the na lcs where are the teams are final (hopefully not because there has to be a at least one tournament where you and friends can get in by skill).

GeminiRuneDec 20, 20173 votes

It's more like a full scale secondary and developmental league that plays alongside the primary league. No promotions or relegations. Not much real reward to those teams other than a noteworthy recognition for their brand - especially if it were like Optic's teams as an example topping both leagues. It really does dismiss the players and teams on the outside looking in honestly. But that's the price to pay for the system unfortunately.

Ale non è maleDec 20, 20172 votes

{quoted}

Not much real reward to those teams other than a noteworthy recognition for their brand

Nope, Academy teams are going to be completely irrelevant for brand recognizition. There is no true reward at all for the teams (the tiny prize pool is not going to cover costs of running an Academy Team), except being able to put their hands first on some new talent and have the possibility to develop in first person There is a reason why Romain (since you mentioned OpTic) when asked about Academy Teams, said in an interview a pair of weeks ago that is not worthy to invest right now in having "strong" academy teams, but that this is rather a chance to start very cheap with a bunch of unknown player and see them develop ( https://youtu.be/n2UvH-Owd3E?t=12m3s the enitre interview is very interesting, and I reccomend you watch/listen all of it, but he talks about specifically off-season process in NALCS as manager and academy teams in those 3 minutes until about 15m mark)

GeminiRuneDec 20, 20171 votes

Well you got me there. And with that I give off a somewhat disgruntled groan. A foster pool is fine and all but does kind of reduce the amount of thrill for competition if not every team will take the Academy League seriously. Then again it's NA we're talking. Among the major regions it has potentially the worst Challenger division. It drifts itself away from the norm but doesn't become the LDL in the process...but like it ever could anyway.

Ale non è maleDec 20, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Well you got me there. And with that I give off a somewhat disgruntled groan. A foster pool is fine and all but does kind of reduce the amount of thrill for competition if not every team will take the Academy League seriously. Then again it's NA we're talking. Among the major regions it has potentially the worst Challenger division. It drifts itself away from the norm but doesn't become the LDL in the process...but like it ever could anyway.

That is NOT what Romain is saying, though He is not saying that teams aren't going to take Academy Teams seriously, he is saying that it is not worth to spend a lot of money for known veteran players on Acadamy Teams. Academy League is a self centered league which goal is developing players. It does not give any direct benefit whatsoever to the teams, since it does not provide meaningful money nor give advantages in term of brand recognizions since obviously everyone will focus on NA LCS and no one cared before on NA CS (as comparison, who cares about G-League in NBA or the smaller american football leagues?). In the last splits of NA CS, you had top teams packed with high caliber imports like SELFIE, Freeze, FLY, Madlife, Santorin, DanDy, GBM, Gillius, Fox, FeniX in addition to a lot of long standing NA veterans. According to his reasoning (but he speaks for himself and OpTic, maybe others teams are going to act differently), you are going to see a lower amount of these kind of high caliber player in the secondary leagues and more rookies and players in search of new development from different kind of coaching. Why you should import some expensive veteran like let's say Madlife to play in an irrelevant league, since he is declining and has no upside? If you deemed you could use it for LCS, you would sign him for the LCS roster, otherwise you would not sign him at all (unless he accept to take a hugely decreased salary, and at tthat point he is probably the one which refuse) This is going to be good to foster NA talent, just expect the level to be lower at first since teams would not be focused on winning and are going to give space to raw and not ready players, with no rush to replace them if they not perform and with the possibility of failure for some of them and have in this league for some time bad players that won't develop in good ones.

Some teams are going to field competitive rosters on paper (C) and TSM academies are good), others will go for unknown players

zesty burrito261Jan 2, 20181 votes

Well, the tournament to get in by skill would be scouting grounds, where they take the top 4 challenger players in each role and put them on teams and at the end 10 of them are drafted for a potential contract based on how much the impressed to org owners.

SciFi ScrivenerJan 5, 20181 votes

Except scouting grounds doesn't show the franchises how well a player performs as part of a team. Only through the grind of a split or season do you see how well a player works with a team, or emerges as a leader. Academy will bring out the real team players and leaders so franchises can see how best they fit in to their needs.

HBLGFJan 7, 20181 votes

Waiting for Levi's performance in 100 Thieves Academy:3

KajoKejiJan 13, 20181 votes

I am trying to understand better. The Academy League will be one of two primary tools for NALCS teams to acquire talent. The Academy League pulls from universities while the Scouting ground pulls from the rest of NALCS players. So if you are a fan who would like to improve and one day play for NALCS your only options are through one of the two feeder systems; is that correct? If I am correct, this seems to make it rather hard for a person outside of the college system to get in. They miss the advantage of playing on a team they know, and might not perform well with the random group of people they are paired with for scouting grounds. This does seem like a good step for the university system, though it seems to me the number of teams competing could be expanded. This based on all the college and university teams that are out there. This system, while a stabilizing effect for riot, seems to miss out on a lot of potential talent in the player base. It is also a disincentive for players who are not young or in the right college programs. That is my opinion.

GangerHrolfJan 23, 20181 votes

This league is exactly like the minor leagues for other sports. No promotion, but player development is important. We all saw how as soon as franchising happened, big time owners and sponsors joined the league, so although I was initially sad I'm now fully ok with the switch. I do however find it funny that "the feedback from teams was that they wanted to get as many games as possible into the regular season (particularly given the Academy League’s developmental nature) even at the cost of exposure or time on broadcast." Aka: no one wanted best of one.