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Outlet of a disapointed EU fan

Walla says ez·7/9/2017, 7:02:52 PM·3 votes·911 views

First of all congrats to the Americans teams for showing up big time! Some of the games where rly clean and I am grateful to them beacuse we finally got to see some clean league, and we all love good games.

Let me say it clear before I move on with the post, I do not wanna take anything away from what NA has been able to do in last years. It looks like NA really improved as a region. Some may see this post as an outlet of a disapointed EU fan, and to a certain extent that' s true. But I am sure someone will manage to read all this engleado written post and maybe find some truth in it. I wanna point out some of the disparity that exist in the way the 2 regions are managed.

So, here we are, EU fans, finiding ourselves crying like babies.

It was to be expected tho, no surprise. I won' t try to make any excuse for the pitiful way in which EU teams sucked in the last tournament. But will make a few good points about the state of NA and EU LCS, some of those are explicative of the current (and future most likely) situation. EU has being a solid region for the past 7 years. In fact, some EU team has made it to world semis 6 times out of 7 years of competition. While KR was standing above everyone, EU could go toe to toe with anyone beside the koreans, and in many cases win vs other regions top teams. That being said things have changed recently, why is that?

  • VIEWSHARE Putting NA LCS in that time frame (9pm CEST) gives both EU an NA viewers the chance to watch NA games, while EU games (5pm CEST) can only be watched by EU viewers beacuse it morning in NA !! . Some may say "that s because NA has a bigger fanbase therefore they get the bigger view share!" mh?? Was the egg born before the chicken? See it the other way around and EU teams might find themselves with a couple more fans than, if only EU was given a little more viewshare. Giving EU part of those viewers that can only watch NA games (because EU games are played while NA ppl are at school/work) would surely benefit the incomes of EU teams, therefore KEEP THEIR OWN PLAYERS. Jokes aside ,yes that' s my next point.

  • IMPORTS Leave a side the stupid europoors memes for a second and talk seriously. There has been a big delta in the way NA reinforced their teams with imports, and the way EU teams could improve their own teams with good imports. Call me whatever but Bjerg, Jensen, Froggen and Sven where EU players before they where imported by NA teams, and that's great !! i hope they find even more happiness and succes in their new home, than what they already got! That being said some forgot they used to play in EU teams.. I mean it is kinda of funny to think about the TSM vs FNC match. 10 players, 7 Europeans. The discussion doesn' t stop with EU players getting imported in NA. Resources funneled in NA teams via views excetera also allows them to import better koreans than what EU teams can afford. Madlife is playing on a challenger team in NA, Summday Flame and Impact are playing top lane in the NA LCS, Huni and Reignover have been there and the list goes on... I once wrote in a post that maybe importing a bunch of koreans and EU players might not be the way to do for NA teams, but surely things look better now than before. I don' t wanna say EU "gets robbed" but surely there' s NOTHING that prevents this disparity between the NA and EU "quality" and to me, things shouldn' t be like this.

  • EU LCS vs NA LCS FORMAT For those of you who remember, this is the second year in a row in which NA teams play way more games that EU teams. 2016 NA played Bo3 while EU was set on that shitty Bo2 format. Now things have been equalized with the Bo3 format right? no. EU is set on a double group double round robin double shit. For those of u that didn' t notice for the second split in a row, NA LCS will be played on a total of 90 Bo3 while EU LCS is played over 60 Bo3. By the end of summer, NA LCS will end up being 60 games longer than EU LCS over the year. See it this way , basically any NA teams plays 50% more games than any EU team. This is due to the fact that with limited time, 90 games played by the 2 regions would have been a lot of games, therefore EU games are sacrificed. 90 games vs 60 games isn' t even the big problem. Top EU teams are split into 2 groups and only get to face each other ONCE during a split. 1 game between UOL and G2, one game between FNC and UOL and so on. I personally feel this is starting to hurt the EU competition. I mean, take FNC as an example, they can beat anyone in their group playing a specific stile, and face other good teams from the other group only once in the split. Are they really forced to adapt their gameplay? See it in this way for a second. With 6 to be considered the "EU top teams" (3 for each group) and 6 to be considered the "NA top teams", the 6 teams from EU will play a total of 21 games in between them if I am correct , and 54 games will be played by the NA top teams during a single split !!!!! Anyone will agree that having good teams to face each others is a good way for those same teams to improve, and to learn from defeats. This doesn' t happen as much in EU where teams are basically "stuck" facing the same teams for most of the split.

  • WHAT' S COMING? You know what' s coming. Even more money to NA. For those who missed, NA LCS will evolve in 2018, with teams basically getting perma-partners of the NA LCS, while EU will remain the same (I fear). The implication of this aren' t clear but in this video 4 well-known e-sport faces talk about the possible implications of the change in NA LCS and other stuff...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUAXKOGJuls

All things considered this move will most likely increase the resources NA teams will have access to. NA teams will have access to more resources starting next year! That' s great!! I' am happy for the team owners and players! They deserve it! But what for eu? Nothing seemingly. Try to keep" the american pride/hate for eu" aside for a second and tell me what you think. Isn' t EU being treated as a less valuable region? Couldn' t be things be different? In a sense, better for EU? Better time window in which broadcast the games, more games? Something we get in return when a player leaves our region beacuse they are offered more elsewhere? From an EU fan perspective, what the future holds for us? Are we going to see the death of EU LCS? Maybe I am being tragic but THERE IS A DISPARITY in between the 2 regions and I am not talking about the "gameplay disparity" that apparently has being created in the last years. I think that this "LCS economics gap" can be and should be closed. EU is worth being kept alive.

Let me know what you think. cheers.

12 Comments

LEBLANKKK TIME7/13/2017, 2:51:05 PM4 votes

All I read is complaining about a region getting more support than another, it breaks down like any activity stronger regions get more support, you can see this in any sport or where the big countries are dominating the Olympics, if EU wants better support than it's quite simple quit playing like shit and get better; this event was a wake up call to all you bronze EU just because you get eaiser groups at worlds every year and make it out of groups doesn't mean your better, great event to put EU in their place great to see.

III BAKURYU III 7/9/2017, 8:14:41 PM1 votes

Are EU teams getting sponsors from any European sport franchises, for example Rugby, Soccer(Football) teams like the NA teams with the NBA Bucks, Rick Fox, Shaq etc ?
NA LCS is like the Los Angeles Lakers even when the team/region sucks it still gets a big share of views, fans etc because it's popular even in defeats, look at TSM - people love TSM TSM TSM(even tho it's more of a meme at times) but overall NA is just more entertaining than EU.
The $ for imports will/should change but the "more imported players in NA" that's America at the end of the day - like I said I do agree with the whole $ issues for such imports but when I see " NA not actually NA LOL" it pisses me off considering that's how America runs/built and overall what makes America; America diversity - sorry we're not just Europeans in Europe or Asians in Asia.

The EU format f$cking sucks - PERIOD! At first when EU had the best of 2 - I personally thought it was dumb but I also thought EU would have wanted it because of the " EU loves ties" concept that I heard when it first came out. Followed up with the division with like 5 teams?( It would make sense if there was like 10 teams in each division and each team faces the opposing division teams like 2-3 times a split or so) but overall it's really boring to watch 2 teams from EU the last 4-6 splits get destroyed split in and split out - this split it's MM and NIP where the other 4 teams get 2 #freewins off them.
Hope EU eliminates the whole 2 division thing when it's not needed with only 5 teams in each division as well as eliminating the only 13 game series oppose to NA's 18. EU team say Fnatic plays week 1 day 1 and their next game/series could be week 2 day 3 how random and stupid.

  • Stay strong EU, even tho I don't like EU I still "care" and respect Europe at the end of the day !
BigBellBrute7/9/2017, 8:42:31 PM1 votes

Here's the thing I've noticed about the EU broadcast. The weekend games are often not the best games. This next week, Friday's games are great They're at 11 am and 2pm Eastern, 10 and 1 central. Note that 2/3 of U.S. citizens live in these two time zones. Saturday's games are Meh. But that's the day many are off of work. There is a rare Sunday game in EU. But we're off work then too. Why so few Sunday games.

Week 5. Both Saturday games were pretty much lopsided on paper.

Week 4. Same

Week 3 A lopsided game and one on paper less so but it wasn't two top teams.

Week 2 Two lopsided games

Week 1. Same.

Is Saturday the soccer game of the week or something they don't want to conflict with?

Our games are on 3 and 6 Eastern Sat and Sun and 6 and 9 Friday All are PM and Eastern daylight. I guess that's 15 and 18 and 18 and 21 to those on 24 hour clocks.

Nipsahoy7/9/2017, 8:54:34 PM1 votes

I wish teams were willing to invest more in NA players to be brutally honest. Obviously if you can find a good talent I don't blame a team for bringing in a superstar if you can get one but I also feel like NA probably has some really good talent that just doesn't ever get a chance to prove themselves. Look at Mike Yeung for example. A guy who was in challenger for like 4-5 years (granted he was too young for some of those years to be in the LCS) but still was passed up by many teams. The problem with LCS format before was you were in a "win now" mentality. You don't have time to bring in some experience player and coach/train/experience them up because if they suck for a couple splits then you get relegated and lose your spot so it is easier to import from somewhere else.

Look at the old C9 roster..full north american team that could compete with some of the better teams out there from different regions. Maybe not as strong as Korea or what not but still pretty decent and most of the old c9 players aren't really even considered all that amazing compared to the players we have nowadays. My point is that you don't always need a superstar player or players to be a good team and I think too many teams forget that. Hopefully the franchising system will help more players get a chance to make it in the LCS and hopefully North American talent can get some time to shine because I can't believe there aren't any good north american mid laners/top/support whatever out there.

Randomonium7/15/2017, 7:14:51 PM1 votes

Decent points but I don't think there is any correlation between view and revenue for teams. Teams right now don't get any money from views besides increased merchandise sales. The reason why NA teams are getting much stronger is NA athletes from other sports are investing MILLIONS in NA e-sports because they see value in it and they think that its a very smart investment considering how popular e-sports are becoming. You don't see the same commitment from EU athletes or sports organizations. I honestly feel like there's a lot more comradery between the NA teams and better relationships between NA sports teams and NA e-sports when compared to EU and I feel like that hurts EU a lot. I agree that EU is getting screwed because of their double round robin format and because they aren't going to a franchising model. Its up to you, as EU fans, to change popular opinions in EU because right now there is a lot of opposition to getting rid of relegation in EU LCS.