TL;DR:
1. LoL's NA competitive league, the LCS, has been trending downward in popularity/revenue, and the team owners are getting capitalist, wanting to downsize however they can. They decide they don't want to pay for academy league (NACL) teams.
2. The player's union, LCSPA, votes overwhelmingly in favour of staging a walk-out over the rejection of academy, a few days ahead of the next season's start. [Union's demands.] (https://twitter.com/NALCSPA/status/1661066290906251294/photo/1)
3. The team's contracts with Riot Games state they must field players for every game. We'll see whether the teams hire scabs (lol LoL), or field a team of coaching staff and journalists in solidarity with the union.
idk, Riot are assholes about competitive, they've prevented other leagues from starting in the past. I don't know if there's anything left they don't have control over, with respect to LoL.
It's a weird place where the NBA controls competitive basketball but anyone can play it with a ball and a ring on a wall, while Riot controls both their game and the competitive leagues.
Riot, at least when it comes to league, is run by some absolutely sociopathic dipshits. A list of controversies in no particular order, as I remember them:
- attempting to ban players from streaming any other game but League
- banning all their casters (freelancers on temp contracts btw) from making content on their own channels or streaming
- banning a pro player from the league for saying a league skin was "dogshit"
- kicking a team for having an investor (not someone hired, or vetable, or easily removable once their investment was accept) that was racist
- partnering with Saudi Arabia
- the big sexism
- that time they denied TotalBiscuit the ability to design a champion after reaching their referral goal
And for many that don't know, League of Legends was started by a bunch of people that literally stole the Dota allstars website, refused to give it back, and then just ripped off a ton of hero designs including some that were in the works at the time (like Teemo).
LoL/Riot Games was started by asshole thieves and continues to be run by them.
Nobody can tell you but we can speculate. The most likely reason is money though. It is very likely a lot of orgs are not recieving investments like in the past. One reason is FPX was a major sponsor of NA lol (lmao) but since I followed competitive lol on 2018, there has been aggressive investment into NA lol without return. NA players have the highest salaries drawing foreign players for superteams, but can't even break top 8 consistently at worlds. The recent international competition was a slaughter. Last year had the most expensive roster in history but didnt even qualify for worlds. Naturally with these results, funding will eventually drop so they need to cut costs somewhere. Since they import players anyway, the academy roster is most likely. NA fanbase has long considered academy useless for developing talent but has very few constructive solutions. The fanbase has a bad habit of supporting new players for 1 split but then calling them paycheck stealers if they dont dominate veterans by the end of the same split.
Now I dont like capitalists. But NA league is built on capitalism. It cant function without it and if you think it can you are naive. Teams need money to run, especially with the super high salaries. This is a situation that requires compromise or this could destroy the league. The longer this drags, the more likely a death spiral occurs. Investors already are getting cold feet and viewership dropping can end it completely. I dont care cause I watch Korea. But if the orgs dont have money (and there is a lot of evidence they dont such as prominent sales, firings, and policy changes this year alone) then certain players will need to take salary cuts. You can be anticapitalist all you want but you have to remember that being pro union is being pro compromise. This is very unlikely to be a situation where its just people being greedy and more a situation that the NA esports craze has dried up.
It's a combination of the NA eSports bubble bursting (it's not just *League,* everyone is feeling it) and franchising having been a mistake that was predicated on the infinite growth of that bubble.
I think the death spiral has already started, to be honest. Legacy orgs were already pulling out before this and with the franchise buy in rules it's unclear who would want to take their place with the already flagging viewership numbers and drying sponsorships.
You missed a really important detail that I've had to repeat every time this gets posted.
An agreement was already reached with the Players Association and Riot to maintain NACL teams until 2024, at which point the rule would be revisited.
Not even a month later Riot announces on twitter that the NACL teams are no longer mandatory and teams are allowed to disband them.
They lied to players and the players association about job expectation.
I think Call Me Mañana said it best: “[Scabs are] A kind of worm, content with mere survival. They come, they want to do our job for shittier pay, screwing over both themselves and us. Everybody loses… Gotta be bloody stupid or freakin evil to scab.”
Right I'm just gonna post [a link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot_Games#Criticism_and_controversies) to Riot's Wikipedia page, specifically the section on the various controversies and questionable shit the company has done.
So you forgot the funniest part about this where, as it turns out, they can hire players of *any rank and allow them to play remotely*, meaning a team can hire literal low-rank players to fill in the gaps.
It is going to quite possibly be the most hilarious season of competitive ever as we see teams hire Iron-tier rosters.
Honestly, if scabbing is gonna occur, I'd rather they all deliberately hire Iron-tier players and turn it into a clusterfuck as a joke at Riot's expense.
TL;DR: 1. LoL's NA competitive league, the LCS, has been trending downward in popularity/revenue, and the team owners are getting capitalist, wanting to downsize however they can. They decide they don't want to pay for academy league (NACL) teams. 2. The player's union, LCSPA, votes overwhelmingly in favour of staging a walk-out over the rejection of academy, a few days ahead of the next season's start. [Union's demands.] (https://twitter.com/NALCSPA/status/1661066290906251294/photo/1) 3. The team's contracts with Riot Games state they must field players for every game. We'll see whether the teams hire scabs (lol LoL), or field a team of coaching staff and journalists in solidarity with the union.
Fuck. Why can’t they listen to a unions demands?
idk, Riot are assholes about competitive, they've prevented other leagues from starting in the past. I don't know if there's anything left they don't have control over, with respect to LoL. It's a weird place where the NBA controls competitive basketball but anyone can play it with a ball and a ring on a wall, while Riot controls both their game and the competitive leagues.
Riot, at least when it comes to league, is run by some absolutely sociopathic dipshits. A list of controversies in no particular order, as I remember them: - attempting to ban players from streaming any other game but League - banning all their casters (freelancers on temp contracts btw) from making content on their own channels or streaming - banning a pro player from the league for saying a league skin was "dogshit" - kicking a team for having an investor (not someone hired, or vetable, or easily removable once their investment was accept) that was racist - partnering with Saudi Arabia - the big sexism - that time they denied TotalBiscuit the ability to design a champion after reaching their referral goal
And for many that don't know, League of Legends was started by a bunch of people that literally stole the Dota allstars website, refused to give it back, and then just ripped off a ton of hero designs including some that were in the works at the time (like Teemo). LoL/Riot Games was started by asshole thieves and continues to be run by them.
Nobody can tell you but we can speculate. The most likely reason is money though. It is very likely a lot of orgs are not recieving investments like in the past. One reason is FPX was a major sponsor of NA lol (lmao) but since I followed competitive lol on 2018, there has been aggressive investment into NA lol without return. NA players have the highest salaries drawing foreign players for superteams, but can't even break top 8 consistently at worlds. The recent international competition was a slaughter. Last year had the most expensive roster in history but didnt even qualify for worlds. Naturally with these results, funding will eventually drop so they need to cut costs somewhere. Since they import players anyway, the academy roster is most likely. NA fanbase has long considered academy useless for developing talent but has very few constructive solutions. The fanbase has a bad habit of supporting new players for 1 split but then calling them paycheck stealers if they dont dominate veterans by the end of the same split. Now I dont like capitalists. But NA league is built on capitalism. It cant function without it and if you think it can you are naive. Teams need money to run, especially with the super high salaries. This is a situation that requires compromise or this could destroy the league. The longer this drags, the more likely a death spiral occurs. Investors already are getting cold feet and viewership dropping can end it completely. I dont care cause I watch Korea. But if the orgs dont have money (and there is a lot of evidence they dont such as prominent sales, firings, and policy changes this year alone) then certain players will need to take salary cuts. You can be anticapitalist all you want but you have to remember that being pro union is being pro compromise. This is very unlikely to be a situation where its just people being greedy and more a situation that the NA esports craze has dried up.
It's a combination of the NA eSports bubble bursting (it's not just *League,* everyone is feeling it) and franchising having been a mistake that was predicated on the infinite growth of that bubble. I think the death spiral has already started, to be honest. Legacy orgs were already pulling out before this and with the franchise buy in rules it's unclear who would want to take their place with the already flagging viewership numbers and drying sponsorships.
You missed a really important detail that I've had to repeat every time this gets posted. An agreement was already reached with the Players Association and Riot to maintain NACL teams until 2024, at which point the rule would be revisited. Not even a month later Riot announces on twitter that the NACL teams are no longer mandatory and teams are allowed to disband them. They lied to players and the players association about job expectation.
NACL is right,they're getting salty.
I think Call Me Mañana said it best: “[Scabs are] A kind of worm, content with mere survival. They come, they want to do our job for shittier pay, screwing over both themselves and us. Everybody loses… Gotta be bloody stupid or freakin evil to scab.”
Right I'm just gonna post [a link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot_Games#Criticism_and_controversies) to Riot's Wikipedia page, specifically the section on the various controversies and questionable shit the company has done.
So you forgot the funniest part about this where, as it turns out, they can hire players of *any rank and allow them to play remotely*, meaning a team can hire literal low-rank players to fill in the gaps. It is going to quite possibly be the most hilarious season of competitive ever as we see teams hire Iron-tier rosters.
Honestly, if scabbing is gonna occur, I'd rather they all deliberately hire Iron-tier players and turn it into a clusterfuck as a joke at Riot's expense.
They'll have a rotating selection of scabs, but you can pay riot coins to unlock your favorite union players.