Riot Games announces a new roadmap: 'NA LCS League Evolution'

Jun 1, 2017

Special Feature on NA LCS League Evolution
1) Riot Games announces a new roadmap: 'NA LCS League Evolution'
2) Permanent Partnerships in NA LCS - What does it mean for Riot and the orgs?
3) Shared revenue - A virtuous cycle between organizations and Riot Games
4) 'NA LCS Player's Association' - How would they help the players?

On June 1st (PDT), Riot Games have announced the "NA LCS League Evolution", a new roadmap for the future of NA LCS. The announcement consisted of three main points: First, selected teams will permanent partners of NA LCS; second, both Riot and NA LCS teams will share a portion of their revenue coming from League of Legends; and third, an association for players in NA LCS will be established, eventually to be independent from Riot Games.

Permanent Partnerships in NA LCS

From 2018, teams in NA LCS will be 'permanent partners' after a selection process. The selection process will be joined by "expert third parties", and it will include financial analysis, background check of owners and examining how players will be provided with welfare and support. By the last quarter of 2017, partner teams will be announced, and those teams will represent NA LCS from the season of 2018.

To ensure that the league stays competitive even without relegation, there will be financial incentives depending on how the teams do in a split. There also will be escalating penalties for teams finishing at the bottom - going far as losing their spot on the league if end up in 9-10th place 5 times over a span of 8 splits.

Without a relegation system, Challenger series will serve a different purpose as an 'Academy League'. 'Academy League' will serve as a league where players in development from NA LCS teams can play. The league will allow all NA LCS teams to experiment with new talents and speed up their growth.

Revenue Sharing among teams and Riot Games

As the second part of the announcement, Riot Games revealed that teams will be required to share a part of their revenue earned from League of Legends.

As previously noted by Riot Games, they felt that the money earned from the LoL ecosystem would need to be shared to teams and players, which prompted them to share a portion of revenue coming from media deals and digital goods.

By the same reason, they will require the teams to share 32.5% of their league-driven revenues, including those from sponsorships and merchandise sales. Also, they specified that owners and players will still have opportunities to earn "outsized revenues".

More importantly, the announcement specified that the 'revenue pool' to be shared fairly to pros - players in NA LCS will have their minimum salary set to $75,000. Also, at least 35% of the entire revenue is to be shared to players, and they will be guaranteed the payment by contract even if the revenue pool amounts to less than signed for.

The formation of NA LCS Player’s Association

The last part of the announcement was on 'The NA LCS Player’s Association'. Later this year, Riot Games plans to establish an association of players that will allow the players to be better represented and protected in the league.

The association will be formed starting with the players electing representatives from Riot-curated list of candidates, with a possibility of rejecting everyone if necessary. When the representatives are elected, they will have July through September to fully establish themselves and meet the players.

Thus, by October, Player's Association will be fully functional and able to serve as an intermediary in negotiations and give advice to players on legal and financial matters. In future, the association is expected to eventually be financially independent from Riot and even be a fully independent union for players.

Note: Further details from Riot's official announcement have been edited after publication.