LCS team owners send Riot a letter detailing their concerns

Team owners from across the LCS have penned a letter to Riot Games detailing their concerns about the league for 2017 and a suggested list of changes.

The letter, which was obtained by Slingshot eSports, is signed by team owners from both the EU and NA LCS, including representatives from TSM, Team Dignitas, Fnatic and Cloud9.

Primary concerns from the team owners include the lack of job security, Riot’s restrictions and the abuse of the Challenger Series, although most of the issues seem to stem from both of the leagues featuring relegation. The list of issues can be seen below.

“The goal of the ongoing discussions held between the Teams and Riot were meant to solve a number of serious problems, including:

1. The lack of job security, fair compensation and longer careers for players caused by insufficient compensation and relegation;

2. The damage to the Teams’ ability to invest in LCS players caused by insufficient compensation and relegation;

3. The weakening relationship between fans and LCS caused by relegation;

4. The harm to Team sponsorships caused by relegation and LCS’ restrictions on sponsors; 

5. The effective elimination of the path to pro caused by the Teams’ need to redirect resources from LCS to Challenger as a result of insufficient compensation and relegation.

6. The financial hardship suffered by the Teams caused by insufficient compensation paid to the Teams.”

Teams have also criticised Riot’s plans for the league over the next few years, saying that their changes are not coming quick enough and are not the right changes. One key area they are unhappy with is that Riot does not plan to remove relegation in the NA LCS until at least 2018 and until 2019 for the EU LCS, and even then they have made no guarantees that they will be removing it.

The letter, which can be read in full over on Slingshot, also includes a list of suggestions from the team owners on how to improve the competition, one of which is completely eliminating relegation. They also request more compensation, to the tune of $700,00/€700,000 per year. This will supposedly allow NA teams to guarantee their players an annual salary of $100,000, and better position EU teams to deal with the heightened costs of the league being based in Berlin.

The teams that signed the letter, which seems to include all major organisations apart from Echo Fox, have given Riot until December 1st to respond and confirm that they will implement the changes.

Riot is yet to issue a response to the letter.