[LCK Story] Will the new league model be able to satisfy what the LCK seeks for?
League of Legends(LoL), designed by the Riot Games, has prevailed the global computer game industry since the mid-2010s, surpassing prominent competitors like Starcraft2, Overwatch, and Battleground. The 2019 League of Legends World Championship attracted more than a million crowd to Paris, and more than 40 million online audience across the world watched the final match – which was 10 times higher than the 2019 NBA finals. In the ongoing ‘untact’ era due to the corona virus, it has made the most of its advantage as the virtual sports that people could enjoy without actual presence in the stadium.
The Riot Games is currently running four major leagues in North America, Europe, Korea, and China along with seven smaller leagues in other regions. League of Legends Championship Korea (LCK) was considered to be the NBA among them since Korean teams had won seven straight world championship titles since 2011. Korean professional gamers have been well-known for their talents and strenuous effort since Starcraft released in 1998, leading to retain their title as the top gamers for more than a decade. However, two months after the defending champion Germany was knocked out of the 2018 World Cup at the group stage, the world once again was shocked by the scene in which none of Korean teams were invited to the LoL World Championship final games. In the following year, Korea was stripped of its privilege to be exempted from the group stage in the World Championship due to poor results in international matches. China took over the position of Korea and solidified it by winning the championships during the last two seasons. While Europe continued to intimate the current champion, it seemed apparent that Korea was no longer threat to other regions. The LCK felt keenly the necessity of fundamental transformation in the league to reclaim its status as the undisputed champion. The Riot Games Korean Branch declared the launch of the franchise-market system in 2021 to promote larger amount of investment and stabilize the league operation. As the current promotion and relegation system impeded teams from long-term and aggressive investment, the league expects them to have more organized system and provide better environment for players.
The LCK is the only major league that maintains the promotion and relegation system, which consists of division 1 and 2. The LCK precisely refers to the first division only, and the second one called League of Legends Challengers Korea is the stage for minor teams. This system resembles many soccer leagues, such as England Premier League, in which the worst two from the division 1 have to compete against the best two from the division 2 after the season to remain in the league. The LCK teams fight hard until the end of the season in order not to be relegated, while Challengers teams vigilantly await an opportunity to be promoted. Other leagues without promotion matches sometimes get bored when the gap between high-rank and low-rank teams was so huge that the latter lose will to play at the end of season. The LCK never gets bored since low-rank teams try their best to avoid being placed in the lowest and sometimes defeat top-teams, complicating the playoffs as well. The promoted teams bring freshness into the league with unique styles of plays and new star players. Griffin and Damwon Gaming, who were promoted in 2018 summer, are exemplary cases that not only introduced dynamic and aggressive plays to the league but performed exceptional skills, becoming the representatives of the LCK in 2019 World Championship. However, the fear of possibility to being relegated has constantly hindered managers to invest huge amount of money into the team. If the team got relegated despite of large investment, the profit would be hardly expected to come in the division 2 - the worst scenario for investors. Small investment has restricted team management in many areas from scouting top players to improving facilities. The promotion and relegation system has clear disadvantage to follow the rapid growth of gaming industry. Although the positive aspects of the current system added uniqueness to the LCK, the last two years have shown that it made LCK fall behind other leagues which evolve swiftly by the help of immense investment.
The other major leagues are running the franchise market system, which the LCK is planning to adopt. This system aims to transform mere gaming teams into powerful sports clubs like Barcelona and New York Yankees so that they become self-reliant and gain economic independence. The Riot Games announced criteria for participation in the franchise system to the current Korean teams, regardless of divisions: $8.2 million registration fee, secure source of income, an academy (reserved team), and a long-term plan for team management, etc. The new league is anticipated to contain around 10 teams, the same size with the current LCK. China(LPL) and Europe(LCS) in which the franchise system successfully settled down are trailers telling how the LCK would be different. First, the significant increase in investment would allow teams to attract top players in the world. Both Chinese teams winning the World Championship in 2018 and 2019 have two Korean players in key positions. More than twenty Korean players are currently exported to other regions and are producing meaningful results. Not only players, but coaches and instructors are also scouted to many foreign teams. The LCK teams are expected to have funding power comparable to LPL and LCS teams to reclaim exceptional Koreans of the native country. Secondly, as the Riot Games would oblige every team to operate reserved teams called academy and plan to run a separate league for academies, the league will maintain one of strengths of the previous system that new faces constantly show up. TES, the previous champion of the LPL in the spring season, is comprised of only young players who have less than two years of experience in official games. In LCS, the strong teams are constantly challenged by the teams containing fresh players. Furthermore, the minimum wage for young players will increase three times to $50,000 compared with $17,000 in 2020. Considering the current situation that many exported players left the youth teams of the LCK due to playing time and salary, talented young players would remain in Korea if the high wage and opportunity to play in official games are guaranteed. Finally, teams can offer improved environment and welfare for players. Most of Korean e-sports teams do not have an independent building for players to practice, reside, and dine. They borrow several rooms from different places, and players have to move from one to another. If a team is incapable of retaining own transportation, players sometimes take public transportations. The larger amount of income flows in, the better conditions players would relish. In addition, to preserve the competitiveness of the promotion and relegation system, the LPL has set penalties for lowest rank teams so that low-rank teams continue to pursue wins until the season ends. Following the steps of predecessors, the LCK also looks forward to acquire positive changes than negatives under the new system.
The public and teams seem welcoming the upcoming changes so far. The fans worried about the tremendous registration fee (Korean baseball teams pay only one third of the amount that the Riot Games suggested) at the beginning, so they feared their supporting teams vanish from the league. Around a month later, anxious fans got relieved by the news that all of the current LCK teams gained major companies like SKT, Hanwha, and Gen.G which promised generous investment. The participation of tycoons in the gaming league signals that the economy now sees the gaming business as prospective industry, worthy of large investment. The negative opinions at first mostly turned into positive ones as people got convinced that the growth of the LoL market would benefit themselves as well with higher quality of games. They also hope to see foreign players in the LCK, which remains the only league without imports. The LCK teams are unable to afford translators or other supports for foreign players as they believe Korean young players are less costly, so investing additional fees to them is more reasonable than doing it to foreigners. But, under the new system with solid income, importing exceptional players are worthwhile investment to improve the team in short time. In this perspective, Joe Marsh, the general manager of T1, argued that the franchise system would bring fundamental changes to the entire league as well as teams. The team will no longer represent the players and coaches only but include managers, assistants, analysts, and personal coaches, wearing the structure of ordinary companies. Coaches are currently doing most of jobs of team management, which will be distributed to the hands of many experts. Joe Marsh earning the contracts with BMW and Nike shows that LCK teams have potential to become another Yankees or FC Barcelona. The success of the new system is not fully guaranteed, but the growing number of LoL audience and gamers in the world foretells promising prospect of the transformed league.