In League of Legends, the salaries of professional players in the USA are expected to shrink significantly, says e-sports expert Christopher “MonteCristo” Mykles. Currently, all teams in the USA League of LoL, LCS, are facing an explosion.
The expert believes: MonteCristo said in the PowerSpike podcast on October 25:
- Currently, all LCS teams must save costs and focus on player salaries. They will tell players: Either you sign a new contract with significantly less money, or we release you and you become free agents.
- 2024 will be “wild” – a bunch of players will become free agents, but no expensive import players will come to the USA. Teams will try to recruit cheap amateurs from North America or cost-effective players from other regions.
- This would lead to the USA no longer fielding strong teams in the medium term and falling behind smaller regions in LoL – just like Team Liquid, which have now been eliminated against a team from Vietnam . This could become the new “normal”.
The German hope for e-sports in LoL:
Are there signs that this is happening? It indeed seems that the US League LCS of LoL is no longer profitable for the teams. With TSM and CLG, two major teams have already withdrawn from the LCS.
Before the start of the league, there was even a kind of player strike that quickly ended when Riot Games made it clear that the league would be canceled if there were further problems.
What MonteCristo predicts has also happened to the players of the Valorant team Evil Geniuses. They became champions, but were told: If you want to stay, it will be for significantly less money; otherwise, you have to leave.
Salaries have exploded in recent years, but revenues have shrunk
What is the reason? The salaries of players in the LCS have risen sharply in recent years, especially for imports like Huni or Perkz who were paid a lot of money. This may have triggered a general price spiral, causing even veterans like Bjergsen or Jensen to demand extremely high salaries and receive them from their teams.
At the same time, it seemed that the “pulling power” of players was more important than their actual performance in League of Legends. This was sharply criticized by the 2019 world champion Doinb: In the USA, there were “too many” old pros playing, merely because they sold tickets.
Simultaneously, however, the so-called e-sports winter has collapsed the revenue opportunities for teams: It is becoming difficult for e-sports organizations to find advertising partners, especially for teams from the second tier.
It seems increasingly difficult to make money with e-sports, while the teams’ expenses for players’ salaries are significantly rising.
Fans show little sympathy
How is this being discussed? On reddit, there is little sympathy for the US professionals. Those earning $400,000 a year to play a video game are considered overpaid, it is said. $100,000 should be enough.
It is noted that even the minimum of about $70,000 is still a lot of money when players also receive food and accommodation.
Especially when the performance is so weak and the money is being invested poorly: US teams would have preferred to spend the sponsor money on purchasing “washed-up” Europeans and Koreans rather than developing their own talents.
They speak of e-sports as a bubble that has burst.
Also on Twitter, there is little sympathy for the players. Here they talk about a healthy “reset” that has become necessary for salaries.
The e-sports winter continues and is getting colder:
