LCS, LLA and CBLOL Merger : an arranged marriage, that suits no one

For the past 13 years, the global League of Legends competitive circuit has been a vast work in progress with constant evolution. Riot Games is struggling to find a sustainable model to keep the ecosystem fully functioning... particularly in America. The publisher has been groping for a decade and announced on June 11 that it had taken the decision to merge the North American, Brazilian and LATAM regions so that they would become one - divided into two North-South conferences - starting in 2025. Between disappointment, resignation, understanding of the economic stakes and indignation, the news has left no one indifferent. But the consensus everywhere is that this decision is the result of the impasse in which the continent has inevitably found itself. To understand this, we need to go back to the origins of these three regions.

Starting with Brazil, where reactions to the announcement were the most vehement. To the point where some CBLOL fans have taken to social networks to demand that the merger be cancelled. According to Bruno "LeonButcher" Pereira, a Brazilian esport journalist and former Riot employee, the first step in the crumbling of the Brazilian league was the introduction of play-ins for the Worlds seven years ago. Before that, Brazil took part with the other Wildcard regions in a qualifying tournament to reach the group stages of the Worlds directly. Although they have never managed to get further than this Group Stage, the Brazilians have had two outstanding performances in particular, which have given the community hope for the future: paiN Gaming's victory over Flash Wolves and CLG in 2015, followed by INTZ's win over EDward Gaming in 2016.

But since 2017 and the introduction of this preliminary round for the Wildcard regions, they have been mixed in with the last seeds from the major regions. Since then, Brazil has never reached a Worlds group stage. "Brazilian fans started to get fed up because their champion wasn't on the biggest stage," remembers LeonButcher. "If they weren't playing against the best teams in the world, why would they follow them? Why would they follow a league that no longer has any international results? So Brazil really fell off, between 2017 and 2020 we suffered because of the viewership..."

From 2020 onwards, the lines began to move. And with good reason, many realised that stories created from their own region could be more interesting and engaging than what was happening abroad. The community stopped paying so much attention to the international scene and started looking at CBLOL itself. The new involvement of influencers, social networks and media coverage were all factors that helped the Brazilian league enter a new era. "Our region has risen from the ashes, and it's in no way a phenomenon that Riot has caused," says the Brazilian journalist. "It was the community alone that rebuilt everything."

While Brazil has largely picked itself up in recent years, the situation in two other regions was very different. Starting with Latin America, which has undergone a number of changes that have shaken up the ecosystem and dulled the enthusiasm of fans. Not least when the crazy wave of investment from Riot Games passed... and then came the backlash. In the early days of League of Legends esports, the LATAM region was far from lagging behind. Back in 2014, the Copa LatinoAmérica final took place at the Mexico City Arena, in front of more than 20,000 people. Caster and Riot Games employee in the region at the time, Erick "Skyshock" González remembers the adverts displayed and scattered all over his native country for the occasion: on buses, in metros, etc...

"Riot organised other huge events at the time, in Argentina, Chile and Colombia, where the publisher rented stadiums with 12,000 to 15,000 seats," he explains. "At the time, League of Legends was considered to be the leading esport in Latin America, with no-one matching its level of production and professionalism, with structures working day and night in gaming houses... At the same time, the Worlds were being broadcast live to an average of 150,000 to 200,000 Latin American spectators. Although the figures weren't quite as big for the regional league, the potential for growth and development was well and truly there for all to see."

Skyshock also explains that, at that time, it didn't make sense to talk about budget constraints, as Riot was prepared to do everything in their power to develop the ecosystem in Latin America. At the time, the region was divided into two: the CLS (Latin America South Cup) and the LLN (Latin American North League). But at the end of 2017 came the (first) turning point of austerity. With the promotion of Nicolo Laurent to the head of the company, the publisher would have become more responsible and cautious about their investments, again according to the Mexican.

Riot therefore cut off the valves and decided that the CLS and LLN would converge to become one, in order to halve the allocated budget. The LLA as we know it today was born in early 2019. It was also at this time that the forest fire that would soon consume the region began. Until then, salaries in the second division were paid by Riot, with at least $1,500 per month for each player. However, following these changes, the publisher offloaded this responsibility to the LVP (the Spanish league organisers), which did not set a minimum wage. As a result, teams in Tier 2 have been underpaying solo queue players who are free on match days. This has been a huge brake on the consolidation of the local talent pool, the consequences of which have had an impact on the major league and have led to a vicious circle. For fear of relegation and losing Riot's support, teams have preferred to invest heavily in imports, and fewer and fewer local players have been given the opportunity to develop.

Skyshock also believes that moving the championship to Chile has had a considerable impact on the league. Firstly because of the distance separating the country from Mexico or Colombia, but also because of the standard of living, which is not the same there. Many players would then have given up on LoL esports, realising the sacrifices needed to reach the top level in the region and all the uncertainty that would come with it. "As far as I'm concerned, this sudden change even caused a huge blow to the popularity of the game in Latin America, not to mention the definitive end of the rivalry between the north and the south...", Skyshock points out.

The fragility of the audience is perhaps the most telling example of the region's descent into hell. The LLA recorded an average of 20,000 viewers during the first split of 2024. That's almost ten times less than their Brazilian neighbour, with their 170,000 average viewers, at the same time. In fact, since Riot Games announced their intention to unify America, this figure has been halved to an average of around 11,000 viewers. Far from the craze that the last LLA dance might have generated, it will therefore fade into relative anonymity in a few weeks' time. "I think people are disappointed, they're just moving on and mourning the loss of League of Legends esports," says Skyshock. "I've been part of the community since 2012, and today I'm getting messages from people who've built a family since then... For the most part, they're telling me that they used to follow with interest but now they've given up completely."

Even further north, the situation of the LCS seemed, at the beginning, close to that experienced by the LATAM region. ‘The first era of the LCS was between 2013 and 2017,’ recalls journalist Travis Gafford, who has covered League of Legends esports in the NA region since its creation. It was during this period that the league grew from eight to ten teams, but above all that events began to pile up in legendary venues such as Madison Square Garden in New York. The vitality of the local ecosystem inevitably attracted the attention of traditional sports players, and above all, many investors. Then, in 2018, franchises were introduced. The league then became closed and got rid of the promotion and relegation system. Some of the historical structures of the NA LCS, such as Dignitas and Immortals, were not initially included in the project. Others, such as 100 Thieves, made their appearance in the North American elite.

"People like to rewrite history, but the reality is that most people were enthusiastic about the changes," says Travis Gafford. "Of course there were sceptics, but what they forget is that at the time many people were concerned that Cloud9 or TSM would be relegated after just one bad split, and for an organization it was a disaster to consider. The financial instability was palpable, and it was very hard for each of them to sign a long-term contract with a sponsor because relegation represented such a big risk." Indeed, between 2018 and 2020, the league was going well and then... the Covid-19.

While audiences soared during this period, nobody was fooled into thinking that these were figures inflated by the pandemic. A temporary illusion that would fade as life returned to normal. But still, according to Travis, Covid-19 highlighted the league's most glaring problems. "I think first of all that in terms of content, the league's broadcast didn't live up to the stakes created by Covid-19, even if it did from a technical point of view. When the pandemic was over and the public was able to resume enjoying life outside, not enough people remained faithful to an ‘LCS product’ that I believe was inferior to what it should have been."

The second problem highlighted by the crisis is linked to the players, and more specifically the fans' attachment to the athletes who compete in the North American league. Firstly, because it was during this same period that two of the league's most emblematic players, Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg and Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng, retired (before coming back later and retiring, for a second time, for good). Secondly, because it was also the start of what Travis Gafford calls the "boomerang effect", linked to the arrival of new faces: "A player joins the league, and the broadcast tells you that this player is great, that you should pay attention to him and then at the end, or even sometimes in the middle, of the year this player is replaced by another and the broadcast tells you the same thing about the new one... There is almost no opportunity to create a real fandom around a player for this reason."

A phenomenon that also hit the organizations when, in 2024, Riot decided to backtrack and reduce the number of slots in the league from ten to eight. Clubs such as Evil Geniuses, among others winners of the 2022 Spring Split, to whom fans were beginning to become attached, decided overnight to leave the league. "With all these moves, you no longer have something to hold on to with the certainty that it won't fall," laments the American journalist.

The final obstacle to the league's growth is a common thread in the esports world: financial instability. It's no secret that the ecosystem is struggling to find a profitable and sustainable business model. A few years ago, many investors thought they were betting on the medium-term future by putting their money into the NA LCS. Often, the financial players in esport came from sectors close to esport, such as tech or gaming. Post-covid, these environments were hit hard by the crisis, which led many investors to withdraw from certain esports loops and, in the United States in particular, the LCS. "It's really over the last 18 months that macro-economic issues have had a significant impact on the LCS, while our audience has also suffered from what I perceive as mistakes made during the Covid-19 period," analyses Travis Gafford.

For our three interviewees, the main reason for this merger is simple: the financial impasse in which the publisher found itself. The industry itself is suffering enormously from its business model. "The economic value of an esport fan is infinitely more refined than that of a traditional sports fan," explains Travis Gafford. "That's a problem, your whole business is built around the idea that customers don't spend anything. Riot initially thought that finding sponsors was enough to solve the equation, but that obviously didn't prove sufficient." Faced with this realisation, the publisher has gone even further in its cost-cutting policy, which began in 2017. "I'm speculating, but I think the tipping point was when the company's chief financial officer (CFO), Dylan Jadeja, became the chief executive officer (CEO) at the end of 2023." According to the journalist, it was this change of captain that led to so many changes on board the ship.

To achieve this, Riot has activated various levers. The first reform was, of course, downsizing, which came into effect very quickly, with the publisher cutting 11% of their jobs from the start of 2024, many of them from the esport sector. Then there was the question of where fans would gather: the stadiums and arenas where Riot organises their events. While in the EMEA region, the low capacity of the new Riot Arena in Berlin - 210 seats - had upset fans, in the United States, the situation is more extreme: in 2024, there is only one event planned with a public audience. A hall that is far less impressive than usual, since the LCS finals will be held at the YouTube Theater in Los Angeles, whose 5,000-seat capacity is one of the lowest in history for this end-of-season event. The same problem applies to the venues hosting this year's Worlds: many people were disappointed to learn that the play-in and then the Swiss Stage will take place entirely in Berlin's Riot Arena...

Finally, this rationalisation of costs has led Riot Games to rethink the organisation of their regions. And as a result, several of them have been merged. The New World is not the only region affected, as the Asian ecosystem (excluding China and South Korea) is also being completely overhauled by Riot, with changes in the APAC region. "I get the impression that Riot is repeating the same mistakes", observes Skyshock, who had already experienced this situation in 2018 with the merger between North and South Latin America. He is extremely pessimistic about the future of his region: "I think this is the end for us. Here, the public is very attached to identity, to having our own competition, our own atmosphere. As the events and Riot's presence fade from our landscape, it shouldn't be long before the audience disappears with them, perhaps after the first few seasons."

This bitterness is widely shared by LeonButcher, who believes that the Brazilian community deserves better and should not have to suffer the consequences of Riot's economic woes. "It's obvious that there are financial problems, but the fans aren't concerned, they don't work for the organisations," he says indignantly. "It's impossible to understand when Riot says they're dropping four teams, which is almost half the league. For a Brazilian fan, it's not about getting international results or being economically viable. It's about the death of his team, four storylines that will fade away, many rivalries that will disappear, but also local players who will no longer have as many opportunities to reach the top level. That's why the Brazilian public is so upset. It's all the more painful because, in a way, we've entrusted what we've created to Riot and that's how they've used it."

In the end, it's in the United States that the situation appears to be the least dramatic. According to Travis Gafford, fans will not be particularly affected by the merger. Some were even delighted, as the news was accompanied by the announcement of a new international tournament and the arrival of the Fearless Draft. Nevertheless, the North American journalist describes the reaction of the North American public as "resignation in disappointment". Despite the scepticism of some towards the future of his region, he is convinced that it is not as bad as it seems in terms of its health and influence, and that it should manage to overcome this umpteenth obstacle. "This merger will obviously have an impact, but I think it's just a distraction from the real problems the LCS has been facing for years," he says.

This "resignation in disappointment" evoked by Travis Gafford seems in fact to run through the entire continent, which is making the resigned observation that it is powerless in the face of the publisher's decisions. "After writing my much-publicised article on the death of CBLOL, I went on holiday", says Leon Butcher. "When I came back, and despite hindsight, no one had accepted the changes, everyone was just resigned." According to the editor-in-chief of Brazilian media Mais Esports, fans must now look to what is still open to adjustment: "The only thing the community can do, and has done since, is put pressure on to win in the areas where it is still possible, and particularly on the revamp of the Tier 2 system. That's where 90% of the community's questions are directed."

Indeed, historic CBLOL structures such as INTZ or, more recent, such as Liberty should be in the front line of the guillotine in the new six-team format being introduced next year by Riot Games. "Imagine you're a Liberty fan and you see your team probably playing their last game at the end of the regular season? It's just awful, every team that gets knocked out will be like a part of me being taken away..." laments LeonButcher. The journalist could not have been more right, as Liberty have already been eliminated from the playoffs race and will play their last match in CBLOL as we know it on Sunday 29 July. A major reorganisation of Tier 2 should enable these teams to keep one foot on the competitive scene in their region and prevent them from disappearing forever.

This is a fundamental issue in Brazil, where the CBLOL has again this year broken the record for the number of players from the academic league who have made it up to the first division. LeonButcher points out that his region places less importance on results than the LCS, for example, and that until now, the Brazilian Tier 2 has focused primarily on developing young local talent. In his view, this will no longer be the case next year. There are two main reasons for this: firstly, with the introduction of a promotion and relegation system, teams will be investing as much as possible in established rosters to have a chance of reaching the main league.

Secondly, major league teams will receive a budget allocated by Riot Games each year and will therefore have more resources to develop their infrastructure and their rosters. This will, inevitably, create an imbalance between teams in the two leagues. "So, second division teams could sacrifice a year's worth of talent development to simply go 3-0 in the promotion match? The community has made sure that Riot hears their concerns about this, and it's good that the publisher is taking it slow before giving out more information. We'll know if LoL is really dead for us when they announce the Tier 2 reforms," he concludes.

Travis Gafford's analysis is somewhat different, as he believes that Riot is trying to make the second division more attractive. Giving teams in lower divisions the chance to be promoted should allow clubs, sponsors and influencers to invest more in the league than by being confined to the second tier. However, the journalist is not convinced that this solution is viable. In any case, Riot Games does not seem to be taking the matter lightly, as the company has announced that it is taking the time to fine-tune the plans and that details will not be released until the autumn. So, this time, the publisher shouldn't abandon the second division, as they did in the past with the LATAM region. Otherwise, League of Legends could be dealt a fatal blow across the entire American continent.