伙计们，我从几个消息源那里听说，NALCSPA和拳头游戏已经达成协议了，LCS夏季赛肯定会回归！

My question is how much money did the LCS lose during this strike? My bet is its a very negligible amount which would explain why the PA didn't seem to really gain much.

The players didn't assert there power, if anything they reaffirmed how dependent they are on the league existing for their jobs. If summer split didn't happen the players don't get payed. That simple. They had way more to lose than riot did in these negotiations, and riot called their bluff it seems like.

it was a dumb walkout in the first place. sorry to the NACL players that lost their jobs but life isn't always fair. the previous academy system was very mediocre. the players who were promoted through it that kept jerking it off are fuckin dunces for not realizing that in every other region in the world, they don't just raise up 3 new players every year it's more like 30 new potential star names get a shot. the system was failing at it's very purpose. anything is better than keeping a broken system alive for no reason, the excuse of "helping teams be financially able" was actually a pretty good excuse, as the contractions in the sector are apparent and the game is entering its late stages in life.

A new NACL business model, in addition to the previously committed $300,000, that shares revenue between the tournament operator and participating teams to drive towards long-term sustainability


What revenue...? Isn't the issue with sustainability already that there is no revenue?


Improvements to the NACL governance model, including a Team Participating Agreement (TPA) and vetting process of the participating team organizations


This reads like the teams are no longer required to field NACL teams? And, that they'll be adding more teams to create the league?

I think this is fine as the new teams will have to find their own ways to monetize but this also means the NACL might just be DoA. It sounds like there is still a league minimum salary and nobody is paying $300k+ for a NACL team per year if they can't make back more than that.

Sucks to say but most of these changes do absolutely nothing for the academy scene.

300k split between 10 teams is 30k per team which is 6k per player for the year(assuming they even get the full 6k).

50% split on the sponsorship revenue is a nice gesture but how much does the NACL even make in sponsorships?

Severance clause seems fine

Working group thing seems cool but IDK why it had to be formalized or why players weren't already part of scrim schedules?

Healthcare requirement is interesting but I don't understand why this is a concession they were looking for in these conversations. It has no impact on the academy stuff.

Last part about refining the comms between LCSPA, teams, and LCS sounds nice. IDK if it actually means anything though.

The old academy system wasn't profitable, mostly because teams were overpaying academy players and attaching insane buyouts to their contracts so they could recuperate the losses on salaries. I understand that teams are hurting because they're spending a shit ton on salaries, but they're the ones that drove the salaries up. They chose to hire multimillion dollar imports, and they're choosing to pay their bottom feeders 400k salaries. They chose to pay their "academy veterans" way more than they needed to. I just don't have any sympathy for the orgs. I'm all for budget cuts, but they should have done them where it made sense.

This may be controversial but the only good thing the PA really got out of this was a seat at the table for future negotiations. The only fault I really give riot is for axing the tier 2 scene with no communication. I don’t think riot should be on the hook for money to fund that scene when it’s the teams themselves that caused it to fail to begin with. Years and years of egregious spending on superfluous infrastructure and overpaying amateur players with no recouping of funds because that scene was not profitable, does not mean, in my opinion, that it’s riot’s problem. The 3 other major regions have had far less issues with their amateur scene and all have way more future sustainability with their systems as well as more international success (which I know is a side point to the main issue here).

The asks were high too begin with and left very little room for reasonable and meaningful change from riot’s side, and I think that’s what we’re seeing being reflected by these agreements here. While I’m glad the PA did SOMETHING for the amateur scene that was abruptly and unjustly cancelled, I still think they fell very very short of any real substantive change or action to improve the quality of the scene or it’s longevity. I think they focused on some issues and points that would neither be reasonable to ask for nor would they be beneficial enough to really spark a forward direction for the scene. I obviously don’t have those answers myself, but I really feel like it was a haphazard and poorly thought out walkout and while it did get them a seat at the table, I think in the long run this is a humongous L for players both in the tier 1 and tier 2 scenes