The State of League of Legends... Can It Be Fixed? (ft. PapaSmithy)

♪ Who's banked my dance? ♪ ♪ Princess Dubu Ratbira ♪ ♪ Iboraturiska fiel and a sense exterior ♪ ♪ Who's banked my dance? ♪ ♪ Prevention, this is. ♪ - Welcome back to The Four Horsemen. Our last episode was on the state of Counter-Strike. We took a little breather for the holidays, now we're back with the state of League of Legends with my old friend and casting partner, Papa Smithy, who is now the president, L. Presidente of FlyQuest. He's here to discuss the broader team approach to League of Legends, but we figured it would be good to get an LCS operator on this one. Last year we did our state of law with Alban, the CEO of G2, so it was a more LEC-focused approach. We'll be talking about LEC in this episode, but because LCS is returning, did it ever really leave, would be the question? It got rebranded, but the product didn't change substantially. But I would say the LCS. - I don't have one, T, in boxes like Return to the Commission, that video said Joe, if you're under a rock, you don't even know what LCS was, but LCS never left. It's like that is a funny joke, just not for the commission of the League of Legends. You know what I mean? It's all those ones who say, the Joel Paul, maybe not the best P.O. - So LCS is returning. If you have been under a rock, as Mark Z said, which we will get to, basically the English language audience did in fact flee under the rock during LTA. And the question now is, will they return to the League, which undoubtedly some of them will? And I've said this before, we hope that they will. I know you guys think that we want this thing to fail, but the truth of the issue is that our Loll Show viewership fell when LCS rebranded, and it wasn't just us. It was literally every single piece of English language League of Legends esports content when LCS. - LCS. - LCS doesn't exist anymore, like. - Yeah, yeah. - And Hotline League. - Yeah. - And you might be like, well, euphoria, that's a European show. Yeah, actually all League of Legends esports content, because there was a large number of English speaking fans who paid attention to other leagues basically fell. I think the one show that we had that was pretty unaffected was our LCK show, Monty and Wolf Show. But outside of that, guys. - We brought any viewers in the first place. - That's not me. - I'm not on that short spot. - It's still called the Monty and Wolf Show without Monty and three years. - I know, yeah. So we'd say that's sort of cellophosphory goods, but I don't deny it. - It usually works for like good viewership for the first three, and then people get pissed off they're being misled and stop watching. - Well, but all it reminds me of, but 'cause you guys don't appreciate this, we're the boomer crowd. It's like when they do those TV shows back in the day, where sometimes I can actual character, like would just not even be in the show anymore, like the main character was dead or whatever, the place to take it and then they keep it going for a few scenes to that more, or whatever. That's mental, like just stop the show, rename it, you might fall. - We are, we are. - Anyway, the point is that basically all of low esports lost a significant contingent of English language viewers across all content. So I imagine this also affected LEC. I imagine it also affected all the other leagues. And so the LCS returning is potentially a bright spot. Now, not everybody's coming back, you know, and that's gonna be an issue, but at least I assume, pop, but this is something that the teams were pushing for, which is the return of the LCS name and brand, because you and I, who have been working in this scene since the very beginning, you know, there is a brand affinity, there is a warmth and joy that comes from seeing the LCS, and it feels really weird to see it changed, not really for any reason, because the brand never had to change to interact with Brazil. They never had to shift the actual brand around it. And I think it just alienated a lot of the legacy viewers who felt like the thing that they had followed for over a decade was being taken away. - Yeah, it's hard to give a succinct answer on, there's a lot like packed into what you're talking about, just because like last year, formats changed globally, right? We went from two splits to three splits globally with like a abbreviated split one and then split two split three, while trying to also debut this America's concept of putting together Brazil, Latin America and North America. We were affected, you didn't even mention it like the SEO changes of like, you know, if you looked up LCS, that's always gonna show up LTA as an acronym was a new one. You're trying to debut during a time where it's not 2014-15 with like super rising interest in general esports and the lone legal agency sports. There's like so many variables there. It's not, there's still like succinct takeaways. It's not quite as like, it's kind of like how we look back on the first time North America did best of threes and to most people, it was obvious that doing dual streams at the same time as best of threes was gonna lead to like the least scientific conclusion. It's not quite that level of kind of like hard to sift through. Like I can tell you that despite being someone who was down for the combination of, you know, Brazil, Latin America and North America. It's not like this. The idea of like, it wasn't like everything was like approved by the old, old teams at every stage, right? Like obviously the general concept and trying to put it together, that was something that was bought into, but we found out, you know, before you guys, but like after it was decided that it would be like LTA North and LTA South and at the same feedback about why that acronym, why not LCS and CB Law. Like that was like, you know, the same experience we had and I think the regret was felt collectively, you know, a couple of months into the season and it takes time to uncouple these things and look, I will say shout out to Riot on how quickly a really hard conversation internally, I'm sure was had to make that change 'cause to debut and to put together like, you know, all the graphics packages, all the, I see copyrights and things to get it done. And then to say oops and kind of revert that and also all the global calendar implications of, you know, what was gonna effectively be, like we're in Brazil, not America switching to the LCS's back, let's see if we always back was a huge undertaking and I think it's the right one. So to what you're saying, I do think it's really important that the LCS branding is back, you know, I think Travis, when he was still around, but other people talked about how like keeping LCS your keyword and YouTube was gonna be better for viewership just because again, people understood what the LCS is, there's like little hidden things like, there was definitely some scenarios with visa applications where like you'd be applying for an LTA visa and people would be like what's the LTA, which is like a fair question, you know, you Google it and it takes time to work that out. So even just like being able to put LCS back on visa applications is useful. Like, I mean, even when you just Google stuff, one of the biggest complaints was because the low eSports site is so garbage and I felt this complaint too. It was hard to figure out when the game times were. But the thing about LCS is when you googled it, just like when I googled another American sports team or a league, all of the matches just appear in a table. - Yeah, the Google calendar kind of integration thing was really important and that was gone. And the one thing I wanna like open the show with is like, there's no, the LCS is back, all of our issues are fixed and the viewership will look like 2015, 2016, kind of like prophecy coming from me or right or anyone. I think it's just, well, we were presented with here the changes for 2026. You look at all of them in isolation. You'll like this is better than it was this year and or last year, but there's still so much work to be done collectively by all parties. Teams, players, Riot, content creators, et cetera, to kind of get the ground swell going again because, you know, we're gonna have to work at this regardless of LCS or not. So the way I'll just sit at the outset 'cause this is gonna be a theme for me, specifically with the LCS. I'm really bored of this like fucking madlibs game. We all play every single fucking year with the LCS that goes like this. Oh, things before working and the numbers were going down in all the relevant metrics. So we're gonna change to something new and that'll be the solution. Then when that fails, going, well, that wasn't working. So what we should do is go back to what used to be, it's like what the fuck is that? That logic good to just make any sense. So like the same people by the way, who now go up really at the LCS is back. They were the ones going, a rebrand, a chance for a new beginning into, well, which you wait a minute, you're on the same guy's that said to do that sort of. I just hate the way we have to, like I'll give you an example, you just said it there. I don't actually agree with what you just said. Actually, I would say the consensus in League of Legends was, it wasn't dual streams, it was best of three. And I was told for a solid half a decade that you can't have best of three in LEC and LCS because when we had it, the viewership wasn't going up. It was going down because more games of the bad teams who want to watch a full best of three all that. Even though by the way, I spent my entire time watching the LPL and LCK and I always thought the format works, that clearly can't be the only issue. But people do as a general rule, unfortunately, the LCS does have sort of like a get rich quick vibe to it where people do think that one snappy change is going to turn everything around and suddenly all the numbers go back up. Or in this case, that you can sort of dive back to a past time. I'm fine with the idea, by the way, you have to try new things. I'll give you another example. Here's one that people have also memory hold. Remember when the real problem was, the games were on the weekends. We need them during the week. Like, you know, the Monday night football and those games need to be out then all of a sudden it was like, well, no one knew when the games were on the run during the week. It's like, what are we doing here? Like, you can't literally just wait and go, hmm, the numbers gone down. That means whatever I did before was definitely wrong. It's like, you have to actually extract the general idea of what about the idea didn't work. Or what about it? Could work if you applied it differently, you know? Yeah, I'll say I'm both of those. I can give you my opinion and my vantage point. So we'll go with the first one. I agree with you, 'cause I was a caster, obviously, when dual streams was happening. So I wasn't like on the right side. I didn't have privilege information. And I would come in for international events, which at that time it was either, a lot of them were like remote from the North American studio or on-person with a lot of North American stuff there. So like, I kind of got their POV on it. And I was very much like, surely it's the dual streams, guys. It's not the best of threes. And there was definitely like senior leadership who didn't agree with that, you know what I mean? So like, when you say, that's like the, that's how senior leadership at that time thought about it, which we now look at and score. And at the time, I looked on it and scored. It's not the same senior leadership anymore at the LCS side. So that, I would say the fans and the talent were all much more mixed, you know? There were some people who were like, absolutely. And there were other people who were like, no, I agree with you. So it's like, I don't think that was a consensus. I think when it comes to the midweek change, I was on the team side already. It was just as I transitioned from 100th East to Flag West. So I just started on the business role. And I remember when it was proposed to me, again, by old leadership, it's no longer the, it was the previous commissioner before Marxi. The way they couched it, I don't know if this is leaking, but whatever was basically like looking at over, they had very advanced data of Twitch viewership metrics. And it was basically like, in general, the most people in the world are on Twitch between this time frame. Therefore, the LCS would do well there, which obviously, I raised my hand and was like, how do we know if that's correlational or causational is like, obviously, a massive whiplash change to go from. Also, the general Twitch viewership was this specific. - Yeah, exactly. - Was this like all of Twitch's viewership? - Yes. - Yeah, because it was very-- - It was a strange conclusion, 'cause you could not jog you. Now you're trying to go ahead to head with everything. - Right, let me put this a different way. Like, sure, the NFL is on some prime time slots, like Sunday and Monday nights are good times for American television. But like, for scheduled sporting events, I would imagine it's very different for people, because you could say, like, okay, well, these are the prime times for all of Twitch viewerships, but a lot of those Twitch viewerships are going to be people who are at work putting it not really paying attention to a stream, maybe on a second monitor. It'll be people who are in between classes at school who are just popping in and popping out. Like, if you're trying to schedule five games of League of Legends that's appointment viewing, it's really a different crowd. And those people are likely, if you want them to, because the thing about LCS is they always, they always say, we want people to be fans of LCS to watch all of the games. That has been Riot's point from the very beginning. And so you're saying, we want people to be actively engaged across a five, six hour long broadcast, and you just can't do that in the middle of a workday. And especially, there's a difference with the audience they had, which is old people, because as we know and we'll get to, there's not a lot of new young people coming into League of Legends. So who's the audience we're talking about? It's mostly millennials. And those people are the ones who are going to be having jobs in the middle of the day, in the middle of the work week. And sure, well, they may be able to have a white collar job where they're putting it on a second monitor. It's not necessarily going to be the same amount of attention that's paid. And perhaps not even really what people want to watch while they're working. Something they want to engage actively. These are all super valid takes. They're very similar to the sort of things I was raising in the meeting. I know the people were bringing up. And so it was more like to answer your guys' question, at least the information I got. Maybe there was even more sophisticated information they didn't share. It was basically like, if people watching Twitch streams could be all collected and added up, the most possible people on Twitch.tv/anystream this time, therefore, this is a good spot to move to the LCS. Like, what else was being justified? How much of it was related to Valorant coming at the same time? blah, blah, blah. I only have my assumptions around it. But that was what was sold. Obviously, I had my skepticism. And I understand what you're saying about market segmentation. Now, if you remember, the original idea was for the broadcast to start even earlier in LA, which would have been even more in the sweet spot of this time zone and would have been even better for Europe. And Europe has always had a large impact on North American viewership. In case Vans are new in the EU LCS days, the NA LCS waited and started when EU LCS ended and got out. It also, yeah, the host. That was a huge thing too, that people ignored, which was that by moving this, you were eliminating the fact that LEC used a host into LCS on the weekends, which transferred a huge amount of light. Which was like, I don't think it sequenced in Smonte, that it does feel like European interest in LCS fell apart after that. Before that, I think most people did what she will see as well. I think then they had to fund TSM Final CLG Fed as well. I think the timeline was a little bit decoupled at that point. I feel like the LEC, as a distinct product, had kind of already by the end of 2020, started 2021, kind of like pushed itself forward in a way that there wasn't as much of a transition from the host. But yes, we were giving up the host, Smonte, which was another, as you can imagine, red flag that was raised at the time. I think that was by far the most extreme change that was attempted and the one that we were happiest to see reverted. But yeah, that's, what you're putting forward, Duncan is valid, but it's worth noting that there's been multiple regime changes since then. LCS also had a lot of brand refreshes and other changes. And I think there has been too many attempts that I don't know, is texting it up every year with like lots of new features. But the thing is, like the thing is though that I'm of two minds about this because with the else, in the LCS's case, you're dealing with a protracted decline in viewerships since the beginning of the pandemic. And you can't do nothing. So like I am really sympathetic that Riot is at least attempting to take swings at things. Now we can, obviously I don't agree with many of the things that they've done, but I did agree in principle with combining the Brazilian and the North American leagues to foster more overall viewership and like create that rivalry. I just didn't agree with the way it was executed. And indeed, we will be actually seeing more of that this coming year in LCS in a way that I think is just better. So like it does seem like an improvement. But I think just sitting there and doing nothing with the LCS, not changing the product, not, you know, as they slowly bled out and lost important teams that had a large fan bases, I know that you can do that. So, and I agree, and I, if you're, if you're taking over running a farm, let's say you're in E-Ray James, you're not even the old one. If you're taking over running a farm, I wouldn't advise tear down all the fences everywhere. I'd figure out why those fences were there and they'd take down the one that I'm not necessarily, if you know what I mean. - Free with Duncan. And I think the only part of contest Monty, like you're actually on the right side here, and I'm contesting the right side is, yeah. It works, I mean, I feel like by the end of 2020, there was already kind of like the LCS is like falling too much into a farmer, they need to change things. And I agree that no one wants to kind of like watch something slip away, you want to like get in there and try to make positive change. But the problem is, is if you go through three regime changes, you know, like if you sell a restaurant on and on, you know, from a family business and sell a restaurant every two years, like then there's not really kind of like consistent learnings from it. And I think that's what was lost here is like lots of stuff was tried, but there wasn't really like a codex of logical conclusions all the way from like, let's try best of the reason until the LCS is back in 2026. And sometimes I think people have to look back and like cryptically work out what the learnings were rather than someone who can sit there and be like, no, no, I lived through this here all the thoughts. - I think the problem is is that, you know, like we talk about them scheduling during the weekdays, is that they were, some of the changes that they were making was basically praying that, you know, if you build it, they will come. Like field of dreams logic where it's like, if we build this broadcast on a different day, then the people will show up and will stop bleeding viewership, which is just an insane conclusion. Because what they did was they alienated people, they alienated people by constantly changing the broadcast days, by constantly changing the format. Although the format is something that I think it was overstated, I think you can change that. And if anything, you should change that. But then they changed the LCS name. But instead of just tweaking, like keeping the product in its current form, generally, meaning on weekends with the LCS name, with certain on-camera personalities, with certain elements of the show, and then tweaking format or having the Brazilian element or changing up the analyst ask. And then, like, mostly, it would have been about marketing, I think, more effective marketing. But it feels like Riot, you know, they took this scatter shot approach that wasn't protecting the product they already had, and trying to expand its reach. And instead, we're just doing like the lowest hanging fruit of if we move broadcast day and time, then the people will watch more, which is like such insane logic. You need to give people a reason to watch more. And if you change the time, there were lots of people who just stopped watching LCS because it was just on during the week. - I was on Hotline League. And I think this will resonate with Duncan and Richick, 'cause I don't think they would have heard this before. I was on the first Hotline League right after it leaked, right? And someone called in, I'd heard them calling before. And they were like, "Hey, I'm an avid LCS watcher since Bay Life Days of TSM 2012, 2013 LCS start." And I have a kid now. And I want there to be like intergenerational fandom for the LCS, but now it's no longer on the weekend. It's during weekdays, like I can't watch it with my kid anymore. I feel like I'm being like pushed out. And as you know, the guest on the show, I had to be like, that's actually what is really exactly happening, like that is in fact, they are searching for new people and you are specifically the person who can't attend. Like for me, when I was in the meetings, I was like, "Hey, like the crowd has a really big influence on a League of Legends show. You definitely know when it's there." And the cheering means something. And you do the camera shots who is going to be there at Wednesday at 12 p.m. PST and Los Angeles, you know? Like during a weekday, during a workday. Like the crowd will be empty. Like are we gonna do like other things? Or are we gonna just kind of like live with the fact that we're just never gonna film the crowd? Like these were all things that were seen as kind of like trade-offs to, but this is where the viewers ship will come and obviously ended up being incredibly off. So yeah, it's a tricky thing for sure. - Anyway, another thing that is a classic running theme for me with the LCS is the reason why I'm actually quite unsympathetic even though I generally agree with Monti in general, I would work the best for e-spots and things to grow. So there'd be more opportunities. For example, I have players that play on the LCS, that are friends of mine that I'd like to see succeed than playing front of hundreds of thousands of people like the old LCS, et cetera. But one of my other problems is this. Here's why I have very little sympathy. Because Riot, I've always said this. For the first, let's say, five, six years, at least, I mean, I mean, too misely, maybe seven, eight years where they were quite successful with legal legends, especially in North America with this giant product that ever watched the joke was, especially back in those piggyback days of the LCS, no one ever would have thought Europe would be able to overtake North America. That was a nonsense idea. It could never have happened. In fact, if anything, Europe was like a mini pipeline to North America, people went there for the millions of dollars and the big contracts, et cetera. One of the things I've always heard it is, they absolutely rested on their laurels for a long time. And as I've pointed out with the earlier thing, it's only when things go drastically wrong. They start just pressing buttons and pulling levers and taking things down. So here's one thing I despise, but I've always given the analogy that when Riot used to pat themselves on the back for like being in Counter-Strike, for example, by the way, we didn't have Asia folks here. I used to say that's like being a kid who was given your dad's Ferrari and you just beat a Ford Fiesta in a straight race and you think your heart shit. But in this situation, while you had the Ferrari was when you needed to do all the changes and you could have maxed it out. Now you don't have the Ferrari anymore. Now you're in a Ford Fiesta. Now the upgrades barely even work. 'Cause think of some of the things they changed only at the end. As far as I can tell, because reality just told them, you're just strong on these topics like B03. They've only tried B03 now because there's nothing left to try. They tried everything else. Do you know how much B03, if they'd done it properly, could have been insane in the Beugs and Double of Days. That could have been a way to triple your viewership. Make it even bigger. How about the idea? Let's turn Twitch subs on when no one fucking watches Twitch are all a product anymore. Bro, think of those days when CLG and TSM within the PAX games, we have 500,000 people watching. Mate, that alone would have literally like subsidized part of the fucking league. Everyone idiot would have paid for it. If it'd give me a little team or icon in the chat or something bizarre like that. And then the last one I'll even throw out there, 'cause they still haven't even done this, is. The residency rules. Bro, you were just in them, well, technically you still have, which I've seen the next season yet. Last year, you were in the most popular in North American League of Legends team. You proved like all of them fucking have that. It's not about North American players. The fan lies when he says that what he means is, in an ideal world, if everyone was as good as Chorvy, I don't want my Chorvy to be in North American. If you actually offer them Pala Fox or fucking Quad Mate, they will choose Quad. And if you tell them, I've got a squad that's got a two-American, North American's in, but actually the rest of the Europeans and the Coaches. So long as it's good mate, as long as it can go ahead and end with judging, that's all they actually care about. So I also think one of the other bizarre conceits was this notion that we're gonna sort of like foster talent by limiting restrictions. I don't think that's the most un-American sports move. I can ever imagine, if anything, even Europe said to learn the American sports medicine works, you just bring talent, bro. People watch talent, they want to stop, watch top players. I think again, if we go back in time in a time machine in 2020 and there's no import rules, mate, you could have all sorts of fabulous players come into the LCS that could have been top-tiered worlds and mixed in and have been MS-sized. So again, the point is, these are all things, like these are totally valid potential changes. But it feels like Riot only considers them when there's nothing left to try. The joke is, by the way, that's actually even one of my all-time favorite quotes that Cristina Richards used to say. He used to say the thing about the United States of America is they always do the right thing after they've tried everything else. To me, yeah. Hey guys, you're watching the state of League of Legends and that means that the League of Legends season is right around the corner. So there's never been a better time to go on over to prize picks and set your first lineups for this low season. 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Could be a quarterback getting more or less yards or a running back getting more or less points, right? So these are all options for you. You can pick those stats, combine some players, and that's how you win. You guys can download the prize picks app today and use Code Horsemen, plural, MEN, to get $50 in lineups after your player. First $5 lineup, that's Code Horsemen, to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Prize picks, it's good to be right. - Yeah, it's a pretty good summary. I mean, obviously like having watched it at a distance now 'cause I'm like a lot of people. I just got bored of the product, I guess, and there's only like so many hours in a day, right? That you can like realistically dedicate to it. There's, you know, I was getting more and more into the dirty sports scene to the point where I'm actually working in it now. And so it's like, it's no contest for me, which one I'm gonna dedicate more time to. But I've been going top of that as well. What you're talking about with that guy who's got kids now. Riot never had a contingent. - That's me by the way, when our fans start aging out. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's technically, it's all of us. We're all still fans of the league, you know what I mean? Like, it's not just that you've got kids. It's that, you know, you've got wives and partners and maybe elderly members. - Other interests and obligations. I mean, like, you know, the fact of the matter is is like, I didn't watch hardly any LTA last year. And I am somebody who has been the most involved in League of Legends out of almost anybody on Earth. Like, that's pretty damn it. And it's not even, and I'm sure I'm in Korea, but it's on in like the morning by time. Like, it's not terrible, it's not just a choice around like the scheduling thing, which everybody pointed out to them at the time. I mean, like, it wasn't like, oh, we're gonna try this and it's like 50, 50 dissenting voices on it. Everybody said that is a shitty time zone and you're gonna kill viewership by doing that, right? It's a shitty, you know, days to having it on through the week. And it's gonna kill viewership if you do that. But equally as well, it's like, where do I go if I wanna catch up? Like, where do I go if I wanna digest? Where do I go if I wanna like know exactly where the state of the league is? You know, I finally got some free time for myself. I wanna reconnect. There is really a product that tailors to that. - L thing. - And there is just every, okay. L thing, my bad. Oh, to last free nation. - We're not in the client overall. We're not being pushed by that. - We don't exist. - That's what we mean. - You know, there really isn't, there really isn't a place you can go to to get an equivalent digest product that you have in every other single sport. I mean, 'cause think about it as well. In every other single sport, you have an abundancy problem, right? Which is realistically, I cannot watch every game in my favorite sport or sees. Like, it isn't enough hours in a day, right? We're talking hundreds to hundreds of games. So where do I go to catch like all of the highlights, all of the storylines, all of the results and get it done in an hour or two, tops? - Or else, yes, much of the day, basically. - Yeah, exactly. There is someone. I mean, like, they were talking about making one. - It's sort of happening. - I feel like, you guys remember, what was that show, Monty, that like what was it called? You remember Ryan? - It was on it. - Ryan had that show, Monty, that was like, it wasn't called loading room or something. They had like this like parallel thing that they had that tried to, that like, Ryan has tried to service that, what you guys are talking about. And it never really took off. And I don't know if that's just like clips on your, clips on Twitter is enough for people, there's isn't enough fans or whatever. And there's tried to be like low and high-produced talent or talent agnostic clip shows. And they just never perform. Maybe it's because nothing's behind a paywall and like theoretically you could watch whatever you want. But I feel like clips in the modern age have never, clip shows, I guess in the modern age are never really taken off. But I agree with it, I like match the day. - Yeah, I mean, I can't think of an eSports equivalent really, that's been done well in the same way a sports thing is, but equally as well. Yeah, it might not take off at the start. You have to understand if this is Ryan's folly, they don't really look too far ahead. You know, when they made the game initially, they knew they had to pull out every dirty trick imaginable to get as much saturation of a player base. - We're going to talk about the Dodo or Star's website and forum thinking. - Oh, I mean, we could go into all of that. I love bringing on that. - We're talking about Patrick and Steph. - It's kind of a great time. - But I mean, there wasn't a dirty trick they weren't willing to pull to become market leaders. It was a level of corporate ruthlessness we hadn't really seen in eSports, right? To make their product successful. And it's like, okay, you've done that now. What next? And they, there's never a, they don't plan like, this is five stages. They plan, this is the stage and the moment successful at the end of that we're going to revisit. And so you have a highlight show that you broadcast at the most convenient time for everyone on a weekend. You have that highlight show. You might not need it year one, year two because all your audience is young and they can watch all the games and stay up all night and they're all NA. So they're all on fucking out of all anyway. And they never sleep, they're just vampires. - That's it, you do a lot of that. - Hold on, hold on. - Yeah. - Don't poke a face. - Yeah, so it's anyway. So, you know, whatever. But by the time they're bouncing a baby on their fucking knee, they're gonna wanna find that, they're gonna wanna find that highlight show. Oh wait, there's one that's been going for a while within established broadcast talent pool and a repartee. So that would have been a good idea, you know, for me at least. But I think more importantly as well, when you've got the obligations, the important thing is what is gonna make me rush an obligation or switch shit around so I can have the other thing as well. And again, you only get to do a very limited amount of this as an adult, you know, it's like, right. I definitely wanna watch the football. So on a weekend, the misses is definitely having the kids. And that means I'm doing all the sort of shit in the middle of the week when I'm tired from work. We're gonna make a concession so I can have the sport. It's not worth it for legal agents in its current form. The product they've got is so diluted compared to what it used to be. Like I used to legitimately get hyped for TSM CLG. I used to see what- - See if I can just do the match-up and then wouldn't it? - Just that one game, I mean, keep in mind that game, and that's back then when Twitch viewership wasn't that high. That one game got the like- - Well, they'd have, would they have the 500,000 concurrent views of the Overwatch League? - In 2015 for that game. - In a regular season? - That one game in their league, in a regular season game with relatively low stakes, would eclipse the peak of the Overwatch League's highest of the Overwatch League. - Absolutely, yes. - So that's the product that they had back then. And it's like, you have to nurture that. TSM isn't even in the league anymore. - Neither of CLG. - Why has that been allowed, need to CLG? Why has this been allowed to happen? Like, who are the flagship characters in the league right now? Where are the viruses? Where are the St. Vicious? Where's the whole thing? - Anyway, this is a point I always mirrored on our show as well because by the way, it's also happening now in Chinese League of Legends like RNG and FPX or World Champs and MSI Champs orgs have left the game. I always tell people, I actually don't think people realize how damaging that is as well because remember, I can be a fan of a new set of players, but I'm not gonna be a legacy fan of a new team. And it's why, actually, the joke is, we actually figured this out on IRC and Counter Strike 20 years ago. You just let some twat take the fucking name and then start the next team with it and call it four Kings, even if it's nothing to do with the original four Kings. Like, it might sound silly, but I always, the joke is, people would expect me to laugh 'cause TSM left. I actually remember thinking TSM leaving is what the darkest is in the history of fucking League of Legends. You've essentially just let like the 49ers just leave the NFL, like it doesn't matter whether you like him or not, mate, you have to have those orgs. - The topics you guys talk about are super interesting, Richard. Like, that sort of stuff is stuff I ruminate on, right? Because my general mandate right now is to grow flyquests as much as possible in League of Legends and further that. And there's a lot of different things you can kind of look at and explain the decline you're talking about. 'Cause for example, like League of Legends, I started watching League of Legends streamers on Justin TV before Twitch TV even existed. You know, it was Justin TV and owned at that time. Azubu was like the like secret kind of like, OGNL.com subscription service that Azubu itself was only just like the name of two of the teams. It wasn't even its own like azubu.tv platform yet. And the rise of Twitch TV was also the heyday of League of Legends. So one one thing for you guys to think about, you probably haven't thought about is when a non-League of Legends person associated with a League of Legends event or streamer or, you know, entered the curse house back when they used to like stream all of those like pre-liquid curse days, that gave them legitimacy and relevance to the growing Twitch.tv audience. Nowadays just chatting is the like apple of the eye of Twitch. And you don't see LCS players on, you know, just chatting streams. And like that's like, that's the huge differences that League of Legends is absolutely like prototype of a Twitch TV project. And look, we can obviously get into how they like fumbled their advantage and all these things, which is like a lot of what we all malign is how League of Legends didn't take 20, 14, 15 successes. Like holy fuck, imagine how much more we could do with this success. And kind of like didn't want to, I mean, we didn't want to like mess with what was working, which ultimately has hurt the growth of the game. But it is interesting how like now, you know, internally, like how can we get our players kind of like associated with just chatting in a way that would have been inverse, you know, 12 years ago, if you know what I mean. Well, I think, you know, there were people who were very much on the just chatting slash IRL streaming and case in point is XQC. Because XQC, when he was an active overwatch player, he would do a lot of I don't have any one of League of Legends quite as bad as how he was fumbled by sure, sure. Yeah, that was terrible. But the idea here is that, you know, in, in 2017, so this has been the early days, 2018 of just chatting IRL, he was actually on his phone live streaming from the Overwatch League studio or from BlizzCon at the Overwatch World Cup. He would just come up to me and like talk to me on his live stream and stuff like that. But he was doing all this stuff. Like we don't have League of Legends players who are even trying to do that or riot who is, you know, doing this. Nobody's like behind the scenes at the LCS studio on their phone doing an IRL stream being like, here's what we're going to do for the game. Here's this person, I'm going to talk to them like XQC is, you know, a different breed for sure. But it was insane how, especially at the Overwatch World Cup, he was just walking around talking to all these players from all these different countries and like tapping into their fan base and sure that fumble by Overwatch League was immense. Like no doubt. But not just a fumble. I mean, they tried to actively throw them out, you know, yes, absolutely. No, it was terrible. It was so sudden. They're not even around him. It is a disgrace. I mean, put it this way. Saying someone is homophobic, right? We were all told people to suck a dick at some point in your life. Like suck a dick, sup my dick, go suck a dick. You do this. If you say that to someone and you're not aware they're gay and they do the Uno reverse, by the way, I'm gay. Like, so like, what, I'm a homophobic now, like, no, it's a phrase. Like, that is ridiculous. And like, literally, activism. People at Activision Blizzard know that's not homophobic, by the way, when they do that to someone, when anyone does that to someone. What they're doing is they're trying to put some fucking slime on you, put some stink on you so you can't go anywhere else and put it this way. It's by the grace of some divine providence, in my opinion, that he's a top-tier streamer because I have to like actually like, wince my ears. I have to like tune into a frequency to understand what he's saying. Yet the kids love him, you know, like he's super popular. He's going to be super successful. It's, it was also just unnecessary to do that to him because he is a really reasonable person in my, in my dealings with him. Absolutely. You could have totally like, obviously the stream thing is a persona, but you can have totally rational conversations with him. And I don't think he's some sort of like crazy psycho. He's not. He's, he's pretty normal, honestly. If I try to look at how that happened, again, now that I've been on the business side, right, because obviously I was just talent when that was happening. I think that the big reason it happened was because it was a developer run leak, you know, it was like Activision Blizzards pretty on the leak, which means Activision Blizzards internal business company HR, kind of what are you allowed to do and not allowed to do and like, what's the, what can you speak about, you know, and what can't you speak about? Was all being led by, this is my assumption from the outside by like, you know, one team and that has to fight everyone. I'm looking at has to apply the players and the moment that you kind of decide that, I mean, the ripple effects are things like the PEPA is being banned and stuff like that. It's so stupid. You know, and like, that's, I've said it before, but if that was ESL or like, I look at what ESL does in their kind of content because I try to like forward examples of stuff I like in Counter-Strike now that I've been like following that ecosystem really closely for the last two years, or that what they're still doing, not like look at this from 2017, you know, when like, obviously the the meta was different, let's say in terms of what you could have couldn't talk about. I'm like, oh, this is pretty edgy. It's cool that they're doing this. Like, I just think if it was, you know, OGN running the leak or, you know, ESL running the leak, I do think that like that hard an edge, I'd that one scenario wouldn't have happened, if you know what I mean, but the moment that it ends up being a mandate, because like, I feel it in smaller ways. Well, like my legal legends players will like be at a public part of the like office, like eating lunch and then, you know, using legal legends slang, which sometimes edges towards things that you should not be saying in a business scenario pretty fast. And then I have to go around and explain to them, like, hey, what would someone not in esports who walks by and hears this and gets, and it takes it the wrong way, because they don't know all of the like data or the like context of what you're saying, take away, please be mindful of that. You know, like, obviously, like, I understand both worlds and can code switch between it. But when there's no code switching happening, when it's just like act division HR, saying this is like the mandate for literally tens hundreds of thousands of employees across everything, that's where like, people get framed out like this, like, excuse me, and ended up having, obviously, explosive consequences. Right. And the way you're getting to another point, though, this is actually a relevant point to League of Legends, right? It's also until the bitter end. It wasn't until the post-COVID era when they tried all that crazy stuff, like QEC and developer and letting, I forget even the name of the gap, what was Gabby, the Tigris and people do a little bit of edgy, right? They waited too long for that to make it. So here's another thing I can tell you turned to people like Rich and Off. They gave him a PG-13 e-sport mate, yet it's all for adults. We're all players adults and all the book people watching are adults, but we pretend like the average viewer is a nine-year-old Disney viewer. But that is a turn-off, man. I don't, again, I want someone to be able to say, "Fuck off." Like they do in a Counter-Strike game and go, "Fuck you." That wouldn't make anyone come in a person counter-strike, bro. No, that's some riot, guy. I think it's in the 19th century or something, man. But it's not just that. I mean, the right one was on the wall, and again, I know, a paper won't remember this. But let's not forget, I think it was dignitas that they punished for dancing in the fountain over ending a game, right? Because they would consider it badminton. That exact example. The one, when I think of Big Natasha, I mostly think of that like banning them for aeramic in a final situation. I don't remember the dance of one, but that makes sense. Well, pretty much so. I don't know if they actually ban the, but I'll give you an example. They literally did find high for doing a middle finger again. Yeah. And high got fine. Well, literally. Yeah. It was basically what they were doing, like, doing the dances. I mean, they don't like people. I think the kids call it tactical crouching, they don't, but, you know, they don't like it. They don't like people doing stuff like that either in their games. But you should, like, you should do what the NFL does. And this is the thing about being an independent league is the NFL hilariously these days though, they will find players for like celebrations that are apparently inappropriate. But then on the NFL Twitter and like all social media, they'll just post clips. It's a lot more slippery. Of course. Yeah, I know. Yeah. It's just outright. It's a good tactic. It's a good tactic. It's a good tactic. Yeah. It's out. It's outrageous to do that. It's really especially when you get into the realm of like, you know, oh, we don't want any political statements on your cleats, but you've literally got political statements in the end zone. Yeah. And you're going to find a guy for having like a 9/11 memorial on his cleats. That's a real example that happened in NFL. Yeah. The first one I ever saw was the first one I ever saw was like the yellow card for taking your shirt off and in football soccer. Like, that was the first one where I was like, I didn't, I was pretty young, I think, looks to when that happens while I've started that funnily enough was it might have been a Liverpool thing, actually, because I think it was when it might have been when Robbie Fowler took a shirt off and underneath, he had a political statement. I mean, Robbie Fowler got fine for a lot of different celebrations, but I still remember the cocaine one. It's part of the genius. But that was the cocaine one was the best. Yeah. Robbie Fowler's a fucking legend and a ludic. Yes. Yes. This is my favourite player as a boy. Of course. Of course. But anyway, back to, I want to talk about the LCS, because I want to know, like, yeah, but let me just elaborate on what Duncan was saying with the whole thing. It's not just that they disnified, right, right, what Riot did with LCS, it's not just that they disnified it and it's not just that they actively punished anyone that showed any kind of like edge to the personality. It's that they had opportunities to like actually bring in people that like would have absolutely shone, like, like, it's like, you know, the, the, the, the Tyler one thing was like a no brainer. And what is there? There's their XQC. Yeah. And the best part is just like XQC turned out he was actually like a wizard at every game too. When it's like a chess mouse again. And you thought he was just some done spot. You thought he was a me ed, exactly. Exactly. And it's like what, what, the only reason he ever got involved officially with the product was by way of an apology because an employee said he hoped he got cancer. Yes. And it leaked. Yes. And, and, and so that. And then right go. We can, we can hang with the kids. It's like, no, you can't, you have no interest in any of this. People like me, you know, like that watch Counter Strike think about all of the things we get in that compared to like what you get in legal legends. And it's, there's nobody actively trying to smash all the character out of Counter Strike. There's no like, you know, Valve aren't coming at people before the majors and going, listen, no flipping anyone off. Like, we've literally got like the, the IGL of the best team in the world right now. It actually comes on stage and the crowd chant fuck you Apex. He's flipping everyone off. It's like at a two, it's like Stonk or Steve lost him in attitude there at WWE. And it's fucking amazing and it's great and, and put it this way back to my original point before I toss it back to Monty is that is, that's the type of entertainment you do say, listen, is the kid, I'm off, sorry darling, right? That's, it's worth it for that. It ain't worth it for some insipid. By the way, speaking of fumbling, you had Reginald and Doublelift and you didn't want people talking shit and being rude. You don't want to win me. You just don't want to win. You had Reginald and Doublelift and each of those throats and you could have added up that rivalry. How did it be amazing? You got a fucking promo for it. Yeah. You Fc style. Conor McGregor and McBeab. Exactly. And, and your viewership is back, but, but no, you, you apparently don't care about that. You don't. Because it's like, right, don't want to win unless they win only by that decision. Yes. And then they make all the wrong decisions. Right. Sorry, money. No, I just, I wanted to return it to the LCS and talk about how, you know, one of the ways with the state of league is it is currently is to find the people like you guys are saying and find the techniques that are contemporary and modern. And I do think that encouraging not, not everybody is XQC, obviously. He's one of one, but having the players be encouraged to make this kind of content because what made what, to pop this point earlier, what made LCS popular in the first place wasn't the quality of the games. It was the personalities and the fact that the, there was no difference in 2012 between esports and the biggest streamers. These were the same people. They were the same people. And so you had the, the wave of millennial culture that was going along with that that pushed people into esports. But there has been no adoption of contemporary techniques for people. Nobody as far as I'm aware is on the, they're fucking TikTok stream, you know, showing how cool it is to be a pro gamer in the back of the LCS and what it's actually like and doing these interactions as they go on stage. You know, there isn't, there isn't the kind of content that resonates with people that will push people into becoming fans of it is another example of where league of like legends, esports is distinct from games like Counter-Strike, for example, where the developer doesn't put their hands on it and it's up to the teals, what happens and you can have different rules. Right? Similarly, when, when we had that G2C on, one of the things that it actually baffles me, he was almost like begrudgingly laughing about how proud he was. When he explained that he was the person who didn't allow course streaming in the LEC, like, if you sit somewhere like that in a chat with me, I'm just going to call you a fucking episode like, that's not even funny to me, I can't even get a dark humor like you're just a crettin, like, again, you don't understand Monty, the modern delivery method. So here's an example, I think, is mental that isn't to this dear thing, why is this shit where they pre-approved course streamers and announced them like they were an alternate talent group? Right? Who knew that casual would be the biggest league of legends stream in the world? Nobody. Not a single person. Well, you know how you find a more casuals, let people fucking do it. Like, I would have allowed, literally, if you don't know how Counter-Strike tournaments work, you send an email in, but unless you're literally me who will 24/7 talk shit on the product, or you're someone who's unwilling to, like, let their sponsors be on screen, you're going to try and advertise a rival sponsor, essentially, any non-retard can get the course streaming rights to a Counter-Strike tournament, including the major in certain cases, maybe not this one because they had their own bizarre thing there because it was also with cake, etc. But anyway, my point is, I would have, in the same way, Monty, as you will have gone on about how all these games are developed from the sandbox, I would have just allowed carte blanche course streaming from day one, because guess what? I want all the old pros to do the course stream as well. And maybe one of them, I can literally blow 200 of them, can have 10 viewers, as long as one of them hits. And that's how you find people, because that's another thing. In the modern day, one thing we have learned about esports is, it's actually somewhat diminishing returns, what people want from a tradition, what I want, a traditional, you know, professional stream with the suit and tie, and you have the sheen of this esport. That's, I'm a boomer in that sense, the kids do want the only pixel of the world. The joke is, only pixel even recently, right? I'd fuck all do this. Or dip this foot in valor and then I've always loved it too. Like, see, this is how the modern person views the game. They want a mixture of a podcast in the game like, they want a watch party in the game. Right? It's still just like putting their toes in the water on that and going, but should we let, should we, should we allow L.S. to course stream this other region? It's like, the idea that's even a question is blowing my mind. The idea, you would ever, by the way, go and do stuff like, ah, dumb, I did like what you said, it's all okay. It's all banned from course stream for a year like, again, you're just taking shortcuts and shooting your feet over and over again. The upside is so minimal for these things. When it comes to course streaming, you know what I've always wanted, broadcast to do. I've always wanted, and I've suggested this to some teals and I just hope someone runs with it. I think it's a really cool idea. But I would like, um, while the broadcast is running, or maybe like as in one of the gap days, but you know, like when you, when the players are having a rest or whatever, you have a, like kind of a red zone and it's all of the best bits of all of the course screens. Nice. And then what you did, so you're obviously then promoting the course streamers, but you're also potentially, let's say like, ah, ah, a course streamer, one of those guys that have 200 viewers and something really funny happens or he makes a really good observation or whatever it is and you fold it into the highlight show because it's like, you should be saying to people, look, you don't just have to watch the official broadcast here. We're going to do it traditional sports style. We've got commentators. We've got an analysis desk because you don't even have that in, I'll see us anymore, but whatever. But if that's not your style and you want to watch it, you know, in a more casual setting, we've got XQC. We've got this guy. We've got that. You know, we've got her. We've got this. Cool. Like, just promote that shit and make a party. You're pulling all the numbers at the end anyway. You're getting the rate. They have to promote your sponsors. That's part of the agreement. So I don't understand the reticence for the model because this idea that we pay for the, we pay for the broadcast, we pay for the tournament. So it, you shouldn't get the free content. It's like, then it's not like they're not giving something back to you. You take their numbers. They give you their reach. People that would watch XQC watching LCS don't necessarily watch LCS, you know? So it's, it's, again, it's, it's so crazy. Well, the way I do think what you just said there was the flaw in the thinking. You just outlined it there. I do think before they thought, again, we only want to succeed. I don't think that is an outline to carry out gap between what they thought and what was reality. I think, yeah. The way, I'm sure there's a popular opinion on this call. We're very biased in the sense of what we're doing. We're going to be doing a lot of things. The first few years, it was incredibly difficult to push forward any new ideas or critique. I would not say that about the last couple years. Again, we can all point in laugh as to why or ascertain as the relevance of what wasn't what it once was. Personally, I find it a lot more rewarding to work on the space now. The only analogy I can give is if I win a title with an unlimited budget, way less rewarding than winning a title with a small budget. It is fun to try to make the most of the scenario that it is now, but we can only look on and scorn as to the missed opportunities of 2014-17, for sure. It's a brand new year here in 2026. If you're looking for some personal improvement, you might look at your grooming routine, if you're a man, and who can help you with that? Well, of course, it is Mando. They offer a variety of body washes and deodorants and other men's grooming products. This is their whole body deodorant. I really like the bourbon leather scent or the clover wood scent personally. 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New customers get 20% off-site wide with our exclusive code. That is Horsemen. So, thank you guys very much and thank you to Mando for continuing to sponsor our show. So, I want to talk about the business realities of League of Legends eSports and the LCS. Recently, the head of business over at T1 has come out and publicly stated that it's very difficult, you know, very few of the teams are profitable right now. During the pandemic, we know that Riot, I mean, you're not going to be able to comment on this, but we know that Riot was increasing payments to the teams because there was a bit of a crisis and there used to be a flat stipend that was given. Riot has since announced that basically the reason why they were getting rid of some of the franchise teams in the league and reducing the number of leagues worldwide was that there were too many professional teams to divide the amount of money that was being the revenue that was being generated, which is very reasonable, I think, to say that. And they've kind of switched their system over towards. Do a lot of that though, because that's actually a really good shot to move on to. I'm not getting enough for this pie, kick to people, give me an option. I know, which also applies in the face of Riot messaging for a decade of. We're going to grow the pie for everybody, which is one of the stupidest fucking analogy. Growing the pie has to be one of the most bullshit, corporate buzzwords imaginables, fucking garbage, anyway. By the way, also, just as a random shout out, if any of you just happen to be watching, the jokers, you pro players don't even watch content yourselves, that sort of system. But shout out to every pro who participated in the LCS player walk out two years ago, over NACL salaries. Now, you get paid in NACL salaries. How did that work out? Last time in the history of the fucking spot to do a player walk out guys, well done, but anyway, just a shout out. But the realities of esports business right now for Riot is they're trying to switch the model where the skins, like the skin lines that are advertised during international events now contribute part of that revenue into a shared global revenue pool, which, you know, they deter basically after the revenue all goes in, they will give it to the teams. This is different than the set stipends that were given to teams previously, where there was kind of like a known amount for being a franchise team that was inside of the team agreement. I know you're not going to be able to comment on this pop up because you are in fact bound by confidentiality clauses on this. But I'm telling people in a theoretical universe where, you know, now we've changed this fundamental model because you have to remember last year was the year that all of this, like the new contracts went into effect, right? And so Riot has drastically changed the payment model because they are trying not to lose money. It's my understanding. And again, you don't have to comment on this pop up. It's my understanding from talking to not Riot. I know you're watching this from not talking to pop up smoothie from talking to other people, guess who they are, that basically the mandates from 10 cent have come down. And they have said you need to cut costs on this esports nonsense. And so that's why you guys are seeing a lot of the changes that are taking place from the business. So by the way, that's one area I do have mild sympathy for Riot. Okay, you have to like reverse all these bad trends and build the viewership. But you got less money to do. Yep. Okay. I mean, not chance to be a fine thing. I thought the four. And it's my understanding that daddy 10 cent is doing this. You know, they are, they're taking a more direct hand in this. And you can see 10 cent themselves doing it, such as the, you know, they were responsible for the LPL English broadcast. That wasn't Riot's responsibility. They weren't paying for that. And that has been cut by 10 cent directly. And then Riot, you know, opted to pay for that for a limited amount of time afterwards before kind of kicking it back to the fans. So as a team, Papa, now you have less competition now with the LCS size reducing. But sponsorships are still tough to get in this space. Esports winter still has had a chilling effect, right? How is it operating as a business within the world of low eSports right now? You know, part of this isn't Riot's fault at all. It's like the realities of eSports winter were, we can partially blame Riot too. But it was also all the other developers fault. It was a collective failure. And it was also the economic reality of kind of like the value of money and like. Yes. And also venture capital race. I mean, the reason why VC dried up mostly guys was because when interest rates were close to zero, there wasn't a good way to actually invest money a lot of the time outside of taking these like venture capital fund moon shots on tech companies. When interest rates rose, there became much more safe places to slowly and with less risk, you know, grow the value of your investment. And so that's why we saw a dialing back and then also the right obviously the collapse of the promise of eSports, the collapse of the viewership of eSports. It was really the lack of explosive growth that was anticipated, you know, just like a tech company, people thought like. Here's our bet that eSports is going to become the next NFL just like ex, you know, this new company is going to become the next Uber or whatever. And when that failed to materialize, at least at the rate that people wanted to, they put their investments elsewhere. Now it's all AI, you know, venture capital, what little there is left is all tied up in only AI basically. But without that growth, you know, a lot of the sponsors, you know, haven't been willing to come back, you know, with Overwatch League, we had Coca-Cola. And there is this bet from the sponsors as well that this is going to be something that had grown. And it in fact, you know, arguably has decreased on the whole. Yeah, I mean, you just have to look at when the LCS franchising was in the middle of 2017. It was obviously when, and I wasn't around for this, so I can at least speak from the outside of how I observed it, it was, you know, obviously it was around the time. Overwatch was trying to shake, try to get franchise partners as well. And if you try to perspective take where we are in 2017 and what kind of like headwinds there are, like at that time the MLBAM kind of platform and media rights was like, the BAM tech deal was either announced or about to be announced. For a context for people who don't know about this part of League of Legends history, MLB as in Major League Baseball had their own media platform and it was announced that there was a $300 million media rights deal between Riot and this platform. This deal never materialized Disney bought MLB the BAM tech platform and then nothing happened. And so I'm not sure if any money was actually ever paid to anyone as a result of that. Yeah, I'm not sure. But obviously the actual platform never launched right. So at that point, you're buying a franchise spot, you know, as Twitch viewership is only growing with media rights, one of the core kind of like revenue things for any sport, basically baked or at least, you know, they even knew about it. It was the announced what was about to be announced like it would have been at the water cooler right. And the categories that were available, you know, most traditional at the idea that your franchise is going to give, you know, both endemics and nonendemics more confidence in investing and partnering with you, so partnerships and esports is only going to swell at that time. Obviously a lot of people getting into sponsoring esports teams for the first time in 2018, 19 knowing that teams are going to have a minimum amount of games and be relevant for years and not be relegated like the headwinds your kind of setting a multi year partnership. I don't know how if that was ever publicly released how long that partnership was like that was that was that was a very different world to the new model, which is the GRP model that all reasons have taken on the easiest way to explain is that obviously a lot of those categories didn't bear fruit. There was no media rights deals anymore, and if they were the economics would have been different with that on top of fire without media rights deals riot was internally creating their own streaming platform, which during the riot layoffs a couple years ago was actually canceled. So the new promise to teams was that hey, we're going to have our own platform, right, and this is going to be much more lucrative because it's a first party practice than twitch and that went away as well. Yeah, so given that the media rights landscape didn't happen rights till actually has some very, very impressive partnership deals, you know, league wide with big partners, so at least they have that. But in terms of like, you know, new and bringing new endemics this space because you guys were talking about bringing new like new logos, we've actually been very lucky this year and have unannounced at the moment, but soon to announce like big new partnerships were proud of, but that doesn't seem to be. A very common thing and maybe that's just because of our recent success, I know you guys are always kind of bringing new partners to so it's different world than 2017 for sure. So when you look at what riot is now saying teams the GRP model it's hey, we really know how to sell skins in our game that's like something we're good at we've always been good at that. How about we create certain skins timed around significant esports moments and you guys help sell those to your fan base because coming from you it's going to be like a different voice than coming just from from us that's like absolutely a believable thing. And I do think that the current model of let's help that that's that esports teams sell league of legends is actually a very meaningful change that sounds subtle to most viewers because actually teams don't have that we can't just sell team of shirts right like that's like riot IP. So like selling league of legends like TSM I don't think was selling legal legends they were selling TSM if you know what I mean but TSM could have sold legal legends right as their fucking game. So that main game and now at least the incentives are aligned in that like flyquast is selling league of legends and that's part of our marketing requirements of our GRP pool based in game sales based kind of like mechanic that's at least those things are aligned. So at least that's like to me the model this model does make intuitive sense but of course the specifics and other numbers higher and lower enough like we can always do with more money that's just like a reality right but I don't think that I think that riot is is thinking about things in the right way and it's a model that you can look at and be like. Skins are going to continue to sell for years selling skins in 2029 as a real thing whereas if we're still media rights based the media rights deal isn't coming seems to be the reality there. By the way being as this isn't just the state of LCS is the state of League of Legends I actually do think the T1 let me see to head of business development the guy you're referring to Monty I actually think his statement at the end is super significant I'll just read it out quickly it says only a handful of teams are currently profitable but profitability is not impossible still high player salaries and content production costs have locked teams into a high cost structure the pressure to deliver short term results is immense. In the long run teams must move beyond sponsorship dependency beyond it fucking T1 saying this by the way and establish this is the key phrase B2C based revenue models which people don't know to where the business sells directly to the customer so essentially this case things like skins and the merchant things you can have essentially what every other spot lives off now what I think is so telling about that paragraph is this is the guy who's team won the world championship last few years this is the guy who has the most watched team in League of Legends And he isn't from the LCS with all failing viewership he is from the region that has doubled their viewership from a few years ago that has higher peak viewership that has more viewing hours even they've even managed to do it over more over things they've done all the things that LCS couldn't do and what he's essentially saying in my opinion there if I break down that statement read between the lines the first part is basically saying T1 is the most successful team we are and of course to profit but I would even take a guess that when he says teams can be he means some character middle of the pack team that's perfectly maxed it and they've like you know paid not much salaries because they don't have great players but they ended up I'm a decent roster and they've gotten just high enough from just enough things so essentially if you want the CS equivalent from everyone remembers a couple years ago the ends of League of Legends in this analogy by the way it's always a bad side when the most successful team in terms of business is not the fucking one that wins all the world championships as the biggest boss viewed player and all the sponsors and then that was also good as well there's another good one and then and then here's another thing if you are yourself T1 and you're saying we really have to move beyond sponsorship dependent like brought you are fucking T1 everyone currently thinks every idiot on reddit that you don't have to worry about money because you're just get to access the big T1 million brilliant screwdriver which isn't even true at all that every business was on some level just to fight self if not at least as marketing or some complimentary business so I found that to be very significant because to me that last sentence isn't even for fans or even me reading it that last sentence basically says yeah everything purpose with you just said is accurate I like the direction is going in but we can't wait to just sell our world skins and sell the odd legacy skin basically give us access tomorrow to make our own carrier product to make our own fake a thing to make our own is an idea maybe it could be like a hub subsite within the client if you'd say one fan you go to and you buy T1 gay and as the YouTube videos embedded in it as a fan club you just there's a million things which I assume all these people the creative juices would get flowing if they had access to but unfortunately it feels like they just really slowly open in that valve to let the odd drip out and there essentially say we need a we need to dab to break tomorrow. I mean there is a way for there to be a circuit for legal agents to be incredibly profitable for e-spot teams like of course that international events are very popular are profitable right Papa like I think about you know if you want if I think about kind of like what the circuit could be then of course there's ways for a small amount of teams in every region to be very profitable yes and the game and but that's like a choice right like I think from my experience with riot for the longest time and maybe they can't sell for this anymore. There go was the more people that can be gainfully employed in legal agents e-spots in the world the better which is absolutely a noble way to look at. Instead of having giant prize balls like daughter they had stipends for basic pause they didn't know they don't have any principles the funnel was different yes. Like that was what they were solving for before which like is a noble thing to sell for but I sure that I remember I was fighting with riot in 2020 about tier 3 legal agent looks like I'm you know I love tier 2 and tier 3 I always care about developmental platforms and the viewpoint from riot was success in tier 3 was the most possible players earning a full time salary from praying tier 3 legal agents and I was on the other side being like. Is that good like it's is that progress like is that actually like the win condition or is that what we should be solving for that seems very fanciful like was kind of how I felt at that time and so there's absolutely a different type of circuit you know the question of like what would legal legends be like with a CS like circuit is always going to be a fun thing to ask whether it was Arnold or the T1 business develop I think it's just Arnold he even says similar things of like you know if all categories are allowed to be sold it's well known that riot kind of picks and choose which categories teams are allowed to take you know hard liquor for example is not allowed category if Korean teams could have so do sponsors that will probably be pretty lucrative there's an intuitive link there but that's that's not a general is the largest alcohol manufacturer in the world guys so yes very lucrative for the Korean teams to have such a spot and this is all stuff that we think about and like soot say on all the time right so and again by the way that would also fit in with what we're saying about it's an adult game as well but if you could have faker it a really ball of classy commercial feel like soot you that select OK let's say commercials right now and career by the way so if people don't know like obviously North American counter strike is not in a great place on any metric there is in the team winning events and there isn't like a lot of teams that are paying livable wages either what would if team liquid was you know three or four players out of five North American and winning tournaments but there was only two other teams that were paying kind of like livable wages but there was like wow they they're winning why can't I win like if there was a lot of people playing online tournaments in ESCA and kind of like there was a lot of viewership for any domestic games kind of like MLG 2012 vibes and legal margins is that a good ecosystem by riots definition for the answer would have been no whereas for me I'm like oh but like a lot of people excited about it theoretically there's receptive eyes probably without a lot of spending power who are watching things that's good for viewership metrics and YouTube shorts and like maybe over time this will get where it needs to go but that's never been what for yeah I mean any counter strike candidate go the same way as any league really I mean first of all it was very similar at how it was constructed a lot of the top streamers with the top players sometimes streamers went on to become pro players you know like guys like Tarek and stuff if you remember him from the no shirt days and like what ended up happening there unfortunately was a complete lack of commitment by the team owners like what they started doing was they wanted to create franchise leagues before we ended up with franchise leagues and then pretend franchise leagues but they wanted to create the jokers if right and create franchise leagues NA orders would have done it anywhere yeah exactly they did yeah and and so you had that problem and then the next issue was they they would like so they would do it sale will have a team now for this event and then as soon as you know there wasn't an immediate return on the investment they got they would publicly go out and say things like yeah it's just not an economy for counter strike there's no way to make money on having a counter strike team I mean complete bullshit because we're doing it in Europe they're just fucking nonsense what you know the problem with American team owners in every e-sport is they always want to do it on fucking easy mode they want guaranteed revenue they want access to all the top talent they want other people's money to spend like they were also driving that Ferrari themselves which had the Ferrari of all the ins and sponsorships with Europe had like half the amounts yeah they also pissed that away yeah yeah and and and of course they want a guaranteed league that they can never drop out of and will always be invited to and will always play and it's like guys this is too much this is super unrealistic isn't how sports operates you might have a couple in America that maybe do meet for out of those five things but like even then that's pushing it and by the way those ones all have strong robust union protections for the players unlike e-sports but that's a sidebar but anyway the the reason counter strike in an a essentially died off was because first of all the org started pulling out going we regret that we will have to leave CS's we just can't make money from it then whenever a major came around stick a money shit okay good we might make three million dollars like for nothing for just fielding the ship team let's get a team in again and then they and then they don't qualify and they go out three months later sorry we're out again TSM did that a bunch I don't know why anyone would be excited about TSM coming to counter strike when TSM fumbled the number one team in the world anyway and just didn't give a fuck about the game except when it was a means to pay the bills then obviously ESL fucked over the the open come in American orgs by just literally stealing slots that they don't through qualification and then selling them to European people so they could create a franchise league which was outrageous so that's pretty much steamy the feeder talent and then obviously all of the people that had personality that could play at a pro level they realize they could just be streamers now and make more money for less effort and and eventually go on to be core streamers of all of our big events now they can just sit there and smoke Zazaar all day and just get paid for it so why the fuck not so that's what that was essentially the implosion of CS in any among with some other things and that's pretty much what happened a league and it was right there right there you had all of the elements you needed to succeed and again it's like a combination of short sightedness avarice and just I don't know what's wrong with North American owners when it comes to e-sports I don't know I don't I can't figure them out I don't understand how their brains operate in such a ridiculous way compared to everywhere else in the world I think I can I can I think about these days it might be tangentially related Richard is obviously I always want to look at success stories in other regions and try to understand what I can learn and bring back to to my or go to my region and the the brands you look at that is T1 that obviously is like a unique unicorn case of like incredible legacy across all like competitive gaming in Korea for 25 plus years you know the biggest a player bigger than the game etcetera etcetera so it's hard to like take too much from them apart from like really you know the brand building they did around ZO FGK was very very smart again playing into idle culture in that country but like the more relevant ones or more recent ones are common core mad mad coy and loss returns and I do think that one thing that North America struggles with is what one thing that I can't recreate is having a French fan base with French communication in a this like geo located fan base or at least like language separated fan base that to really resonates with a project that like is very much like the market is segmented in a very intelligent way I think market segmentation for LCS teams is super super hard right you're all in you're all in LA all the all the events are you know offline LA LA market is very saturated also the LA attention span you know in a TikTok generation is going to be what is the new hotness like what I'm you're competing with an unlimited amount of global content in English and also local opportunities and opportunity cost of watching LA sports is extremely high compared to kind of like the authenticity of big streamers speaking to their own market in a way that's like very very much segmented you guys probably don't know this one of the most interesting things I learned was about the rise of French eSports and Commetto you know towards the end of that story and what I didn't know is back in the day I'm going to cast your mind back to 2012 2013 eSports if you guys were watching legal legends at all you remember that CLG streaming channel on owned three own 3d was shared between the different players right like double if we do a four hour you know stream and then he would host or at least I don't know hosting didn't exist but you know he'd be replaced by big fat LP would be replaced by Chaucer like it was like and then at that time you know it led to the points where you guys probably remember when like oh no it wants to stream when Birxon streaming and things like that but specifically for CLG it was very much there's one channel you don't get to control who's on it like if you know in the right time zone you're not going to get double it because obviously he's asleep and this next CLG streamer hasn't herited it what I learned was that actually the French kind of eSports stream the French eSports never left that and like streamer culture has been like that the whole time it wasn't like everyone had their own stream there was this kind of like radio channel kind of version of it where you like flowed from one to the other to the other and that's why Commetto was able to bring so many fans to League of Legends because he just had this fan base that was experience being transferable to whatever kind of like was like exactly the water call like that Commetto stream was the water call of eSports and it happened to be League of Legends I don't know if anybody has brought more eSports fans to an older product than Commetto bringing French fans to League of Legends in 2021 too you know like 2020 like that that's if you could find that number it would be tens and tens of thousands of people he has brought to a mature and minimal that's that's super super cool like the latest example of that would be like heated rivalry bringing new fans to NHL theoretically no one knows how that's going to go but like that's like bigger a culture moment translating into viewers of like an old project and I look at kind of like because we'll use cake up as an example and obviously you know we want to cake up recently and I'm sad about that but regardless like cake up is like a really interesting example to look at because recreating that when you can't market segment in the same way is hard I actually felt this on the product side I know if you guys have ever experienced the product side but on the products I guess flashpoint was probably competing with ESL Pro League at some point and that was probably some like kind of like why this told us what yeah I just meant like you know Europe versus North American time zone kind of stuff there but the reason why I bring it up is I used to cast the OPL when I was doing like the Australian League while I was casting the Chinese League when I was in Australia just because we did both projects and like why would anyone watch the Australian League when they could watch the LCK at exactly the same time in English and it was normalized to watch in English they'll just watch the better league and I think that sort of stuff for North America to segment is hard and my latest shower though I don't know how you guys will react to this maybe it's coke maybe it's smart by the way just as an aside I do love I this is like I'm getting a perverse ink vibe out of this remember what I just said earlier 10 years ago the same conversation this show would be how will Europeans ever come out you're right you're right because we're segmented and people in France for example can already access a French yeah yeah you're right whereas actually jack from cloud nine connects us the whole continent so he's going to win forever and the joke is you're now making the opposite conflict of like what do you get me into a tiny market there's only four people have a stream and they have all the viewers shit like I love it yeah I mean you're right you're right there's probably a learning that can be reversed applied here right like I'm not saying I'm I'm ahead of the curve I'm just trying to look at the curve is that is the one thing that I've been this it's like affected me so I probably see it when other people don't is like my LCS winning team was the team that had no no North American players or coaches on it right and everyone was like basically like fuck this you know people hated it if you know what I mean like people people really do it was really not popular when it was framed that way of like there's this is a problem basically it was the way is framed I find it's so fascinating that common court has only two European players this year one French player obviously the French player happens to be a generational talent which is very very helpful and the owner is you know a goat of French culture or even above esports culture like he's like a massive celebrity in France but there's no like oh they like swapped Boussia's residency to European just to make this lineup work with two Koreans and a third import and a Swedish person and a French person they still note they're coming into our team we are common court these are like our rituals this is what kind of players we bring this is what we expect it's very much like a fan base that's like as long as you like march to the beat of our drum we are super down to roll with you is like how it looks at and my suspicion on that rather than just being sitting there and being salty because that's not productive is I feel like in the early days of North American League it would be like I want to watch TSM at Worlds and if TSM doesn't make it to Worlds I'm not gonna watch Worlds but over time with you know the legacy brands you guys are talking about TSM CLG etc falling away and new teams trying to build a brand and not being able to take advantage of trends or kind of like segment a market etc it instead became I'm a North American fan and I want to see North American players do well at Worlds and I'm not seeing enough of those and I don't have any allegiance to any specific team like I would assume that a lot of LCS fans in 2025 compared to 2015 have no favorite team and they're just supporting North America and thus the representation comes to the front yeah certain way because it's like I don't know the names and logos change every year wish there was more North American players when I watched the international event is very different to like I'm a TSM Ultra and I just want to see TSM do well and if they if you sign for TSM I'm gonna ride with you right to the end like the sort of vibe you get from like you know this you'll know this reference throwing the man United guy what's his name Mark Oldbridge you know where it's very much like sure you know like I don't agree with this signing but he's man United now so I'm riding with them to the end or I fuck this guy when he leaves you know like that just isn't that kind of fandom in North America and I see that as a problem and it's something that I've identified it's something that I want to fix it's something that I want to try to do better about for FlyQuest in in 2026 but it's a very very tricky tricky thing to do and I see it as like an aspirational thing to be like how can I without language advantage or market segmentation segment to market and I hope fans can hold us to a high standard of trying to do that like if we just don't do it and then just wait then yeah we could win and thus be popular but you want your brand to be to lead to ride or dies that currently I think are harder and harder to get in the English speaking world. By the way one thing you've nailed there actually I'll tell you right now I may and once you do this thing where we just tell you what we do and what our techniques are just everyone else thinks we're dickheads and they're not copying the technique and therefore the joke is LFN has a million times more sponsors than the fucking LCS broadcast which probably has more viewership so one of the things that you're talking about here is you said it all there mate right so the viewership of LEC itself is it also relies on things like casual turning stream on the success of M.Coy of K.C. is like A.B.I. is Kometo right the reason why that works the reason why you create zealots ultra fans who are just fans even like I'm of this blitter the joke is that like you're saying that in the old in North America someone was a fan of double if so they followed it from CLG to TSM to Team Liquid they're gonna fuck about TSM when he left the joke is as you said I think even if Calist left K.C. they'd sort of go you know what I wish you well but sort of fuck you in fact it was coming in now we got now with K.C. you're right they're loyal to K.C. more than Calist who's French even a French fan I think what you're nailing here is people don't want to be fans of faceless corporations they want to be connected in via the personality of A.B.I. of casual of Kometo and then that gives them a reason to care because as you say this is the key thing I think here I understand totally why Riot fucked with em cause V.C.T. spot if A.B.I. isn't the one turning the stream on because actually that is what people on some level are getting into the game via and watching for they're not just watching for the game and hopefully abys there too I think that is a key aspect was unfortunately a lot of actually like said earlier they did originally in Riot wanted to you are a fan of the L.C.S. and you're just a fan of and it's the old American spot thing of like you're just a one of the team you know I was like in the modern day people don't connect in the same way a by the way the reason this is obvious to me is coming from my spots background in England like when I was a boy it doesn't matter how shit like the Sunderland team is met everyone will be a fan of Sunderland in that area when I got to be like 30 so 50 years ago when I was 30 every kid even in our town would have a messy shirt on and I'd be going are you Spanish or something I imagine say no it's the local kid because the modern kids just follow their friends follow whether they follow the pot they follow the pot yeah that's what they're attached to they're not attached to the team in the same way in fact as you they do the opposite they'll support it if it's good if isn't and fucking I'm not even from there here in that sense you know yeah I mean like we got we got we call them obviously glory supporters and in like mainstream sports and it's obviously a practice that's generally frowned upon you know like but but don't come all the scene as well in in school I thought about the term glory fans in a long time Richard but you're right actually yeah that's the funny thing brought back then it was a dis if you were the money united kid put in our area in the northeast now everyone would be the money well not now well they'd be the man city fan now everyone's a man city fan and it was incredible watching it kind of like happened because you know obviously again I'm a new castle fan where I grew up it was pretty much divided between well what in the northeast I should say it was pretty much divided between you castle Sunderland in the middle where it was kind of like a bit of a melange less middle sprig and then I moved to middle sprig and I was a new castle fan of middle sprig which was lots of fun but ultimately when I was at school I was watching like you know we you had the all degeneration of glory support in Liverpool fans and then it was the united fans and that Chelsea got more by a Brahmavitch and all the money started going into that team and they started getting all these all like together that Chelsea fans for that yesterday wherever yeah fucking Chelsea fan in the northeast window you fucking dizzy like what the fuck is this but there was a lot of Chelsea fans and then you know and a few Arsenal fans popped up because obviously they played fantastic football and now it's like not really thought of as a as a thing in football people generally just support you know the team that like they vibe with and just coincidentally the team they vibe with as a child will very often happen to be the best team right now the the when when you buy the ticket and take the ride with with a sports team though it's great if you pick them when you're a kid you win in every week you get to go into school and say fuck you to all your friends and all of that stuff it don't last forever you know I'm a I fucked myself in the late eighties because my NFL team is red is I picked the old and then you picked an NFL team in the eighties as a British person in late eighties that was a big push to sell out the felter Britz another and you used to be on channel four and they pay they partnered up with a popular tabloid called the Daily Mirror yeah which was basically what working class people read is opposed to the sun yeah which you know the scumbag the real as Richens origin stories a bit like the movie yeah yeah yeah well thanks why did you choose them was because they were winning so what was all of the rich kids had 49ers jerseys because that was the team at the time got it and they were the glory supporters and so they were all walk around school with the jaw Montana on their back I chose my NFL team for a stupid reason to I'll be interested here why Duncan chose his but yeah what's in Australia I was at college writers HDTV for broadcast started and we had like an HD projector or something and like you would turn on the trust your channel didn't have cable and the and almost nothing was in HD you know everything was in like 480 I or whatever like low res kind of like stuff was there actually the only thing that was broadcast in HD was the NFL in the mornings in Australian time zone so I actually chose the New Orleans Saints because their stadium looked amazing in HD that was the reason I chose like wow that's like that looks cool it justifies the purchase of this projector I guess and then drew breeze seemed cool and they actually won the like the year later but yeah I just chose it because of how the stadium looked like an aesthetic choice which got flies against how I choose my other teams but I was just like the random variables that led to an Aussie choosing an NFL team at all I mean Duncan do you have a team or I know you I know you like water backs and stuff like that is the thing I don't have a team so you're the problem so I would kind of like oh my god that's because I came to the NFL later in life so the few years I'm only loyal to my family my kin and my people beyond that fuck yeah I already want to see the best play so the second my foot like the joke is I just watch the Steelers decision because they're Rogers with the yeah he said he says this but he's all he always had a soft basically principally to massive air and Rogers I know that and and second of all he always had a soft spot for the packers for that but I'll hear the perpetrator there you go I'm also incredibly spiteful to have anyone but to put a put a bow on the put a bow on the like the hundred thieves Casey thing is like I look at that and I'm like fuck we failed at our like social media marketing content strategy to not build a hundred these legal legends fandom that would withstand kind of these like you know Excel spreadsheet nationality things and I I look at Casey and like I'm jealous of what they've been able to achieve you know like that's how I look I'm not like salty about or anything I'm like fuck that that was the missed opportunity that we did that didn't allow us to success to be received because I'll be honest like hundred thieves kind of like you know obviously I left them a year later but in general the like bit of sweetness of winning and not being appreciated for it definitely was one of the reasons that influenced the changes of spending in League of Legends for the work you know people want to be loved people want to be supported and things like that and so that I take ownership of that even if like my job was not like marketing officer or something like that. 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there's it rumours there's going to be league 2 except it's just like CS 2 to be a transition from league currently with the skins to now remember Monti again I must have been in Guantanamo Bay there being tortured because I was told for the last 10 years we didn't need a league 2 we didn't need a better graphical UI we didn't need to update the clients that these things were all fine and in fact you're an idiot if you said of these things so I'll tell you what I think is rich as fuck about this Monti is I'll give everyone a quick lesson only virtual appreciated there because a really old example when source came out in 2005 or whatever it was one of the main motivating reasons seen what all the source people said why we had to switch to source wasn't it's better in these ways it's because guys we're not going to get people to watch an old ass video game that was coded in 1999 right let me just put that in context CS retail came out in 2000 this was 2005 five year span right League of Legends came out in 2009 and more officially like I'd say like 2010 2011 the east what circuit began technically in 2011 we're talking about it's 2026 now and you're going to go to league 2 that's how long you've squandered that chance to do an update now the reason I'm saying this is real news but I'm going to type to an angle you might not want to run with I'll stoop myself is I have always told Monti another area League of Legends was absurd in throwing away their advantage is compared to games like Counter Strike which you will know all of them on this call you don't have to play Counter Strike now to still be able to watch it in fact there are people from other esports who've never played Counter Strike who watch it and in fact it is probably the number one game that's a gateway for general esports fans to go wow canico a bit like what on a pixel did with all of recently we discovered another game he could start getting to quickly without knowing them in ocean enjoy the bigger picture so when you are in this scenario one of the things that I think is really mad is you have a if you come to League of Legends essentially what I was going to say was they used to have an enormous player base in League and the actual even though we had crazy viewership like five of the game that was nothing compared to the giant power people playing the game the conversion of people watching the game wasn't very good and I always told Monti as someone who's an outside person coming in but very knowledgeable about esports and watching esports again what games like Brutal that I didn't play at a high level I'm not some of them Counter Strike and quick the most jarring thing about League always was how all to the client always fucking look even with that shitty little graph walked in whatever it was 2016 or something they made them the rift look a bit better it was always really janky and the worst thing about the game was the visibility of what is happening and the intuitive fail of what is like for example I used to tell Monti Brut you a fan at home will never know Micheals was activated they'll never be able to see it they'll never know that that one the fight carry a doing the Micheals onto this guy right isn't a big enough so meanwhile some spells would have a massive graphical thing that were just auction that did nothing and there was no rhyme or reason that daughter by the way itself is mega out did but at least they've done some updates on the engine and at least their game I would actually say I think it's a lot want you to figure out when someone does the BKB or does an old etc I've always thought that is one of the hardest things about League because unlike games like Counter Strike it isn't easy to instantly say and see what's happening I always have even pointed out this is just a random sighting but to show how difficult this is I'll tell you how everyone can get the experience of of the information overlord and how hard it is to pass does anyone remember back in the day again like 10 years ago some of the early highlight clips in League people did this thing that sadly didn't become a trend where when you would show a highlight of a real game but it was like a 10-minute highlight package what you would do is at the beginning of each highlight segment you would pause the screen for one second and really quickly put a box around who I'm meant to watch so I'm afraid break down and stuff like that that stuff like that was that was a skill that was a skill I know that like as a caster I don't know if Monty I'm sure Monty intuitively did the same thing but so I always kind of tried to do is I would when a team fight was coming up I would intuitively know like whose life is the most important you know what's still the most important and so I would always key the viewer in the replay I would almost start almost every replay with watch the twitch because when the twitch chooses to open up or not yes is going to decide the fight kind of thing like that's yes because you because you like you're saying like it's not quite Overwatch where literally it's like you know color being vomited on a screen like you do have to still say like look here and you'll see how we'll play out here's the obvious analogy when I watched the line of screenbridge in the NFL another incredibly information that's getting I watch where the balls going don't I don't have to worry about this guy to what if there was no ball and I to intuitively know where to work as you're saying essentially I need you to live translated for me but the game itself has a lot of problems I still think in that regard so now them potentially going to update and do graphical thing I hope that is an area there actually genuinely going to like put a lot of effort into because I do think that's another area where league I think essentially got a lot of its viewership from a tiny conversion from an enormous success of a casual game but I think it's going to be very hard to build up viewership without certain things I need ability in game has also gotten worse with more champions you know and I think it's the readability of League of Legends has deteriorated over time I wouldn't say in well there was that part of a bunch. Are you ready for something mad you might not know much because you haven't been in the game as much or people have even said this actually happened thanks to fucking purpose player inspired the other joke is even modern pros sometimes don't know what an old champion does brought there's too many champions so there's actual pro players that when no one was played by inspired didn't know what the fuck was going on there they were like top pro Korean pros me like there was people like legendary player so there's another problem if I wasn't a fan in 2011 one's when someone plays team on the game there's so come here how do I and I immediately figure that out that's a problem we have as a sport no you have that in the NFL is nothing I think League of Legends solved from the start for novelty I like fast balance changes lots of you know costume changes I will say to your point Duncan there's some new skins were literally like set looks exactly like oodyear you know what I mean like I look at it and I'm like because you guys remember back in the day used to be like this skin is banned because like you know the that's kind of hook is invisible like this you know the lot of years too small on the skin like I do think we've kind of like move past that and we just saw in the sales which is what it is. But coming back I think league is always because like that the thing that league had is like I remember sitting with you guys I think even you were there for in Duncan in like 2014 and being like is league the first forever game because like they very much didn't want to release you know a true change and there has been seismic graphic updates in the game that did not involve a name change you know like that has that has happened not for a long time now so this this they're not changing the name for when it's worth yeah so to all of that what I would say is I think that League of Legends like found a way to use novelty to get a lot of in-game purchases happening and then the tradeoff of focusing on novelty i.e. I can watch dust two games in Counter-Strike two years ago when I hadn't been following Counter-Strike and it's the game I played at a LAN cafe with my friends in Dubai in 2001 and it's like oh it's dust two I remember that if you take a two-year break from League of Legends and come back you're like yeah even the characters I remember aren't even doing exactly the same things I remember also well especially now with the seasons pop up yeah they introduced all these new objectives and so like it's great that the play it's changed I would I would posit not knowing this never told this by a right executive that like they if you told them like hey you saw for novelty and you got lots more in-game you know purchases but the e-sport was way less readable and the when you when you turn from the game which is like the game the like game development phrase of like you're no longer playing it regularly or not logging in for a long time you like churn hard you know it's hard to come back it's hard to come back and play it's hard to come back and watch I think they probably would have been happy with their choice that they they backed a horse in that race but the horse definitely hurts the the readability of the e-sport a lot that's why you needs good casters to translate it it's kind it's kind of a weird one because Delta went through a very similar like overhaul like they made the map 30% bigger they added a new objective called tormentors they added a new mechanic is it relates all my data knowledge is from 2004 they updated the engine too right so yep it's certainly since since Papa was paying it 21 years a lot's changed they also gave they gave every hero in the game in a night in a night ability they also gave everyone in the game a new position for an item called a shot which gives them an ability they also gave them these things called facets which some heroes have three and it fundamentally changes the archetype and build path theoretically speaking some a dog shit and it's doing that and still releasing new heroes and yet bizarrely well first of all it's it as Duncan said it doesn't have the readability problems league does but bizarrely everybody seems to just be on board with it like you will get the players that like kind of malign oh it's not old don't know you've got kind of a little ground swell of a movement like like what people wanted a classic well yeah exactly they don't a classic is a very real whispered thing in certain you know communities whether or not valve would ever do that I doubt but I mean why not you know I mean if it's a way to make money but probably never happen but anyway the fans of the game just like yeah okay cool you know and I don't know if it's because of the way things implemented or if it is just the fundamental readability but I you know people dip in and out of competitive door all the time typically around the ti cycle and you can maybe even argue ti isn't spectacle it used to be because all the fucking prize money fetishists don't fucking rub a neck now that it's got just a normal prize pool what was the prize for the last internet I was like three hundred million yeah I was like yeah basically what happened was the community said we don't want you using FOMO tactics in the battle pass and we want and you know and I shouldn't have to get to rank 400 to get a limited additional carter so valve went okay cool yeah we'll make an esports themed one and everyone went I date this where are my hats where are my carters and nobody bought it nobody supported the teams and the prize pool went out massively yeah so but anyway all of it all of which is to say it is weird that in league people are like definitely tapping the fuck out and like I think a big part of it and again this is just to float it to you guys are honestly in any given patch in Dota you can you still play about 70 percent of the heroes right you know and and well that's also fundamental difference rich and riot no matter what they've said over the years clearly do design the game the way they want and in fact when people do things like Lenswops they alter the games you can't do it as much whereas actually daughter to me has always been more hands off in that sense to have like you figure it to sandbox you figure out what you want to architect it I would say Duncan like they're like this is good now you know what I mean like they can make a series of changes and then mages of back when maybe they hadn't been played for a year for sure yeah and and look it I will say this Dota has definitely been streamlined they have the game design philosophy and Dota these days is definitely about minimizing toxicity in game by removing obscure traditional aspects of the game like everyone gets a career now it's not like how it used to be like how the back in the old days right if you were a pos 5 which is what I play it you never touch the career if anybody touched the career within the first four minutes of the game when your mid needed to get regen out you were griefing I have to buy the career I used to have to buy the career with my gold I used to enable my maid to have a game and I would finish a game typically with brown boots that was that was a pos 5 life back in the day no everyone has a career so no one argues about the career right and it's like so there's definitely like fundamental game decisions that have streamlined the Dota experience but I think viewers it's still unbelievably complex and has a lot of complexity that league doesn't so it is interesting to see like people kind of like tapping out if they come back and go you know what's a dragon what's this what's that I forget I'm okay what's what what's this big purple thing yeah I'm out you know what I mean so it hasn't happened in total the thoughts about me when I watched watch when the movie so I mean I do think like the the upcoming stuff for League of Legends is is an interesting development in terms of like obviously I broke this a couple of years ago that they were working on massive visual updates and that they were what they have to they have to be I mean they were delayed but I think the question is from from a game perspective does this actually get new people to play the game my inclination is it doesn't because the complexity of 170 champions and also it's just mobs as a genre are not popular with young people so how does that let me let me float this is an idea could they ever do what activation blizzard did and go on staying would they ever do it this a long time I mean the obvious problem there is it feels like the control elements in another term do they want to be part of someone else's ecosystem blah blah blah you know I mean ultimately I mean like you know activation blizzard had the bite the bullet after mismanagement you think it does anything do you think it does anything Richard I feel I don't know visibility in steam is like I mean does limiting factor if it's a competitor to do that would be my concrete I mean put it this way but I don't give a shit there's a million more person there it'll never be they'll never be as promoted as much like if if Valve ever felt like they were worried about a competitor they've literally got the front page of the store they can do whatever they want with it they could put daughter out there you know whatever a new heroes released it's plastered all over there you know but for me I think it does do something increasingly what what's interesting about steam is it is becoming a place where almost like almost kind of a discord integration thing where people are like segmenting in the communities they're using forums they're talking to each other about the game on steam and people are playing the game because you know we've all got a friend's list we've all got friends you see your friend the game pop show by what he's playing this is you know I mean like I got all of my friends into our creators I was playing that it was like a you know I was a weight in the event when it launched I didn't get a plate day one but I'd seen the beta and I knew it was going to be fucking big and popping as soon as I got back about our creators bought a couple of copies from our friends and you know now we got like a regular group of us all playing it together I think discovery does matter because you get out people by the way who would never download the legal engines client or never consider it but they're going to see their friends playing legal engines popping up on steam they're going to see a legal engine steam you know page store I think it would bring new players in I think it's an interesting thing because what we actually get in league right now is you know new games effectively being added to the base legal legends client like TFT is in legal legends right and that's like a complimentary project but a auto battle is super different to MOBA and then in the current update there's like you know basically like a country's management you know civilite kind of like experience to adding and for sure they want people to spend the maximum amount of time in the client possible you know you play this like management sim and then you can't play anymore you run out of energy and it's like you should play a game of legal legends or TFT before you can do more things like for sure they want to maximize the amount of time you're in the right games client and I'm trying to like compare that to being in the steam client and buying new games which of course they get a revenue share from as to whether injecting that experience into steam like with the double friends list actually be a thing like you're right in that it can't hurt and I definitely have been around like general gaming enough to know like if a PC game comes out and it's not on steam did it even come out is like yeah the reality that look at the relaunch of on right I was super psyched about it that I heard it wasn't going to be on steam I and played it you know and it's like I fucking looked at you know games for windows and all these other stores apart from the epic store which again had Fortnite as a anchor client like also never took off so I totally get where you're coming from like there would be an amount of people but yeah I can't I can't visualize that breaking through doors and to the point of CS 2 like again like I played you know CS 1.5 1.6 and then down obviously I downloaded steam and thus played a little bit of the very very early days of source and go but when I understood like the fundamental change of the the smokes right which is like to me apart from the graphic update like that's like a very big change especially for the esport you're shooting through smokes the smokes you know the rock paper scissors of smokes and mollies and grenades I tried to think could you do a change like that in league that like hits everybody who plays the game that like would change the game in that way individual update that would like actually evolve the game rather than just a new fresh code of pay and I don't really know how you could recreate it you know I could change the map I mean if don't if don't it can pull out a map change in fucking you know 2025 like it's pretty you know I mean like that's the one thing that the classic three-line more but that's the one thing you don't fuck with I mean as it is I mean like you look at what they're doing over a deadlock that's the true little interesting moll but incubate on right now in my opinion you know you look at lots of the stuff they're trying over that they've made unreal wholesale changes to the game since it reluctantly came into the wink wink closed bit there the fight with the vibes embargo that they put in place like you can play just don't talk about it I mean Monty I ideally you know the legal legends update launches the same time as you know the sequel the sequel to arcane and something else I mean yes I mean it's clear that you know they're updating the client because the client needs to be updated and they want to have it more you know they want to bring in people like you guys are saying to more games so it's it's not just like league and then you know a ram you know these kind of games they're trying to add new many games to it they're trying to keep people in that ecosystem but the question is you know okay so we turn league into other stuff right and we turn it into TFT and that's all fine and dandy but is it actually putting people in the primary game of league of legends what's the on ramp well they said they're going to increase improve the tutorial but it's still the learning curve is insane like I said mobs are just not popular with young people there's no escaping that fact um is that there isn't a moba that is being played by high school kids or college kids these days does it exist so is this going to break through to them and then of that maybe one of the mobile ones I mean what about like mobile legends bang bang and all that it may be in Southeast Asia yes sure there's very very relevant there yeah sure uh but the point is is like how do we get from this stage of how do you get new blood into the game of league of legends when it's so hard at this point it's so intimidating to approach got another suggestion for you that and you can borrow from daughter what daughter they've done and I think this is fantastic uh they did uh crossover with the months to hunt the games yeah okay and right like so let's think about this conceptually in in moba you have to grind to acquire skills it takes lots of hours lots of practice lots of dedication if you've ever played the monster hunter games you know you can be in a boss fight for two fucking hours right and and and it resets because you know you didn't use a portion at the right time or whatever the fuck and you're doing that to grind for bones and skins and hides and sin you to make armor so you can go and be a bigger monster right and you're that's the game play loop in monster and moba fans and monster hunter players like that's a marriage made in heavens what a great bit of fucking yeah what what a great bit of market research valve have done there and so they've done this monster hunter um uh crossover where you have monster hunter themed sets for all you know most of the like the popular ones like snipers in there and images in there and dragon night is in there you know and and the unpopular ones like techies he's in there um what and what you what people are doing is it's definitely raised to playing hours in the number of players playing because you get dropped depending on who you kill in the game you get dropped items that you can then use to craft the sets and there's like four or five sets per hero that they've selected it's been fucking great now and I guarantee there are one and and I know because I have been playing some games where I have seen people coming in and they are not very good because you know the the matchmaking over in daughter is pretty shit I'll I'll say that but um I know it's bringing new people in and and it's that and so why can't legal legends hook up with an IP you know like a hot crossover would have been the one like I would have been sick because everybody misses the fucking guys like flint and all all the sick named heroes and new with heroes but find another game also crazy idea make like a small mini game that could be connected to an IP to call it arcade or something crazy and if that gets popular tie it into make people come in and get by the way a tooth quick things one thing also I did it set up earlier but I personally am cynical who knew who knew Tony served me well for the last 15 plus years just with legal legends alone but I cynically think the reason the shift magically changed to league next which remember was never going to exist ever we never had to look into it that's not a problem don't worry is because I think Jenny Winley Riot had the golden goose that was league and Riot has never been the one who goes I've got a golden goose Benedict care that they went ah fuck the goose ah it's now not even a golden one no problem I'm making another one it's called Valorant I'm gonna be bigger than CS well the joke is all the lessons as to why Valorant isn't bigger than CS by the way this is how Riot will fuck up a good time without fail you do realize till this day counter strike is irrelevant in Korea a massive viewing and playing country Valorant last year was something like the 5th biggest game with 7% share in the PC banks but Valorant isn't as big as CS I would postulate because Valorant has all the same sane problems and circuit problems that legal legends does because the same mother fucker is making the choices and decisions and using the same ideology and philosophy that caused late to stagnate and then die off that's why their game still doesn't have more viewers than fucking CS majors and CS in general which is supposed to have this inferior circuit so one I do think actually that when they realized Valorant wasn't the next league they realized fuck we better get back to the one league we did have which is legal legends and then the other thing I'll just throughout there is we're being actually almost too idealistic by thinking about how to grow the pie again I'll just put it in most dark terms and take it back in time a second wait a minute Korea has more viewers now than it ever did in League of Legends it is enormous but the biggest Korean orcs that come from a world that was tiny with Starcraft comparatively and the amount of money that was in the space they're saying the margins don't work now the real problem here is they're begging you on both ends like that T1 guy one please plug some of the leaks in the in the boat in this sense the bath in this analogy I guess and two turn on some fucking taps that's one of the things I think is mental is if I if I said to you Wista and tomorrow Papa Smithy I've got a Korean league for you the really popular games that's 33% share in the bicey banks all the kids are playing it still still a healthy player viewership I'm going to give you millions of views in terms of this I'm going to give you hundreds and hundreds of thousands in terms of average viewership and you know what we've got the best players in the world region too problem is bad news you've inherited that we're already paying them so much money where more than we ever make back the first thing you would try to solve for is just get the fucking salaries done it was basically there in the T1 thing remember T1 I can tell you people like Real Madrid don't go please get the salaries done they go lol we use our salary to destroy our opponents mid if T1's going please we have to get the numbers done there's another thing we can also take what we have now and maximize it we can figure out ways to have unions and salary which which they're doing softly but we were still a long way off that working as implied by these comments yeah I think the thing that fans don't understand is like the the region with the highest median salary by far is lck like lck is the the highest size which you know 10 years ago you know when Monty was setting up his team like they paid nothing you know the China was the highest for a long time at that time it was the people still think yeah I used to tell people back in the day the joke of League of Legends was double lift probably made like five times what like the best Korean player made it was ridiculous back then yeah it's so it's it is super interesting because like a lot of the Korean model was based on the fact that the players were paid so little you know Koreans also if you notice like on the in terms of contracts it's usually one year deals only recently the players have been signing two or three-year deals but Baker was a one-year deal until like 2021 or two you know like it was for a very very long time in his career no buyouts ever you never heard about you know people buying each other out in that way it's become such a scandal now with how they sort of battle like western teams they're not used to that in Korean bro they can't do that for a long time it was kind of like there was like a salary that you got paid let's just call a thousand dollars it was a lot more than that but it's as an example and it's like ever you know that basically everyone pays a thousand dollars and it's like well I want to play with the good players or you know the good players deciding who gets on their team like that's kind of how it was because there was no other real protectionism happening and then the Korean scene eventually was pressured to bid up their market because they wanted to compete with LPL teams yeah and that was when the LPL was at its apex of expansion right like you know they wanted to set up intra-china travel by having everybody have their own stadium that was like a big mandate fortunately the timing was also when all this stuff happened but at that time when Korea was paying they had to catch up and then two years later China stopped paying but Korea had already kind of like got to the point where they were paying right and it's very painful to decouple that for the top teams the reason why I said median salary is like I don't know how many Korean teams are paying minimum this year obviously I know the teams are paying lots and then also like the sport what you talk about the viewership growing that also means that you have or it's like Hanwa who very much people know is like it's like a rich person's play thing like it's not like a you have in the same league kind of like I'm trying to like run a P&L versus like well that sounds fun I'd love to have that player on my team which is only going to bid the market up higher for the people trying to compete and then like you say there'll be people who are like min-maxing quite well in the lower ends of it but Korea and as I ever been a sport or e-sport work that was the reality where they like the world leader in pay and like I can totally understand that causing kind of like unique issues for that ecosystem that they're trying to match I totally get what the T1 CBD or the business the business guys coming from is they have kind of created a a scenario that's like played out in other regions and e-sports that's like actually quite a novel to Korea and they're trying to work out a decoupled themselves from the situation they're in because yeah if you want a chase for winning lck you are paying a boatload of money like a world leading amount of money to do so absolutely you get my point though like we already have what should be a very successful amount of viewerships they're great about people playing and interesting so to me it's like how we scale things accordingly and make that work as a business I mean you guys are just as qualified as me to speak on this like is empty calorie viewership like profitable do you get money from having lots of viewers like you did ten years ago and not any more unfortunately because again like a lot of things you know I'll I'll live that on the North American doorstep as well a lot of it's clear I'm Australian there's guy next to me Monti is American I know I know I know I'll lay that on the North American doorstep because you know a lot of the people were using those numbers and then massaging those numbers, misrepresenting those numbers that then became just out and out lies about like click through rates and ROI and it just I mean we lost this is the thing people haven't really been talking about it's not just that we're losing sponsors from outside of e-sports there's a lot of endemic e-sports sponsors that are so sick and tired of the bullshit that you'll notice they're all scaling back their spending as well the holidays are over but you can still get excellent savings on mint mobile now what is mint mobile you might ask so mint mobile is a wireless carry you bring your own phone to the wireless carrier and it saves you a ton of money on your wireless bill the end of the year sale is extended but it's only going on until the end of January I highly recommend switching I use mint mobile myself now when I'm in the U.S. because all you 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of low spending and to talk about analogous products so for example talent-based products so like the NFL or the entertainment industry or LFN like we try and operate as 50% of the revenue that we create goes directly to the talent for example in the NFL the NFL is about 48% so the salary cap in the NFL which is the maximum amount of money a team can spend which is the money that goes to the players 48% of the total revenue of the league is the calculation for the salary cap right the problem with eSports is it became speculative which is that all more money than the teams were making because of VC was actually going to the players the budget of talent in this case the players was like 150% of revenue right or more more than that for sure which is yeah which is insane because there was an arms race to get the best players to grow the fastest to help grow the industry because that's what was required right in order to justify the investments from venture capital it had to grow the players were ultimately hugely the beneficiaries of this but we're at a point now now where does that where does that come from the NFL the overwhelming amount of revenue comes from two things media rights and ticket sales neither of these really exist in eSports although lec is now doing more road shows it with emcoi and you know carming corp which is good right because hopefully they can generate revenue from ticket sales but the question is how do we reach the point of sustainability and the reason why 50% is the number is obviously you have a lot of overhead costs right you have a staff that need to be paid at the NFL you have stadium upkeep you have you know all of the coaches like everything because that's not part of the salary cap guys so there's enormous costs associated with this plus I hope we all agree that it would be nice for teams to be profitable to be a good business where somebody makes money at the end of the day more money than they're spending so there are reasons behind this but the 50% number is like basically the business standard in talent-based businesses and like I said is what we try and do here with elephant when you see us have sponsors guys it's actually 60% of that revenue goes to talent because we have lower costs okay but like that's the bottle that we're operating under and so when we talk about this structure like how do we get there in eSports without media rights now obviously there are certain advantages that eSports has actions but the developers up until recently have not been willing to share that revenue because that's their revenue right and this was a marketing exercise for them to sell skills but as a team poppism at the in League of Legends and you look at this what are the ways where you can derive you see yourself like actually being able to hit what I assume is your target as well which is like 50% of revenue is going to your players and the rest of it is successfully supporting the flyquest yeah it's a very interesting question I think for a long time enterprise sponsorship deals were quite large you know especially when you're talking about you know 2016 through 2022 kind of times and I think that was where you're like how much do I allocate to the competitive team versus like the other parts of your org was the question I think these days it's about kind of like you're talking about like for example for flyquest we've got a lot of praise for our merchandise and apparel in the last couple of years and that is led to actual significant revenue and we were able to kind of like multiplicatively increase that revenue year on year from both competitive success and here because your world stuff is cool I think it look cool so the apparel stuff has been big for us but that's like not every team can just sell apparel you know that that was a hundred of these main advantage for a long time like the hoodie org was a very profitable work to be a part of so like we definitely set a high watermark then we'll continue to go at it I look at other games like for example we have Sonic Fox on our roster and that's like a big presence in two XKO and fighting games is a different thing but at the same time we've also launched a app main stage it's about kind of like setting up like a tutorial experience and a tracking experience in in two XKO for new players to like learn the game and get on top of it that's like a product we've launched a complimentary project because it's like hey we have the best two XKO player in the world they use this tool to track themselves and get better if you're interested in playing two XKO you should download this tool like that's like very obviously like a complimentary kind of business vertical for us that if we're not able to sell that how we able to sell anything right like that's like as one to one of like if you want to watch two XKO and you think this player is good then you should take this on and I think those sort of things are increasingly like getting your like segmenting a fan base and getting them to purchase things is absolutely gonna be the pass fail because I think like your hypothesizing if you just wait for your share of your leak allocated revenue every year and produce nothing else the question of why are we continuing to do this only gets louder like you have to get out there and be a disruptor and push boundaries and I think that's that's that's been our experience so like we've been able to grow revenue consistently since we came to FlyQuest the last few years from being creative but we're one team you know in one ecosystem and I don't think it's easy to replicate it's also that you know sports teams shouldn't have to invent all of these ancillary businesses to operate as a sports team you know what I mean and what at what point are you just not a sports team anymore right and that was the TSM issue like we all know TSM's primary business was was that's what blitz and websites like guide websites and like at some point it has to actually be sustainable to be in these prolifer tournament organizer relationships as a team by itself and then the other part of it can be cream on the side but to do that you have to cut back a lot like for example you can't really have a facility and and Los Angeles and also not try to create lots of multiple businesses like if you want to just be a sports team you should have a team house and like streamline overhead costs because like when you're working out profitability you need to factor in the size of your stuff the amount of business stuff you have except this goes back to like you know why are the teams and why is the LCS in Los Angeles like what why was it always was and because riots here I'm not saying that's a reason but good reason but it is the reason obviously you know just another example of I want to succeed but I'll already do it in this mega expensive place where I'll go well then you don't want to succeed I can tell you I'm not being a hypocrite in this sense or if you asked me what I wanted to do 10-15 years ago it was being a great new sports writer male so I'm like that like I've had to pivot about five times my fucking career a million times over in order to succeed what's bizarre is riot the only ones who just because like I say they lucked in some crazy golden goose just imagine they don't have to do these things for some reason I don't get it myself yeah and like you know we know they're cutting class because of the things they do for example worlds this year everything up until the grand finals is in alan texas they have a good positive association Alan texas didn't have the LCA there but I understand it look I think it I did stuff with Overwatch League there you know what I mean like I think the venue is actually very good for esports I don't hate it but my point is is like why is LCS in LA but worlds 95% of worlds is in alan texas like shouldn't shouldn't that be in alan texas LCA that's even a bizarre thing to me that riot again got to do and so did Overwatch League where they just came with a black slate said I'll just go to the biggest cities you do know how esports grew organically in North America it's someone should actually write a paper on this I'm not as knowledgeable about North America's sports to do it but I can tell you it's a really fascinating thing you know things like MLG they essentially followed the model of professional wrestling which is you don't start in New York in Madison Square Garden you start in bum fuck no way Ohio and you get the people there because the costs are really low and then when the project grows then you have to do that I use saying Karavitsa is not a destination location in Europe Karavitsa is not a destination location in New York Karavitsa is not a destination in New York Karavitsa is not a destination in New York Karavitsa is not a destination in New York Standard to these things I don't know I don't talk to the decision makers that decide that When it comes to gambling, obviously it is owned by a Chinese company And you can't endorse betting in China So maybe it's related to that again Don't have that on the record from anybody either But ultimately I do think that I think categories being relaxed Which you know the gambling stuff is still Progress towards even if it's not But it's not exactly where I would want it now But it's not exactly where I would want it now But it's not exactly where I would want it now It would end up being like annoying readability things like a flash icon Or I don't even know what you would do Like nothing is as obvious So definitely like in-game monetization Can always be more right? Right now it's heard people towards this skin And then get a percentage of a global number Obviously anything else where it's like This is the FlyQuest one we get the most stuff would be great So I want to see a question Thanks to the incredible awesome power of GROC Super And it says that In 2024 data indicates the average age of UK Premier League fans Is around 42 However, where the Premier League has been sold to foreign markets Like the US 50% of soccer fans there are under 24 And it says here That if you were to take an average across all of the major territories in the world It would be closer to 34 years Which is really good That is a good number given the numbers we get from American sports Or maybe this is something about American sports viewership in general I don't know But that's the reason why I guess they were hesitant around certain categories And still they are pushing their video game You know that obviously like selling the sport alongside some of these sports Yeah it's hard because every sponsor that gets introduced takes away Opportunities to advertise the game Like it's a balance that Riot is striking between Hey we want you to look at this skin But if there's too many sponsors And Red Bull, Bear and Power plays in Bud Light aces You spend time looking at that instead of cool skin on screen I'll just put this way on Monty, I think one elephant in the room on this particular topic You notice how nearly all of the contrast was to counter strike That wasn't by accident the game developer doesn't do anything in that game They stay hands off There is a direct conflict of interest in my opinion Which is that Riot Games is two entities at once They're the game developer who makes all the money from the game itself And then they're also the person who's in charge of the franchise league with the teams And I'm sorry if I was one of the people in the franchise league I'd be like wait a minute the schizophrenic dr. Jekyll version of you that goes out the room and does the game developer part Is the one fucking me all the time and won't let me get any of the other stuff And then they go, sorry about that, I'll do what I can with the boss And then they go, I'm sorry we've got fuck that guy That's just keeps growing him in mid-max and it's like that's one of the problems And the problem with that is none of the team on us Feel like they can do anything publicly about that size You're banned the scenes, it's just constant fucking our walls and trying to get them removed They're down a little bit because I think that is a major problem as you've always pointed out Monty Right, if they didn't really need a spot at all The rejects in the edge of the board doesn't make them any direct profit Clearly it does indirectly via some magical method Make them massive amounts of money on the game developer side but since we'll never know what that is How do we ever bridge that gap? And we always just going it could be this much Can we ask for an 0.1% more? Can you do a little step here? If they, the NFL, here's the quick answer for why the NFL has all the gambling share They don't have a fucking secondary football thing So they would none in a professional football That makes them more money to the Monty They only have the motherfucking NFL They're only fiduciary responsibilities to those franchises And including on there's the final detail They aren't just partners mate, they are the NFL That's the other thing as well The teams are it as well I don't think Riot has to, or quite frankly does give as much of a fuck, about Cloud 9 As like the NFL does about the San Francisco 49 has been successful mate Just magic And I guess to finish off your question Monty I'm a big believer in like fundamental changes to circuit In terms of like what a year should be Do tell I think everyone points to like make it more like Counter-Strike As like a solve Obviously there was a long time in Counter-Strike Where people like I would love to live in the same country and not travel as much There's glass always greener a little bit Having now like sampled both I think the fundamental issue I see And this is you know from a North American lens because that's like the business I'm in So I should leave my bias on the table is There's too many times where Yeah, there's a lot of people who like followed League at some point or played League right Like there's a very receptive, the awareness of League to like the Twitch generation is like almost a hundred percent Even if not that many people are currently engaged with it So like people will like stumble on to an LCS broadcast or something And I think too often the answer to the question of Oh, okay like I've heard of one of these teams before What are the stakes of this game? Like what happens for the winner? I think too often the answer is nothing really Like there's been too many you know Players double round rob 'em best to one then old teams make it to playoffs kind of situations Or I think the stakes for games like at this point If you listen to the fan base the only stakes they care about are qualifying for Worlds is like the thing that Even MSI is like diluted even though it's like a better format as we all know And they reinforce that with you know There's world skins but there isn't MSI skins You know what I mean like Worlds has all the pump and circumstance And it's the big event of the year that everyone desperate to make And then from there depending on what region you're in or where you're at everything else is diluted And in my dream scenario if you're playing domestic games It's as a qualifier for an international event and you find ways to make all of the international events compelling I don't know if that means in game monetization specifically associated with all that I don't know if that means crowdfunding I don't know what that means But ideally if you're watching FlyQuest vs Cloud9 you know that it's a fixed term multi-week thing to qualify for a big international event You have the international event and then we start it all again So it's like six qualifiers for six international events that's how we go I don't know if that means you still do majors like maybe two of them are bigger I don't know if that means Worlds still exists or the other five are of a different size But I feel very strong when you watch Counter-Strike and like a lot of you know people are like experimenting with Counter-Strike As far as I can tell Counter-Strike is the only eSport that has like a growing English language viewership that's like any level of mature eSport I think the reason why is that when you tune in when you fall over a blast stream or ESL stream You can be like okay, where are we? Okay, we're in London We're in the group stage when's the final? It's not a month away It's not Worlds is not seven months away the final of this tournament that like theoretically has a million dollars or something associated to it Is in some of these tournaments of three day tournaments some of these tournaments of what like a week to ten day tournaments Like it's coming up and like you only need to sustain your attention until that date and you show up at that final If you like miss some of it and then you're gonna have a story like I watched Oh, yeah, I watched Counter-Strike watch that blast London thing like crazy the Falcons won But like if you tune in for three days in February of League of Legends like what is your output? What is your viewership story like what is like the thing that you saw like maybe nothing? You know what I mean like maybe some games that didn't build to anything and I think building stakes towards every game being played Like yes, that could be amazing marketing and content unlimited money spent to like make a story out of every game I'm also someone who watches the Premier League where like May and I diverse a stoke might not mean anything but I think to This generation of people this younger generation of viewers under 30 their attention is very limited And competing for as extremely hard because you're competing with the global consciousness of every type of entertainment available instantly And you just have to hold such high expectations to yourself to be like this is why we're compelling you to watch And I think that's a bar that gets higher literally every day That all of us on this call whether it's like elephant trying to get people to watch their YouTube or the LCS trying to get you to watch matches Have to contest against and that's that's what I want us to aspire to more But that's especially felt for me because like obviously LCS viewership compared to like LCK viewership that domestic games are still growing is just a different different kettle of fish Well, I think also when we talk about traditional people say well, what about traditional sports they still have huge viewership and they're still geolocated and you still Yeah, they're also like we said older they have high you know what's going to happen when people the boomers start dying And what happens to the viewership of these sports is a great question because they're entrenched in their habits and they will keep watching this until they expire It's not true of esports right especially ones that are trying to grow viewership or new esports that are coming up And so like the stakes I think that you're saying are extremely pertinent Right because this creates this sense of immediacy and you need immediacy to capture attention spans of younger people in the year 2026 If you ask me to guess 2030 what does the circuit look like it's like ESL runs the qualifiers for two tournaments a year, blast runs the columns for it Riot pays for a major worlds maybe worlds and MSI and it's deregulated a lot and domestic play is the biggest loser so like Korean Brazil especially will be really upset with that because they both have very entrenched I just want to watch my local fan bases go kind of cultures and then you know the other leagues like LEC and especially LCS who are like wake me up when worlds is there theoretically has there People there interest stated faster and to me honestly the best data point and maybe this is code but the best data point I saw last year was that MSI was not in basically they didn't like gamify the Canadian time zone to like be really really receptive to Asian viewership like they have in the past for events in North American especially Europe Whether just like why the game starting at this time local and stand I can do the like math here and the viewership was really strong for MSI Which suggests that in a North American base time zone a lot of people were watching League of Legends and yes it was an international product with faker etc but theoretically if no one cared about League of Legends in this region English language viewership of LCK continues to hit new highs right and people are migrating towards the top tier isn't that also a problem Monty Another problem we have that doesn't cross over to again like counter strike is in counter strike the main viewing region is also the best players in Europe Well the problem in this case is and this was always going to be in fortune on the reasons why my opinion you are always going to have a hard time with the LCK etc is eventually like you said Monty you nailed it actually 15 years ago Riot's best trick they ever pulled was for a long time pulling the wall over people's eyes with not many international tournaments that maybe TSM was close to T1 Whereas in reality the gap was always novice even 12 years ago is always a not they were ever going to win worlds but the difference is now you know there's not a chance to win worlds It's not even on the table it would be it's not even considered like you know you've got to be confident now you're an idiot if you say that if you're an NA player like no one even takes your series they don't even believe that you believe it So I do think you've also got a big problem bridging that gap if we're talking about the Western regions like you can see the people are as much as they would like the international terms I think it also get bummed out seeing everyone lose all the time even the life person will see it by the way you would also have more party you don't buy more terms Yeah run to a fire and the NA teams better by doing that so I think it actually would increase parity the top spenders would spend a lot more time in Asia and only be back home to play qualifiers which you know team liquid is was considered North American till very recently and they had to Canadian players and never spent any time in North America unless they had to so Yeah, I think people will be generous about representing a subculture if you're smart about it just like coming back to Casey having Calist and from there getting to be the like pre-eminent French team like the joke is that's another area Monty was inadvertently right Guess what sending your team to Korea as often as possible to bootcamp and so was the future always my right was against that again I think this I know what you mean Papa Here's the thing if it was purely in a theoretical world I can see the value and what they wanted to do they want it to be a night close a bit on and grow the whole world in a giant ecosystem And even Brazil would be important a Vietnam would be important in Europe would have it so the problem with that is Let's worry about that once we've got the basics covered you know let's get let's get an esports get it healthy Let's grow it then we can do all but that process mindset you have Duncan like If you follow conventional wisdom legal legends would never have been a relevant title like a moba taking over the world Just fucking insane like what are the unlikely variables that came together for legal legends to be the biggest game in the world for as long as it has been so I totally understand like If that happened then being like okay then we can have infinite growth in every region and like you know high school people grow up dreaming to be an esports player And the player base only continues to grow like no one plays sports anymore because I heard that you know If you play football then you're going to get you know all these brain injuries and stuff like that like they'll just play esports like Well that even could have been a thing I can tell you from what once you looked into If you could go back in a time machine one of the things you actually do if you go back to 2012 is you go This is the one area you do go grassroots you go hard as fucking the collegiate thing if you're right you don't do this like outsourcing Yeah and when people have talked about players you should have tried to get paid and look right failed that And probably got unlucky let's say but let's mostly focus on the failed and it's like what if they got lucky at that then maybe This plan would have worked you know like there was a way to straight line it that because a lot of legal legends success is unprecedented So they saw for what they saw for I didn't think it was the right thing so for in the end it didn't work Like that's that's that's the story there but I don't I don't want to go back and be like why do you even try because like how the fuck is this game The thing that's given me the career I've had you know like there's a lot of like fucking luck that went into all this too Oh I'll just says this is the reason why you're not just the GM of legal legends and you also have to fuck around with that Australian couch right team I like the boys we're doing all right he's been doing good work that I was a bit surprised that the regali roster move but True they have one of best of three at the edge of true that was that was hard that was hard I'll even say this is how much work you've done brawl I even bet on your team and what about it Yeah those are two historic things I know that's a you that's a you problem that's like something's wrong with you that that happened I don't want to take any credit for it I don't worry I hope straight off it and we're on the bets against it afterwards so I'm looking all the way around to keep doing great work All right, you can pop those on Solvey So are there any are there any other things you want to call out Papa Smithy about what's going on in the world like Of League of Legends, you know, it's not a salary cap in the LCK but the the kind of luxury tax salary system has been put in place right now We have the announcement of these multiple LEC road shows which seems very encouraging You know MSI seems as you point out seems to be doing better and better so what are some of the other things that you think are affecting the scene or the big stuff that's going to happen in 2026 And there's an accumulation of good decisions being made you know like the LTA was obviously like a notable failure but I think that there's like an accumulation of like good scale decisions being made not know one of them is going to lead to like a viewership explosion But I think in general I can tell you that collaboration with a riot and a collaboration of cost teams is also a lot more feasible and real these days And so there's always this hope of like an accumulation of good decisions will be recognized probably the time that was last felt in the LCS was summer 2023 You know before the LTA was a 2024 2024 you know when Mark stuff was coming in we're playing best of threes and there was some positive inertia That didn't mean the viewership was like amazing but it was it was like at least the vibes were good and I think the vibes will restart and be good This year as well even though there's going to be viewership challenges So I just think I didn't come into this space to like get the big bag if you know what I mean which definitely was like the thing that attracted a lot of people And like that 2017 to 2021 era like I played a game in Australia and it took me around the world and so I kind of just judge the space where it is and try to move it forward in a way that makes me smile or that I enjoy Or that will get some good wins for my company and I think in a scaled way 2026 is going to be a lot of fun even if like I can't sit there and make big proclamations about the viewership and things like that Because that's going to need a concerted effort and a lot of time and a lot of data points to justify people putting the same amount of time into legal legends and they were before in a time where people have less and less time to give any one thing So that's kind of how I think about it is that my day to day is still hopeful and optimistic and there's still lots of wins there but in terms of like Out to say that any one change or any one thing is going to like bring legal legends to where it was before but I don't I don't have anything for you on that I don't mean that in a spook you either it's just all I can do is kind of like my scale Try to fix what I see and try to make suggestions and then wait to see what shakes out because I do think that the model of this is all going to evolve That's not doom and gloom by the way there's no problem with League of Legends being a stable eSport with its current level of viewership which is still exceptional by the way you know Still a big eSport yeah especially on the international scale Yeah it can it can truck along and nobody's going to be sad that worlds is the you know MSI worlds are the same scale that they're at right now And like for me it's just a matter of you know making sure that the it's actually a sustainable business at this size we have to put away the delusions that this is going to blow up into something that's 10X is massive as it was 10 years ago which is where all the investment money came from And you know maybe maybe I'm wrong and League of Legends to does do all these things and all of a sudden every high schooler is playing League of Legends with all these updates I think that's extraordinarily unlikely to occur but you never fucking know you know what I mean you never know So if that's the case and they can convert those fans into eSports fans well then maybe we have another you know 10 years of high growth of League of Legends But I don't think you can safely bet on that and so it's just about adjusting the ecosystem in a way that makes sense for the teams now Absolutely yeah there's really not much to expand on that I think we've definitely I think we've definitely found the floor just like we found the ceiling a few years ago And I think that we're making smart decisions around that and finding ways to raise it time to time with let downs along the way And that's fine for me even if it might not be fine for someone else who came into this space with other goals or expectations you know Any other guys have final thoughts on the state of Lee last in the piece of information for you Monty you can tell Susie as if I'm like Vader at the end of the Jedi you were right Susie you were right Because you know what the LCS is now 44% Korean she was right all along all you should do is bring fucking Koreans over there you go Yeah simple was it I mean for me look it doesn't necessarily mean that like League of Legends has to kind of swirl down the pan Although I would argue you know these trends they're going to come and go get different types of games going to hit at different times different genres and stuff But if they are going to release another season of arcane and they are going to do a visual update of the game that's going to make it give it a fresh liquor paint and a more modern look Yeah I would say sometimes taking stuff away can be a good thing too I mean not always if you're a World of Warcraft fan you know cataclysm if you're a war hammer fan you know end times doesn't always work But I mean why not use why not use the launch of a new game is an opportunity to like take out some redundant champions Yeah so we'll put them away for a rework you know give some refunds for some goodwill and give yourself more runway to like introduce or reintroduce those champions in it with a design philosophy that fits with all the new champ injured Butting out I think there's way too many Richard they should kill half the champions in the game like yeah I mean just to make it more accessible You know it I'm not even saying why I always suggested I always thought you should just do the trading card model of you have sets you have seasons and then you bring because then you can also bring them back for a classic one so etc. I also feel like it gets rid of the whole problem if you're a new player that you can that's the best by the way if people don't know the best thing about magic the gathering is you can start today you don't have to know all the cards from the 90s so league league has that problem unfortunately yeah Alright any final thoughts for you guys sorry about something I think the state of law I would just say this even though it wasn't a massive thing we discussed in this episode because it's just like a whole again alternate reality that we'd have to enter into One of the reasons I hope that what Papa said earlier about what the same could be in a few years happens is even though I wouldn't go as far because I don't think anyone will ever accept it as doing like a pure super league To me the reason why you want to move more towards something I came to account strike model you're already figuring this out within regions like LEC regionally is think about this one thing I can tell you today is there are teams like team one that a lot of people around the world want to watch Right if I was an LCS owner the number one thing I'd be asking for is please bring team one to my region and have them play an autonomous in my region with my team like Cloud 9 or team liquid That would be a way tomorrow to bring viewership and eyes and interest to that team in a way correct does now for that somebody can solve very very quickly true it takes a circuit change but by the way they're fucking with the circuit every single year anyway adding tournaments adding everything so it's not like you've shown you're already going to move at snail's pace so there's one thing And then also we already discussed it earlier again as much as yes it would be nice to increase the pie and bring in new views but also how about take care of the people I hear now will crush the cup the margins as much as possible and do things like move to areas that cost less to house people And so they've to me it should be yet all of these things at once is not pick one direction these all help do the same thing in my opinion because I agree I actually think we got to a good place at the end there as I tried to make the point If you looked at the Korean numbers before I tell you what the salaries are you'd go this must be an incredible runaway success of an e-sport but the Koreans are almost like fucking borderline suicide over the margins so if you figure out the margins the actual you've already got millions of viewers that's a success that is an incredible e-sport But you have to monetize that again we can't be thinking like ten years ago but we're throwing why can't we just 10 extra viewership then the margins no no make the margins make sense today make the make sense today that's why I would say yeah I appreciate the fact that in Europe teams are starting to understand where they are in terms of like you look at the popular teams right G2 Coy Casey and to some degree fanatic it's cool that G2 seems to like it's not like G2 is trying to put on lots of homestand events there very much like hey we know will be a great guest and we'll bring a lot of pomp and circumstance to your homestand that you have a unique advantage to set up in Spain, Coy, France, Casey and you know we're going to bring competitiveness viewership interest like it's nice that they can be it's nice to have kind of like the the people who have like let KC run events and let you to attend them yeah that's the resting analogy and I think if every team had an introspective kind of like what is the value we provide who is who we're trying to appeal to and what unique advantage do we have mindset which again would be even easier if we had much more geolocation towards the story then you like you say Duncan like every team wants to play against T1 that's like a viewership opportunity for them. But as long as you kind of understand where you are and how to set that up and and and the levels to it like there's a reason that Korea can have T1 homestands that part of that's T1 is you know massive and part of that is the cost of a homestand in a very in a industry set up around one city with not a lot of transport required is very different to like let's just have a homestand in Miami it's like okay well that's going to be really expensive to fly there America's a huge country like use the economies of scale and the advantages you have around a product that still has a lot of people that plays it and this stuff will start to make more sense is like I think a business model everyone starting to apply it to themselves and the lens everyone starting to understand I think that's that is a promising thing about the current state of legal legends. Notice one of the points I'm making is when you have current successes amplifying build on those like by the way I made it extreme with T1 it doesn't have to be T1 if I'm cloud nine I also want to compete against carbon cop by the way I've more than competing as Ross returners bring them all making WWE gets get them all into the events that's why the one area about the super team angle that did always make sense in my opinion is I don't really know what day end supers does for T1 I don't think it fucking helps me but I think I helped T and supers by playing them I don't know what they do for me right at the joke is even if you think lost your torus is worse than the end supers I'd rather play lost your torus if I'm T1 that even brings more for me. All right well I think that's about it for our annual state of League of Legends thank you very much Papas Mithi for joining us. Thank you dude. I appreciate your time and as always esports the Linda best.