Anyone who pays attention to League of Legends in North America knows that the LCS hasn't been great at international events. However, one could argue that at worst the LCS is the 4th best region and possibly the 3rd best region in the world. 

Currently Riot Games is doing everything they can to destroy the LCS. They allowed the franchised teams to remove the requirement of fielding a tier 2 team known as a Challengers league team. The NACL(salt league) had a spring split with at least 16 teams. They are currently scheduled to have 10 teams for the summer split with only 3 of those teams being supported by teams from the LCS(Team Liquid, Flyquest, Evil Geniuses). Those 3 organizations have to be given some credit for keeping their NACL teams alive when they aren't requited to. 

I started doing recaps of the LCS and LEC on my YT channel and have seen growth that hadn't happened for my YT channel with any other content. I'm still really small as far as YT goes. Despite the growth I've seen, I won't be watching any LoL content that Riot does unless the "real" NA players come back. Hopefully, we can see Riot make some changes to the LCS and the LCSPA gets some of their demands met.

If Riot does follow through on their threat to not do a summer split for the LCS and not have any LCS participation at worlds, it would be a massive mistake on their part. People will soon find other things to occupy their time. I'm more stubborn than Riot is. I won't be watching any Riot content until the real LCS players return with some concessions made to them.

Franchising as it is, was a mistake and a money grab by Riot. They are somewhat stuck by that money grab. When things were looking really good they implemented franchising. Not having promotion/relegation has been a mistake for LoL. Promotion/Relegation works for the Premier League, therefore it can work for any team sport. 

TLDR

Riot fucked up with franchising.

Riot fucked up.

I won't be watching any Riot content until they make some concessions to the LCSPA.

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