A statement ascribed to all 10 of the franchised teams in the League of Legends Champions Korea league states that they’ve been unable to grow the league’s business value over the past three years.
“Despite continuous growth since the inception of the LCK league, the LCK league corporation has not increased the league’s business value over the past three years,” the Jan. 16 statement reads. “The revenue distribution for teams has been decreasing every year, and the revenue target proposed has never been achieved.”
According to the teams, Riot has pulled back investment in the LCK, which began its 2024 season today. Conversations that were happening behind the scenes have ground to a halt, and they were forced to release this statement publicly with members of the Korean media. The teams also claim that Riot threatened them behind the scenes if they talked about these issues as a united front.
To compound the drama, arguably the world’s biggest name in League and award-magnet T1 claims that they never approved the statement, and disagree with several of the points put forth publicly. It appears that either a previous version of the statement was published, or the other 9 teams are now utilizing the unified front image in order to gain more traction. Regardless, it feels strange to go forward with a statement knowing you don’t have the backing of arguably the biggest team in the LCK.
Despite the drama over who exactly signed the statement, it still presents a very bleak image of esports overall. The LCK is meant to be one of the most profitable regional leagues, in a country with rabid fans who support the league financially. If they’re not able to make it work, how are others supposed to make it work? According to the LCK teams, the ball is in Riot’s court. The only certain thing is this saga is far from over.
