Large pockets of the UK, Ireland and Nordics League of Legends (LoL) esports community have spoken out against the closure of amateur circuits.
Danish tournament organiser Leagues.gg published a statement on Twitter claiming that Riot Games and Freaks 4U (F4U) Gaming have forced them to halt their current League of Legends operations, due to what appears to be a breach of Riot’s official tournament guidelines.
Leagues.gg runs LoL events like the UK Winter Showdown and was about to begin its spring 2022 season before it was halted. Other grassroots tournaments affected also include the UKEL and the Norwegian Telialigaen, which we’ll come onto later.
Riot is of course the publisher of League of Legends, while F4U is the official tournament license holder for the UK, Ireland and Nordics region. F4U runs the official NLC European Regional League here, which for the first time this year includes Division 1, 2 and below – a similar model to the DACH Prime League.
This puts the NLC’s lower divisions in direct competition with other existing third-party lower-tier tournaments like Leagues.gg’s, not to mention replacing the UKLC and Telia Masters before it.
Leagues.gg did say that it’s talking to Riot and will now be limited to making tournaments according to Riot’s guidelines on ‘duration, structure and prizing’, implying its most recent league did not fully adhere to the rules.
“Our League of Legends won’t stop!” Leagues.gg said in the below statement:
The news comes after UK-based grassroots tournament organiser the UK Esports League (UKEL) confirmed it would not be running a League of Legends tournament in 2022 for similar reasons.
The UKEL said in a statement last month: “Unfortunately, we weren’t able to provide support to Freaks 4U. Format changes have made it so our previous tournament structure is no longer tenable, and as such, in 2022 we will not be providing a broadcast League of Legends league.”
It was also recently announced that LoL esports will ‘most likely disappear’ from the Norwegian Telialigaen after 2022.
Esports News UK understands that some NLC Division 2 players had also competed in Leagues.gg tournaments, which is in breach of Riot’s guidelines.
Riot’s European Licensed Competition Guidelines state: “No League of Legends pro players (participating in any of the Regional Leagues or official local leagues) are to participate without prior agreements with Riot Games.”
Riot offers four types of tournament licenses: small, medium, multi-school and major. For the first two, a tournament can be a maximum of four weeks long. Other restrictions on certain licenses include not serving as a direct qualifier for another tournament (small), and the date of the tournament not clashing with any major LoL competitions relevant to the region (medium), and more.
“It’s very frustrating and sad that this is put on all our teams only a few days before the planned spring split was set to start. The changes have been forced on the company by higher powers through Riot Games and F4UG.”
Leagues.GG
Esports News UK understands collegiate League of Legends leagues, like the NSE, NUEL and British Esports Student Champs are unaffected, and are continuing as usual. (Related article: A student secured three pentakills in a collegiate UK League of Legends match earlier this week).
However, there was some controversy last year in the Europe-wide Amazon University Esports Masters, with ERL players not able to participate.
Separately, some sources have told Esports News UK they believe Riot/F4U’s decision may also be due to Leagues.gg’s handling of its Winter showdown, when Leagues.gg apparently were negotiating with SQ1 and UKEL to be a potential broadcast partner (see section at the bottom of this article). While Riot/F4U have not commented publicly yet, we felt it was something we felt worth mentioning.
The news also comes after several esports teams left the NLC, including Fnatic Rising, Tricked, 00Nation, Enclave, Kova, Nvision, Godsent, Galaxy Racer, Granit Gaming, Nox, London Esports, Resolve and others.
Reaction to the news has been strong (see below).
Esports News UK has reached out to Riot Games and Freaks 4U for official comment, and will update this article if we hear back. We also spoke with Leagues.gg, which is opting to use its Twitter statement above as official public comment for now.
Community reaction: ‘Stop choking out national leagues’
The community has been very vocal around the shutting of Leagues.gg’s tournament and how Riot/Freaks 4U are dealing with grassroots tournaments.
Twitter accounts have been set up to protest the decision, like ‘Day (x) of asking for our scene back’ and ‘Is NLC Still choking out other leagues?’
This tweet from the NLC account about a regular match has also received around 80 comments from different people -including some prominent players, coaches and personalities like Cloud9 LoL coach Veigarv2 – saying the following or similar: “Stop choking out other national leagues :(“
A ‘frustrated player’ said in this post on the League of Legend subreddit that “Riot is choking the Nordic & UK LoL grassroots scene”.
“Because of the license is now in new hands, Freaks and Riot seems to have been going all in on shutting down no licensed initiatives to have all control,” they said.
“The new stronghold on the region means that grassroots competition could be taking some big hits over the coming years, because where is the talent going to come from? New players and organisations are now forced into the NLC system with no other choice – a system that has unfortunately been getting some criticism already.
“Lower-tier teams are now also without much alternatives for competition where it’s possible to earn money playing. While NLC is great for climbing the ladder, there is no opportunity for financials to grow, with no money to play for – unless you play at the absolute top that is.”
This is likely referring to NLC Division 1 having €200,000 in prizing and financial subsidies for teams, but no prize pool for Division 2 and below.
There are many comments on the Leagues.gg statement from people across the global LoL esports ecosystem.
“Really sad thing to happen. Telialigaen – my country’s league – is going to be gone because of this. Many great players such as LIDER, Hatrixx and Tore played in this league and it’s really important to have a lower level league for people to start their career.”
Veigar v2, Cloud9 coach
Danish NLC and LEC caster Guldborg said: “Anyone that knows me knew how much this league meant to me. My life simply would not be the same without it. Having a monopoly around the Nordic scene is taking away the national pride and rivalry.”
Cloud9 coach Veigar v2 said: “Really sad thing to happen. Telialigaen – my country’s league – is going to be gone because of this. Many great players such as LIDER , Hatrixx and Tore played in this league and it’s really important to have a lower level league for people to start their career.”
Invulnerables Esports co-owner Kingsbury added in a thread: “If F4U and Riot think that removing all “competitors” from the region will increase the popularity of NLC and bring about success for the UK & Nordics, they are sorely mistaken. Without grassroots competition that provides exposure through broadcasting and prize money incentives, we will see active interest and participation in our region’s ecosystem shrink from the bottom up across all fields.”
G2 Mikmer, a social media intern at G2, said: “LeaguesGG was my way into competitive League and also for a bunch of other players. It has provided a league unrivalled in Denmark for years and shortly also for the rest of the Nordics. For Denmark at least it was a big piece of our ecosystem, which won’t easily be replaced.”
NLC Division 2 side Fløng Esports commented: “This is such sad news for grassroot organisations, and talent development in the Nordic scene. We sincerely hope Leagues.gg come up with something to keep the dream alive, and continue the great work they have done all these years.”
And this interesting Twitter thread speculates that the push may have come from Freaks 4U rather than Riot, though one Riot employee allegedly said they would “nuke the entire scene, if necessary”.
“Anyone that knows me knew how much this league meant to me. My life simply would not be the same without it. Having a monopoly around the Nordic scene is taking away the national pride and rivalry.”
Guldborg, NLC and LEC caster
One anonymous source close to the situation also told Esports News UK: “There’s now a dozen or more casters put out of work, dozens of players who won’t get a chance to have stage games and prize money, and the whole ecosystem is being starved out.
“If you’re a caster in EU, I’d actively suggest finding NA leagues to cast, since there’s actually money there. Being an amateur or semi-pro caster in EU is almost impossible now, honestly. Even if you swept up all of the various university gigs for yourself, you wouldn’t be making a living for yourself.”
Some Twitlongers emerged:
And this interaction discussed the NLC adopting the DACH Prime League model:
We’ll update this article with further info from Riot, Freaks 4U and others in the community.
What happened with Leagues.gg, SQ1 and the UKEL last year which caused some difficulty with casters?
Separately, some sources have told Esports News UK there were some difficulties around Leagues.gg’s Winter showdown, as Leagues.gg apparently were negotiating with SQ1 and UKEL to be a potential broadcast partner. SQ1 apparently secured the contract, but the UKEL were supposedly – and prematurely – told they had won the contract instead.
Things were up in the air as to which would be broadcasting the tournament. This meant casters were being thrown around a lot and unsure whether they’d get casts or get paid or not. Then, for this spring, Leagues.gg apparently decided to outsource to Orbital Casting to broadcast the spring tournament.
One source told Esports News UK: “I’m incredibly sad for the scene that more and more grassroots orgs and tournaments have been culled out of the UK and Nordics scene, but I am neither surprised nor upset that Leagues.GG have been made persona non grata.
“The winter cup/showdown debacle, as I suspect, is what’s drawn a lot of Riot’s ire. While the tension between SQ1 and UKEL was eventually resolved after sharing conversations they’d independently had with Leagues.gg management, neither were best impressed by Leagues.gg. They then broke contract with SQ1 after only two to three months by outsourcing English broadcasts to freelancers for their spring tournaments.
“As I understand it, Leagues.gg believe hiring independent freelancers to broadcast their tournaments in English was not in breach of contract as they didn’t believe that was outsourcing. SQ1 felt that hiring independent freelancers was an unequivocal breach of contract, violating their right of first refusal.”
“While the tension between SQ1 and UKEL was eventually resolved after sharing conversations they’d independently had with Leagues.gg management, neither were best impressed by Leagues.gg.”
Esports News UK understands that after Leagues.gg went with SQ1 during Winter, it then decided to make things internal ‘due to financials, quality and logistics’, and it states that no contract was broken with SQ1. Leagues.gg did admit there was some mess with casters last Winter due to negotiations with broadcast partners, but said every caster is paid well at Leagues.gg and that it will have more opportunities this year.
Update: SQ1 co-owner and co-founder Christopher ‘Hench’ Schackt sent Esports News UK the following statement: “SQ1 had a contracted first right of refusal for all broadcasting and production services in 2022 with Leagues.gg. They clearly and wilfully ignored this by attempting to outsource their production to other freelancers without offering said events to SQ1.
“We pointed this out to our point of contact with Leagues.gg several times, but unfortunately they refused to accept that approaching freelancers falls well within the definition of outsourcing. We deliberately chose not to stir up drama about this publically, but with Leagues.gg deciding to take this step, it seems only fair that both sides of the situation are given equal attention.”
Esports News UK has contacted Leagues.gg again for a right of reply to these comments.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
