League of Legends broadcasters criticise Northern Arena over late payments

Several esports broadcasters – including UK talent – have spoken out about working with Canadian tournament operator Northern Arena.

League of Legends (LoL) producers, observers and casters took to Twitter to bemoan alleged late payments from Northern Arena, which produced the English language broadcasts of French league LFL.

LoL replay operator and observer looeegee said in a Twitlonger: “Northern Arena has failed to pay me for my last month of work on the LFL international broadcast. I originally invoiced them on August 18th, with a due date of September 2nd (agreed upon before contracts were signed). Since then, three times have I asked for an update on my invoice and been given a date by which it would be paid, all the way until now.

“As of November 24th, this invoice is overdue by 83 days. This is obviously extremely unacceptable, and I would advise everybody to be careful about working with Northern Arena going forward. Nobody should have to deal with all these lies and false promises.

“With a delay this long, I wouldn’t even consider it a cash flow issue anymore – this is simply exploitative behavior. I’m not the only one with outstanding invoices, however it is up to the other people on whether they want to share their experience working with NA.”

Several others joined looeegee to complain on Twitter, including prominent caster Guldborg, who joined the LFL broadcast earlier this summer and previously cast in the UK/Ireland/Nordics NLC.

Broadcast producer Brandon Ly added: “It’s tragic that it had to come to this. Everyone from the Spring Season left because of the late payments, but I had hope that they were being truthful in their words that things were getting better and that they were just “going through a rough patch”.

Esports tournament director, observer and producer, Kai, commented: “Northern Arena took 70 days to pay me after promising again and again that I’d be paid by a certain date and then not honouring it. This happened in the previous months too, with a payment that was promised by the end of June not being sent until mid July. This is unacceptable.”

Roodood, a UK caster who was also part of Northern Arena’s LFL broadcast, said: “Want to vouch and attest to this situation. I have now received the majority of the money I’m owed and have given up chasing the rest. It was so much hassle for nothing.

“Poor communication and ineptitude were rife throughout the last couple months.”

Esports News UK reached out to Northern Arena on Friday afternoon to give them a right of reply and the chance to comment on the situation, but we have not yet heard back from them. We’ll update this article with a comment if we receive one.

Thanks to intel from Megalodontus for this news.

Dom Sacco

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.