W franchising

Hey riot karma's a bitch
Now that you have to spend time and resources on a massive goose chase, I hope it was all worth it

I love how pre-franchising val had million and billion dollar corporations sponsoring NA and advertising through esport orgs so that players could actually get paid a good amount. We're not even talking minimum wage here the average was about 3-5k per month.

One reason they could do that was because every org had a chance to beat any org - half the orgs in franchising right now would probably lose to andbox, pioneers, immortals, faze, ryse etc and that'd be a really big deal for those orgs. AND WHO DOESNT LOVE A CINDERELLA STORY

but the bigger reason is they didn't have to work with and deal with riot and could advertise and sponsor how they wanted. Putting it all through a close pipeline under your whip makes it more costly and restricted on something they were already losing money on, so why bother? Because riot wants to monopolise esports like the thieving bastards they are (The only time I am not a fan of the thieves). I hope being your own downfall was worth it.

its not that deep vro (i agree w u tho)

It wasn't a dreadful idea but they went way too full in on it. Absolutely needed to be more avenues for non-franchised teams too.

Did bro just copy Nurfed or was it other way around

A bunch of the pre franchising orgs we're spending so much in hopes to get selected for franchising.

There would have been a lot less spending if they didn't have that very lucrative end goal to work towards

val money would go down with or without franchising. it was a boost because of a new game and a manufactured scene based on cs but it didnt have the fixed viewership yet. it gets worse before it gets better (although i do think open circuit is better)

I half expected this take to just be a random spam but nah

3k - 5k /month is min wage in a lot of NA cities. la/ny min wage is like $17.50-$18 a hr so that is talking about minimum wage

I also think he clarified he was respond to seans' video about "going back to" when all these orgs were in the scene. nurfed was saying we likely couldn't because those orgs who didn't make franchising lost all there other leverages for revenue. he wasn't slamming franchising. riot would have to revamp t2 and give it more support like people have been asking

This is a non-argument:

1. The "bubble" of orgs that invested a lot at the start of VALORANT was because orgs knew that franchising likely was on the horizon. By investing a lot (and early), orgs attempted to create a positive business relationship with Riot in the hopes of being selected for partnership
2. The degree of investment at the start was insanely unsustainable - a bunch of Tier-2 and Tier-3 players were getting exorbitant salaries despite low performance. This makes literally zero sense - and yes, as much as everyone hates it, some teams just shouldn't be paid if they're not going to perform or else all salaries are inflated, leading to a closed feedback loop where everyone overspends and orgs make risky financial decisions (RE: M80 right now)
3. The current method of T1 is way preferable to the previous open system. Why? Because orgs can actually profit in some capacity now. Team bundles, stipend from Riot --> without partnership and stability, orgs wouldn't be able to thrive in this system

VAL ecosystem doesn't rely on betting and saudi money (just yet) so we can't have a fully fledged open circuit like CS (which is where I'm assuming you're making the comparison). It sucks, and I agree that Riot needs to invest better into T2, but from a business perspective:

1. T2 literally has no financial upside for Riot - no one watches, so where do you get sponsorship money and other support? I mean half the people on VLR who preach about T2 sustainability likely don't give a shit at all, don't watch half the games, only watch when tarik watches, and doesn't buy stuff from smaller orgs like YFP (they're amazing btw) to financially support them
2. Tbh, tier-2 sustainability is an issue that is being experienced in not just VAL but also in literally every other esport and even traditional sports too. CS Tier 2 is littered with gambling - and you really think matchfixing doesn't happen there? It's almost guaranteed bro.

So tldr: T2 absolutely requires more attention from riot, but it is hard to provide a proper solution, and we can't keep piggybacking off of "The Golden Days" of VALORANT because quite frankly that would've been shortlived given the scene's unsustainable business practices at the time

The franchise system they have is so trash, i've been critizing it couple of time in past thread.

Also shout out to leo, feels like they just give an effort on how to deploy the "easier to roll out" format globally rather than how can you make the esport scenes and game itself have the best commercials, which is competitiveness, rivalry, and storylines.

Dont get me wrong, i like franchise league, but scrap that 4 year contract for any franchise team, team in tier1 should fight their ass for defend their spot, so many team now in tier1 is so trash that's not even appealing to watch.

There'll be evaluation toward 2027 for franchise league, i hope riot they will cut that head of esport frauds and make better system.