The LCS, LPL and LEC: one thing that these League of Legends regional leagues have in common is that they’re all franchised. The LCK, short for League of Legends Champions Korea, has been the source of five World Champions with six appearances at finals in the past 9 years without any mention of a franchise. Finally, the competitive League of Legends community can rejoice as Riot Korea just announced through a new website, that in 2021, the LCK will become a franchised league!
There’s a lot to breakdown from their new website, which outlines everything from the framework of the league to applications for the Long-term partnership model. In this particular model of franchising, the league and the teams form a partnership – sharing revenue and having a say in the functionality of the league. This also comes with the added bonus of becoming a permanent member of the LCK; avoiding relegation: the LCK franchise looks to be identical to the other LoL franchises present already.
Here’s an encouraging quote taken from the website viewable here: https://thefutureoflck.com/en/index.html
In 2021, we plan to implement the Long-term partnership model in LCK to create an environment where fans, players, and teams can form a long-term relationship,” Riot wrote. “With this change, we plan to strengthen LCK’s competency and ultimately create a more satisfying experience for all participants of the league
Franchising is also great for professionals competing, as it establishes a baseline in the form of minimum salaries over the organizations to be involved. This should reduce the stress of maintaining a life as a competitive player and should also increase competition as fighting for a spot on one of the franchised organizations will become essential to building a career.
Could this in any way, harm the LCK?
To every positive, there’s a negative somewhere. In this monumental upgrade to franchising as the final League of Legends league to do so, the only possible negatives are either not garnering enough sponsorship (which is unlikely) or the exclusion of amateur players. However, with the establishment of a new Academy league to replace Challengers Korea, and by forcing every future LCK team to host an Academy league roster, this shouldn’t happen.
As of 2021, after the LCK franchise, every single region will have a franchised league for League of Legends!
We’ll be keeping a close eye on the LCK as applications will begin rolling in and spots for the franchised league will slowly become occupied.
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