Before you read this article I've been asked to write something out for you in case you mistake views for facts. The following is a short article by Samuel 'Gosickboy' Page. This article represents my own personal, and some might say controversial, viewpoint. It's therefore my viewpoint. It's my viewpoint. It's my viewpoint. It's a person's viewpoint. It's not a big block of facts carved into a big block of concrete by a fact computer, it's one person's viewpoint. Are you ready for it? Good, here we go.

Since the start of 2012 Korean broadcaster OGN has been the almost exclusive broadcaster of League of Legends in South Korea. Nearly a full year before the introduction of the LPL, LCS and GPL, millions of fans around the world were tuning in to watch the best Korean League of Legends teams compete in OGN Champions. Thanks to their experience, resources and desire to include foreign fans (English streams were set up almost immediately and foreign teams were invited throughout the 2012 Season), OGN raised the profile of League of Legends in Korea and the profile of Korean eSports around the world. Their polished intros have become a fan favourite as well as being emulated (rather poorly overall) by broadcasters across the world, and their signiture music gets any OGN fan excited. A big OGN final is an eSports event so grand it's virtually peerless in eSports, especially when that older Korean guy starts yelling.

On the 06/11/2015 KeSPA, the governing body of Korean eSports, launched the KeSPA Cup (I wrote a long article about KeSPA and the KeSPA cup so go read it now if you haven't) and broadcast it on SpoTV. While the tournament itself was well received, many fans felt the production quality left something to be desired when compared to OGN Champions/LCK. The English stream in particular, while the casters Tsepha and Froskurrinn certainly did a good job, was not up to the usual standard. The interviews weren't translated, the casters weren't actually on stage (but seemingly shoved into a cupboard off stage) and the stage wasn't nearly as visually impressive. The general consesnsus was that OGN probably didn't want to broadcast KeSPA Cup for whatever reason and that LCK would continue on unchanged.

Yet it has now come to light that Riot Games is planning on splitting the broadcast between OGN and SpoTV. On 27/11/2015 Jacob Wolf posted an article titled 'OnGameNet may lose exclusive broadcast rights to the LCK' on popular news site The Daily Dot and this has been followed by a storm of youtube videos, written articles and long Reddit comments discussing the issue.

For me the most important thing to consider here is why has this decision been proposed?

Scheduling Issues

In 2015 the LCK became the only professional LoL League in the World to play best of 3 matches in the regular season. LCS and LMS both use best of 1 and LPL uses best of 2. Considering that throughout 2012, 2013 and 2014 OGN Champions (as LCK was called back then) used a best of 2 for the regular season it's not entirely clear why this change was made or if it still neccessary now but this change has brought on more schedualing issues.

The issue goes as follows:

- Match 1 is Jin Air Greenwings vs. Samsung Galaxy which starts at 4pm.

- Match 2 is SK Telecom T1 vs. CJ Entus, which is scheduled to start at 7pm but really will start when JAG vs. SSG finishes.

- Scenario A: JAG vs. SSG runs overtime due to long games and doesn't finish till 7.30pm. Occassional fan who just wanted to watch SKT vs. CJE is forced sit through 50 minutes of JAG vs. SSG. interviews. analysis and commercials before SKT vs. CJE starts. Occassional fan gets mad.

- Scenario B: JAG vs. SSG finishes quicker than scheduled due to a quick 2 - 0 from SSG. SKT vs. CJE starts at 6.15pm, occassional fan has now missed 45 minutes of SKT vs. CJE.

The idea is that if SpoTV and OGN share the broadcast rights to the LCK then this will no longer be an issue. Matches will always start when schedualed, regardless of the state of the previous match. However, this change doesn't actually solve anything, it merely moves the problem from occassional fans to dedicated fans. Allow me to explain:

- Scenario A: Dedicated fan is now forced to either miss the conclusion of JAG vs. SSG and the player interviews, miss the entire first game of SKT vs. CJE or try and multi stream the two matches (therefore missing out on the theoretically valuable analysis from one set of casters).

- Scenario B: Dedicated fan now has 45 minutes of downtime between series where previously there was none.

You see, in both situations someone loses. The only difference is that, while a game should always endeavor to remain accessible to new and occassional fans, one of the situation comes at the expense of the dedicated fan. These are the fans who go online and post about the matches, the fans who buy the merchandise from the teams and the fans that sponsors most want to target. Occassional fans become dedicated is good for the growth of the game but the same cannot be said for the reverse. It's important to keep the dedicated fans on side always.

It has to be said this is the overwhelming reason why I am against the splitting of the broadcast rights for the LCK. The idea that I, a long standing Korean eSports fan, would be punished is extremely frustrating. I can only imagine how frustrating this proposed change would be for fans who attend games live on a regular basis.

If Riot Games feels that these schedualing issues are so important then just revert LCK back to a best of 2 regular season format, there's no discernable benefit from the best of 3 format except for more games but if that comes at the expense of the viewing experience then so be it.

Asserting Control

Riot Games, throughout their existence, have shown themselves to be a very controlling entity. Korea was, throughout 2013, 2014 and 2015, the only region that Riot (or their holding company Tencent) didn't have complete control over. While I don't agree with Riot's desire to control everything, I can at least understand it. It hasn't worked out too badly either, it's been a little frustrating to wait for Riot to realise things that other eSports broadcasters had realised 5 - 6 years ago but overall it's been a pleasant experience. If OGN has proven they're non compliant with Riot's requests then I understand the decision to split the broadcast, but I lack the neccessary information to comment further.

#ThrowBack to the best suits ever. Only 2013 kids will understand this.

O1ne popular theory that's been discussed is that Riot is looking to minimalize the screentime of OGN's casters, with a view to slowly push them out of the scene completely. Currently the LCK is the only League in the world to feature official English casters that're not contracted or employed by Riot (I realise the LPL uses Ryanne 'Froskurrinn' Mohr but she is still being paid by Riot). While the English LCK casters Christopher 'MonteCristo' Mykkles and Erik 'Doa' Lonnquist have been present at a lot of Riot events historically, any viewer of LCK's English stream can tell you that the cast takes a different tone to the broadcast found on official Riot broadcasts.

They're also the only English speaking League of Legends casters who cast other games. something only possible because OGN itself broadcasts a wide variety of games. While SpoTV also broadcasts other games (most famously SC2 Proleague), it's not a large assumption to say that the English casters SpoTV employs would solely focus on League of Legends.

However, the idea that Riot Games would risk hurting the entire Korean League of Legends scene just for the sake of two English speaking casters is such a laughable decision that I can only assume it isn't true.

OGN was delusional if they thought Riot was going to continue to let them make millions using Riot's IP

- Reddit user /u/lolgetrektEU on Duncan 'Thorin' Shield's recent article 'Topic of Thorin: How Riot Killed The Golden Goose'

Now I realise that I'm quoting Reddit comments but I do believe this comment raises an interesting point.

As stated before; OGN Champions existed before Riot's LCS and operated at a profit, the significance of which is downplayed considering that Riot has publically admitted that they make massive losses on LCS. Before I'd believed that OGN and Riot were in a mutually beneficial relationship, OGN did an excellent job of promoting League of Legends both in Korea and around the world and was allowed to take their own profits as payment from Riot Games. Now of course Riot are well within their rights to try and monetize the profit themselves (which I might argue is a case of getting greedy) but that isn't what they're doing, at least from my perspective.

By splitting the broadcast with SpoTV they're just passing some of the potential profits from OGN to SpoTV, unless SpoTV is planning on operating the broadcast at a lower production cost and passing on a % of the profits to Riot. Considering just how much Riot loses with the LCS alone I have no choice but to discount this motivation.

I will say, as someone who's watched countless hours of their broadcast of SC2 Proleague, that SpoTV are a competent broadcaster who will likely improve from their KeSPA cup broadcast. As far I as can tell the only thing Riot vaguely accomplished to gain is control over a broadcast that was likely compliant with their requests anyway. Consider what both we the viewer and Riot themselves stand to lose: is any of this worth it?

The author specializes in Korean League of Legends. You can connect with him at @Gosickboy_.