Is a league based system the way to go within e-sport?

In e-sport we mostly have many different tournaments that have differing price pools, some have higher, some lower. It’s a way for the different companies involved to market themselves to their consumers. What would happen if a league based system like we have in League of Legends and LCS where Riot Games, the creators of the game have created their own league where the top ten teams compete every week to get to the top and to the world championship. Would this be a good idea in Counterstrike? I would say that it is both good and bad since the teams competing in the league would have to only play in that league and no other tournament.

This would have a negative effect since the other tournaments will lower their prize pool since they most likely won’t have as many viewers as they have now. This will lower the ad revenue for the organizers and the sponsors and this in turn will of course lower the total prize pool. A positive thing is that we will have one set of rules to follow and it will become the rule book everyone will use including the minor tournaments. Getting standard rules will make it a lot easier for players of all skill to understand the rules and rules will not differ from tournament to tournament.

Lastly I think implementing a league system in CS:GO would only hurt the scene. My reasoning behind is that it will hurt the lower tier teams which will make it harder to get new talent into the scene. The reason for that is like I said in the beginning of this article, with prize pools being lower the support for the up and coming talent will not be what it is today with a lot of tournaments going on at the same time. With all of these tournaments going on the sponsors of the teams gets more exposure and therefore are going to give more money to the organization, increasing the players salary. This gets more players the opportunity of playing full time and give the game everything they have. This will help the pro scene grow and ultimately give more players room to show off. This is why I think a league based system (like the LCS) wouldn’t be the best for the CS scene, it would hurt more players than it benefited.

 

Written by: Karl ”Cowsy” Ljunggren