Riot Games is looking to employ a manager who will help flesh out the developmental ecosystem of North American League of Legends, LCS commissioner Chris Greeley announced a couple of days ago.
Greeley said he wants to help make NA the most competitive region in League. And for that to be the case, the newly-hired head of scholastic and amateur esports in North America will have to make sweeping changes.
The job description says the appointed manager “will run and operate a set of esports programs that cover the entirety of the sub-professional competitive landscape.” This developmental landscape includes League at the college, high school, amateur, and academy level.
Riot’s goal is to create a seamless flow between each of these levels of play. This kind of developmental structure mimics that of some of the traditional sports in NA and makes it so the talent that progresses through each stage becomes more experienced, mature, and better able to handle themselves if they make it to the big leagues.
Perhaps, in the not too distant future, LCS academy teams will be drafting its players from colleges across the U.S. This potentially could also give players the opportunity to earn scholarships while they play in college, which may help solve the issue of how temporary a career as an esports professional generally is.
Overall, this is a positive step toward improving the North American region as a whole. But regions like Korea and China have taken the development of their future stars seriously for years now, so NA still has some catching up to do.
LCK has recently announced an Academy Series as well. The Academy Series will consist of four open-cup tournaments held on a monthly basis from August to November, out of which the top two teams will be seeded into a championship held in December.
The conditions to participate are strict to promote unknown talent instead of established pros. To participate, a player has to fulfill the following criteria:
12 years or older
Diamond III or above
Not registered on the roster of a professional team
Hasn’t played in LCK, CK, or other regions in the past 12 months.
The semifinals and finals will be broadcast on the official LCK channel, according to Kevin Kim. Participants will reportedly be allowed to stream their matches as long as they turn on a 30-minute delay and remove all cameras, microphones, and other third-party apps.
