eSports News UK editor Dominic Sacco airs his opinion on the state of competitive League of Legends in the UK and what he has learnt since being excited by his first few ESL UK matches over a year ago.
Before I can explain what I think of competitive League of Legends in the UK right now, let’s cast my mind back to a fond memory of mine.
I remember the exact moment when that ESL UK Premiership press release landed in my inbox.
Sitting at my work computer back in September last year, I was minding my own business when all of a sudden this email caught my eye. A League of Legends Premiership, in the UK? With weekly matches? And a prize pool? Why hadn’t I heard of this before?
I was immediately excited by the prospect. So excited, in fact, I set a reminder on my phone’s calendar and when the next weekend came, I sat down and watched the matches.
I absolutely loved what I saw. This was a selection of up and coming teams, based locally, who were playing every week in a bid to become the top League of Legends team in the UK. What a fantastic idea. There were some really promising players in these games, I thought to myself.
I was so inspired by what I watched, I decided to write a report based on my first match (between Exertus and the NUEL) for my old video game blog (which later became eSports News UK).
The next morning I was surprised to see my tweet get quite a few of likes and shares, and that there were a bunch of people talking about it.
“Several of the best orgs in UK League of Legends have abandoned the game over the past year, including Team Infused, FM-eSports, Choke Gaming and Exertus Esports.”
I was working in trade journalism back then, where it is unusual for articles to regularly get lots of comments. Of course it’s a very different audience to that of an eSports fan/insider, but it was still very new to me. I immediately embraced the passion and chatter I was met with.
I felt the urge to delve into this scene and to write more about it. I was desperate for more free time than my current job allowed, so I found myself spending almost all of my free evenings and weekends looking into this scene and watching more matches.
Through my job I luckily already had some connections with tech/gaming companies such as Intel which opened some doors. I attended more eSports events in my spare time and spoke to the likes of ESL and Riot about writing some bits and pieces for them.
But I digress. The point is, I was more excited about something for as long as I could remember. At times I felt unsure, unaccepted and found it difficult to engage with a new, younger audience, but I persevered.
Despite the flashes of doubt, dodgy inside rumours and criticism that occasional came my way (which was and is entirely warranted, as I was still a relative newcomer to UK League and didn’t have a smidgen of knowledge compared to other people), I still stubbornly believed in this scene.
I believed that the UK was a sleeping giant in League of Legends and within eSports, and would soon get the recognition it deserved.
Nothing could have fazed me. People close to me know I am very stubborn when I believe in something and want to do something, and so I continued to write, to learn, to hopefully help promote this fascinating scene. I just adored what I was writing about.
I don’t have that feeling anymore.
The excitement has faded and has been replaced by doubt. The honeymoon period is over, the spark has gone and now everything feels pretty normal and guileless.
I am not writing this to shit on anyone, any team or any company here. Nor I am I writing this for attention (even though it may be coming across very pretentious and woe-is-me, that is not my intention).
I still love League of Legends, I still love eSports and I still love the idea of homegrown talent.
But I’m feeling disillusioned with the scene.
“I STILL believe in this scene, I still want it to succeed and I still think there are more positives to come. But it’s definitely changed.”
All of the drama around Last Remedy and the start of the current ESL UK split put me off covering that kind of content, at least for a while.
This week it emerged that former Last Remedy founder Grant Rousseau left the most recent org he joined, Team Profuse, taking their League of Legends team with him (after Profuse’s CSGO team and a few managers left). He is now talking with other orgs around offers.
There was a severe lack of UK LoL teams that signed up to the UK Masters tournament, prompting Riot community specialist Ben “Draggles” Forbes to promptly give orgs a kick up the backside.
Several of the best orgs in UK League of Legends have abandoned the game over the past year, including Team Infused, FM-eSports, Choke Gaming and Exertus Esports.
Exertus, the well-known UK org, was recently sold to US owners. In the space of a few weeks, the org has completely folded after the new owners found out they owed money to former League of Legends players.
Even Team Paria’s UK League team, with its admirable level of togetherness and determination, fell apart.
The orgs and rosters change so much at this level it is a challenge to keep up with, and makes little sense to write articles based on changes when they happen so often.
Dare I say it, the UK matches are more boring to watch nowadays. They seem to have got longer and more drawn out, or maybe it’s just me being a miserable bastard.
Then there’s the most damning part of it all. The volatility, instability, lack of funding and the unsustainable nature of competitive UK League of Legends.
It saddens me to write this post. And I’m sorry if I put you on a downer, but I had to get it off my chest.
Regardless, I’m not going anywhere. I STILL believe in this scene, I still want it to succeed and I still think there are more positives to come.
But it’s definitely changed, and I hope, with Riot’s recent positive announcements for League (higher prize pools backed by player purchases, plans to share eSports revenue streams, better media and sponsor partnerships, replays, the return of solo-queue), and with a little more professionalism instilled, that it will change for the better.
Because of course, with things as they are now, the only way is up, right?
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
