Riot delays, and threatens to cancel, League of Legends’ NA esports season amid player walkout

polygon.com:

Riot Games will delay the opening of its North American League of Legends esports summer series for two weeks after professional players voted “overwhelmingly” to walk out. The announced walkout meant players would not participate in the tournament should Riot Games not address concerns from the League Championship Series Player’s Association (LCSPA) about the future of the LCS and the amateur North American Challengers League. If the two groups cannot reach an agreement in two weeks, Riot Games said it will cancel the summer season. If the summer season is canceled, a North American team will not compete at the 2023 League of Legends World Championship.

The LCSPA represents the interests of all North American League of Legends professionals and is led by an executive council of five players. It also includes several player representatives and an advisory board led by executive director and former Evil Geniuses executive Phil Aram. The LCSPA was founded in 2017 by League of Legends publisher Riot Games, and it split from the company in 2020 — a separation planned since the initial founding of the organization. (The LCSPA still has a pool of money from Riot Games’ original investment.) League players have announced their intention to walk out and refuse to participate in the upcoming LCS summer season — called the summer split — after Riot Games announced a new direction for North America’s second-tier development League of Legends league, the NACL.

Earlier in May, Riot Games announced that it was removing a mandate that required LCS teams to fund a NACL team in addition to its LCS roster. Riot Games said it was asked to do this by the teams’ ownership; each team paid $10 million for an LCS spot when the league franchised