State Of Esports Right Now - Franchising

I'm sure most of you have heard of the franchising system that Riot is bringing to VALORANT next year as part of it's 2023 Pro Circuit. I honestly don't get why they're doing it, I mean nothing was wrong with the VCT Series and even the First Strike system was not bad. 7 regions to me isn't even enough for how many teams are out there, there should at least be 8 - 10 or give the current regions more slots for LAN events.

Americas | NA + BR + LATAM
3 Words, Stupid - Stupid - Stupid. NA is no doubt one of, if not, the biggest regions in the scene right now with so many talented teams like OpTic, FaZe, XSET, Cloud9, etc. Even some of the smaller "Tier-2 / 3" teams could make a good team such as Akrew, DarkZero and Complexity (which have all left VALORANT due to franchising, ikr). 1 region wasn't enough for all these teams and now you're merging it with BR and LATAM? Now, Brazil. This region has always been at the top of VALORANT for the past two years with teams like Vivo Keyd and Vikings representing the, in 2021 and now LOUD making a scene. This is the same story for LATAM, KRU and Leviatan are their main two bullies and that's all to say there. I would have been fine with combining LATAM and BR into South America and giving them three slots but this is just stupid.

EMEA | uh, EMEA
Yeah not much to say here, EMEA (according to what I have seen) will stay as one league, region, whatever.

SEA, Asia? APAC? (can't find a solid source for what this will be called)
APAC has always been a top region with NUTURN and VS making a run for them last year as part of Korea. Team Secret and Bren being APACs top few. Japan this year has really broken through with a podium run from ZETA earlier this year at Reykjavik. Oceania as well has been a decent region as well with it's main bully, ORDER, making a decent run at this years APAC LCQ. They stomped FCY and CERBERUS, and NARROWLY loss to Team Secret as well, this is just like the Americas, combining three huge regions into one!

How can they fix it
With this format in place, the only reasonable thing I see happening is having a quote on quote league system, where we have the top 10-20 teams competing in Division 1, lets take Americas for example, their Division 1 would be, OpTic, XSET, FaZe, The Guard, Cloud9, Sentinels, Shopify Rebellion, NRG, FURIA, Ninjas in Pyjamas, LOUD, KRU, SK, Leviatan, with many more. Then they would play in a "Regular Season Stage" where it could be Round Robin, Swiss, Single / Double Elimination. But the point is the top 4-5 or whatever qualify to the International LAN (masters or whatever), then the bottom few teams get relegated to Division 2, and the top teams from Division 2 replace them. Lower divisions could also have a Contenders LAN for example where winner could get something, idk. Kinda like in Football, Champions League, Europe League, Conference League.

Then they would restart it, maybe have two stages or three. Then from Circuit Points or from placing or whatever, the top few teams qualify to Champions where the two, one, three winners of the contenders cup could also join in and then yeah.

Anyways that's my thoughts, what'd you think, again.

Stupid - Stupid - Stupid, unless they turn it around 180, idk.

Actually a W read and a good idea. It would be cool to have a system like this integrated, but if this is too much for riot, I'd rather have an open qualifier where there's 2 or so slots for teams to qualify into the league without being guaranteed slots, it'd be good for upcoming talent and fairy tale runs, whilst still giving other teams chances to make it

i just don’t understand riot’s justification in turning the Americas into 1 region. all this system does is stifle competition instead of fostering it. i think the only way to save this system is if there’s regular promotions to the big leagues for teams to make their mark, but if teams are paying for these slots then that seems nearly impossible

Okayyyyyy [#2]

Actually a W read and a good idea. It would be cool to have a system like this integrated, but if this is too much for riot, I'd rather have an open qualifier where there's 2 or so slots for teams to qualify into the league without being guaranteed slots, it'd be good for upcoming talent and fairy tale runs, whilst still giving other teams chances to make it

Yeah, I don't know why they are locking in slots for these regions, I fully understand them wanting to draw viewership from the big teams such as TSM, Sentinels, Fnatic. But having no open qualifier slots is stupid, look at The Guard, they were nobodies at the start of 2022 and are now one of the biggest NA teams. Now the only way for players to get onto the big stage and show teams why they should be signed and with teams exiting left and right, this will become harder and harder. It's gonna become like the NBA or smth, can't find a good metaphor.

W

Javvi [#4]

Yeah, I don't know why they are locking in slots for these regions, I fully understand them wanting to draw viewership from the big teams such as TSM, Sentinels, Fnatic. But having no open qualifier slots is stupid, look at The Guard, they were nobodies at the start of 2022 and are now one of the biggest NA teams. Now the only way for players to get onto the big stage and show teams why they should be signed and with teams exiting left and right, this will become harder and harder. It's gonna become like the NBA or smth, can't find a good metaphor.

Exactly this, its like the MLS, there's no punishment for consistently shit performances and the reward will be the same as it is now, all of this and talented players with potential will be hard to find. That being said, I think League has a league with only academy teams, so there is hope for upcoming talent after all if they decide to do that here too

A follow-up, if you REALLY want to downsize the number of regions so there can be more convenient slot giving or smth idk you could combine LATAM and BR into SA and give them 3 slots, they already have that many, combine JP and KR into just JPKR or EA and add China since they don't have a lane into Masters rn, if you really want, combine APAC and EA into APAC.... and give each region four slots. NA, EMEA, SA, APAC. Four slots for each. Fair