VLR Tier 2 Takes

#1

IonlywatchvcjXD

When talking about tier 2 scene VLR in general often miss the forest for the trees. People are missing the bigger picture

People always complain about how dead the tier 2 scene is, but I've rarely seen people talk about how cloutless the tier 2 scene is. You might have the best tier 2 scene in the world, but that just means you're losing more money to accomodate orgs' needs. That's how you lose the scene faster. Lofty ideals with no returns.

What riot should focus more isn't how to improve tier 2, save that for when you've gathered enough capital or enough viewers to sustain that. Riot should find ways to gather viewers, especially on how to get Tier 1 watchers to watch tier 2. There's little riot can do when even majority of VLR, a site about valorant esports barely watches them.

Also clouted region attracts existing local big orgs, big orgs pay good wages and good wages attracts better talents.

#2

Galactc

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True but it's easier to blame riot than watch tier 2

#4

IonlywatchvcjXD

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Not wrong, but I think doing that just gets to nowhere, I think what VLR can do is :

Watch Tier 2
Pushing riot to market their tier 2 better.

#5

DuD5K1S

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Vamos Shopify

#11

IonlywatchvcjXD

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Vamos Shopify🔥🔥

#3

Invic_Deep

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The problem is deeper than what most people understand. Valorant is a truly global game which touched countries which have never before been in PC esports. Riot artificially tried to create 2 Tiers in a game where there's absolutely no scope for it unlike traditional sports. Traditional sports are far-reaching with most teams representing local cities where everybody has a special connect to their own city nd turn up to stadiums to watch their locals play while also having an absolute favorite like Barca nd Madrid in football.
Meanwhile in Valorant teams generally represent whole country and when your country has a team playing in VCT they take up the role of both local and international fav suffocating other teams. Any Tier 2 team having a fanbase is either due to a player/coach/creator who is well known or due to the fact that they represent a country not represented in VCT like Vietnam nd Mongolia.
TLDR there's no way to build any fanbase in Tier 2 valorant which I will touch upon in one more way .

#6

IonlywatchvcjXD

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Meanwhile in Valorant teams generally represent whole country and when your country has a team playing in VCT they take up the role of both local and international fav suffocating other teams.

Can you please rephrase this sentence in a simpler term? I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. 😅

#8

Invic_Deep

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Basically I am Indian and I do watch bit of football, Bayer Leverkusen is my fav team and they play in biggest competitions so I support them during that but at the same time no Indian team plays in champions league or anything but since I have local league where let's say team from my state FC GOA plays so I also support them and watch their matches bcz there's no overlap between 2 teams its a natural connection.
But in Valorant Global Esports represents India in VCT which is biggest league and every other Tier 2 team in India also represents India and thus have no local connection to anyone rather a clear overlap with GE so naturally Indian fanbase nd streamers support GE. I somehow hv support for RNTX core bcz I am here pre-franchising and when it all mattered I chose Enigma gaming and others chose GE , VLT ,T69 , GDL and so on but that won't happen with any new viewer anymore they will naturally choose GE

#9

IonlywatchvcjXD

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Ok now that you've explained it that way I can see it now thx man

#21

Anguibok

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Thats a problem for monocountry T2, but vast majority of T2 have more than one country. In France and Brasil, we have enough big org to make a full sustainable T2 because people are already connected to team thanks to influencers the key to make T2 fun, is to create T3.

Take a region with barely no strong identity like Polaris, that end up with a lot of mix, create one T3 region for each region that cost almost nothing, give the top 2 winner a slot in promotion with the top Premier team, doing that, you augment the number of T2 team that represent a small nation.

Second exemple, SEA, now they have all merge, they should all have their T3 region, and have a full system that ensure every T3 region got at least one representant in the T2 (one solution to make it work here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_fOPBPWl_w)
If everyone is represented in SEA megaregion, then we will have mush more hype in the T2

And the solution to make T3/national league that will bring state representation in T2 work for almost everyone :

Work for LAN, LAS, SEA, EU-S, EU-N, EU-E (Some T3 region will need to be a group of country), GCCI, LENA, CIS.
Work in a lesser extent South Asia (Bengladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka), DACH (Only 3.1 states), Oceania (As a french, I would be curious about a T3 pacific islander), NA (I really think NA missed the mark by not using the fact it's hard to play on the same server because of distance to create a more local identity)
Doesn't need : BR, JP, FR, TR, KR (The academic team will also help KR)

And if some region lack of national rivalries, then we can change how the T2 region are made... TR region lack of hype ? Just add Greece (And ensure at list one or two Greek team is add), viewership will literally double

#10

segbench

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riot didn't try to artificially create two tiers, they directly nerfed the likelihood that 2 tiers could co-exist by eliminating the possibility of VCT teams fielding true academy teams in S1 (true as in their own team, not just an affiliate). In S1 of VCT, multiple orgs set out with the expectation they would be able to also field their own academy teams in Challengers. This would have created actual paid opportunities in T2 which is what games need to sustain upward. Riot ruled that VCT teams could not own an academy team and here we are 3 years later with Riot realizing their mistake and you already see Sentinels jumping at the opportunity to have an academy team and they aren't going to be the last.

#14

Invic_Deep

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the point you make may work for NA which has 7 rep in Franchising brother but how would you make this system work In SEA where everyone except PRX is fielding an academy roster but its just 1 team in Indian VCL which won't carry viewership and on the opposite end it means half of the slots of SEA league are directly given to academy teams while so many countries miss out even on having a single representation which would completely kill valorant market in their country.

#16

segbench

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not arguing whether or not it's going to work this late in the game. but arguing your point that Riot "artificially created T2"

#17

Invic_Deep

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I mean waking up and creating an artificial barrier just by words in between teams who previously competed against each other is definitely an artificial creation of 2 tier of competition. It wasn't like some teams weren't good enough to compete nd got relegated to Tier 2 Riot afterall chose orgs nd not teams as partners and a FA team isnt allowed to Ascend even today

#15

IonlywatchvcjXD

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I think adding VCT academy teams to tier 1 is just riot's band-aid towards tier 2s bigger problem, which is there is barely any support in tier 2. I think this is the case because it doesn't make sense for this rule to be applied to VCJ, where the scene isn't anywhere near dying. In fact there are 9 big orgs (moneywise and cloutwise) currently in advanced stage competing for 6 spots. Adding both DFM and Zeta AC actually adds unnecessary competition

#7

Invic_Deep

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Second point Riot is definitely responsible and majorly responsible for what's happening to T2. In pre-franchising era a local league had lot more value attached to the matches than what it has today. Since Riot didn't put all their money in sustaining an artificial Tier 1 they actually promoted local leagues which mean more eyeballs. Furthermore with plethora of orgs present fans were willing to divide nd choose amongst their own country teams cheering with a hope that their fav team will make it to regional qualifiers nd represent the country. The classical GE vs VLT which saw insane hype creation and breach of over 70k peak viewership for a local match was result of this . It's a big delusion that people only watch VCT bcz they want to be entertained by highest quality valorant and they won't watch Tier 2 a low quality game as a result. 99% of watchers are much worse than any pro player in game nd they have no understanding of what even is high quality valorant. They watch whatever is sold to them . If this wasn't the case we would not frequently have seen pros like Boaster watching VLT vs GE when India played one of the lowest level of valorant pre-franchising. But Riot giving them official relegation to regional valorant outside 12 hand-picked teams and zero promotion means they are not worth watching for majority playerbase.
Add it to the fact that pre-franchising every official match mattered just like it does even now for VCT teams. But in this system for Tier 2 Split 1 has no value, Split 3 has no value the only matches that matter are split 2 which also send you to Ascension a much lower quality event than Masters or Champions which means it's almost immpossible for a casual viewer to support only their own Tier 2 team or even watch their Split 1 nd 3 matches as they would rather watch a VCT match that matters.
At bare minimum Riot could have added Tier 2 matches to in-game esports tab which would give it good reach atleast but they are incapable of doing even that much for reasons best known to them.

#12

IonlywatchvcjXD

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That's a great point. Adding tier 1 haphazardly by ignoring tier 2 lowers their value.

#13

Invic_Deep

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I would also like to counter a very common point which is always thrown around both in reddit nd here that pre-franchising so many orgs invested only in the hope of getting into franchise and they left naturally when they didn't make it. This take implies that no org would hv entered Valorant if Riot had not promised them franchising. I have a very simple retort to this and I would love to debate but do you all seriously believe that 30+ org that invested in NA seriously believed in their head that they have chance of being 1 of the 6 NA team that would be chosen. Orgs like Xset nd Ghost gaming had zero chance of making it over bigger , older ,richer and more clouted orgs in NA yet they created successful teams and Xset went international . Do you guys seriously think that 15 orgs investing in a country like India believed that they would be that 1 chosen one who will go to franchise. Heck orgs like RGE, TR ,Engima didnt even had a structure that would let them reach anywhere close to franchising and similarly i can give countless examples from multiple countries but point is same not everyone was in it for Franchising as people like to claim. Franchising was a competition between some 100 odd orgs organisation for 40 spots while Valorant had over 300 active orgs thriving pre-franchise bcz the ultimate dream of making champions and getting that bundle money changed fates of many org. PRX and Sentinels are what they are today simple due to success in Valorant. And if nothing else Valorant gave everyone enough viewership that they can fetch sponsors nd support their teams which unfortunately isnt possible anymore for Tier 2 teams. I mean you think if I am owner of a company I dont hv any reason to sponsor a team playing in a league with 500 avg viewer. Either i invest in league with 150k avg viewer or I simply dont unless I am a betting company which has throwaway money which also will only be allowed to VCT teams btw

#18

IonlywatchvcjXD

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And if nothing else Valorant gave everyone enough viewership that they can fetch sponsors nd support their teams which unfortunately isnt possible anymore for Tier 2 teams

The relationship between tier 1 , tier 2 and sponsorhsip isn't that clear tho imo.

orgs in VCJ have proven this. Sengoku has 32 ( iirc ) sponsors if the info their website provided is true. While Reject just secured a new source of capital. And both of them are not even in franchising. Idk how both of them managed to convince their sponsors, but I think the point is Tier 2 orgs also needs to have some accountability too, if an org relies solely on riot's partnership then they aren't meant for franchising imo.

#19

Invic_Deep

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by same thing numbers Japan's Tier 2 has more viewers than many T1 matches and every T2 in world which unfortunately isnt true for others . The biggest viewerbase of even VCT pacific is Japan their streamers are biggest faces in all of Pacific and sponsors just want numbers

#20

IonlywatchvcjXD

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While that is true, I think some of these partners and sponsors have been around even before they dived into valorant. (Imma need to check their twitter to confirm my takes tho 😅)

I'm half retracting this statement.

#22

Yistyy

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It's simple. Riot doesn't advertise tier 2 at all. It's not dead at all. Just nobody cares.

#23

RA621H

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Valorant launched just as the esports bubble burst, and we are seeing its long-term effects. The thing is, unless you are having gambling money involved like in CS, only the publisher (in Valo's case, Riot/Tencent) could fund the pro-scene. It has been re-iterated countless times that Riot never made any money out of LoL esports outside of China. Though they've still invested in it due to the intangibles, ie promoting their product. LoL esports did this quite successfully, since LoL esports is one of the biggest reason the game is still pretty healthy in terms of player counts and interest. It has therefore been a good ROI, despite LoL esports losing money for Riot on paper. Even so, Riot had to merge several regions to create LTA and APAC league this year.

Now, talking about Valo, again, unless Riot wants to allow CS-style open circuit with external TOs hosting tournaments with gambling sponsorship money, they have to bear the whole expenditure of maintaining the esports scene. Funny thing is, at the beginning of Valo, Riot mentioned that they are planning to structure Valorant esports unlike that of LoL but closer to that of CS : 3rd party TOs, lot of different international LANs, etc. For some reason, they've altered their plans and now here we are, with VCT as we know today.

So from Riot's point of view, everything revolves around the ROI, ie how much marketing the pro-scene does for Valo. Players and watchers of VCT all shit on Riot for creating the franchised system and ruining the national/regional leagues as a result, but Riot must've done some calculations before jumping to the franchised structure. Especially, what'd matter is how much ROI they'll be able to get from key markets, that is the Chinese market and the Western market. It is very plausible that the ROI of creating and maintaining 4 international leagues is much better than maintaining every single individual national T1 leagues, as it has been pre-franchise.

I think that Riot couldn't care less about T2. Had it been possible, I think that they wanted to replicate the success of the European LoL esports scene, where both the LEC and ERL/EM were very popular. This obviously hasn't worked in Valo, but at least from the viewership standpoint, I think T1 has worked out well for Riot.