EMEA TIER 2 ideas.

The tier 2 structure is chaotic and is hard to keep up with.
Alot of regions struggle with low viewership and interest.

Split 2 EMEA viewership: Source Escharts
Dach: Peak: 6646  -- Average: 1983
EAST: Peak: 3435 -- Average: 1074
Portugal: Peak: 1264 -- Average: 641
Italy: Peak: 2464 -- Average: 973
Turkey: Peak: 25,876 -- Average: 4787
Spain: Peak: 13,183 -- Average: 3002
France: Peak: 171,158 -- Average: 20,640  (Gentle mates has helped the league so much)
Polaris: Peak: 6,377 -- Average: 1,313
MENA LNA: Peak: 2058 -- Average: 691
MENA GCCI: Peak: 1486 -- Average: 494
MENA FINALS: Peak: 8942  -- Average: 3569 (slightly unfair to add but it's interesting)

Map of all the EMEA regions: https://imgur.com/pQlDr0n
Source of the region coverage: https://twitter.com/valleague_emea/status/1601245523889246208?s=20

What to change in 2024?

• First of all.. mongolia needs to become a Pacific region either as a single entity or as part of another region.
• Combining the two MENA regular season would be a good step to reduce the overloaded schedule.

Mergers (the names suggested aren't final but allow for easier referencing)

• "North" -- DACH + POLARIS: Two of the most northern regions in the EMEA VCL, with middling viewerships. Polaris suffers from a lack of organisations.
• "Iberia" -- SPAIN+PORTUGAL+ITALY: A remerging of what the region was in 2022. Portugal and Italy struggle alot with viewership.
• "EAST" -- CIS+EAST: If CIS is re-added to the VCL circuit I would recommend a merge with east, there's too many leagues already.

Issues with mergers

• Monopolies: VRL Spain 2022 lacked any Italian or Portuguese representation to combat this It would be best to give each region a base amount of slots.
  For example lets say Iberia 2024 has 12 slots: 2 slots is given to italy/spain/portugal each. The remaining 6 slots would be distributed in an open qualifier between the nations.

Map of proposed changes: https://imgur.com/tyUpWck
Map of proposed changes (if cis is added): https://imgur.com/a/i62hDju

Final thoughts: I doubt any of this to be easily achieved due to the complaints from orgs which may be cut from the leagues and contractual requirements. The main issue with emea is the scheduling.. the off season is too long and hurts the players, the regular season overlaps with other regions too much.

What would you like tier 2 emea to look like in 2024?

Someone needs to hire you asap. Also the mergers should happen, wild that it hasn't

I read allat + W

agreed but I would add France to the "North" league too since they could help carry the viewership further and it makes sense geographically

What is even funnier is that most of these teams can beat franchise American teams in a daily basis

I like this idea of the mergers.
also (i dunno how its gonna be but) I feel like having the broadcasts in English would be a big jump in viewership for every league. I feel like the North wouldn't have a problem with this, I dunno about the East, only in Iberia is that I think that the Spanish and some Italians would prefer their main language

you can't combine both MENA Leagues unluckily because Riot dont want to make Server in a good place
GCC has its server : Bahrain
but Levant and North Africa doesn't have its own server (best server is Paris offering 60 ping )
on the other hand GCC has 100 ping on Paris xD

Read allat
Great suggestions IMO, would love to see this happen

did read allat + W

personal thoughts, after all the feedback and notions I've acquired during the four months I was on top of the EMEA VCL issues

• Peak and/or average viewership are bad popularity metrics. You need to pay attention to concurrent viewers, average minute audience (not public on esports charts), and I'm half-sure there's one more statistic I'm forgetting.

• Regarding mergers

  • like you said, Iberia wouldn't function. Riot is very hands-off in these VCLs, so I highly doubt they'd force LVP to give PT/IT slots (just like they don't force the French operator to give slots to Benelux countries). It's worked in the East because Terp is great -- not the same for LVP.
  • CIS is unlikely to come back imo, you can let that idea go
  • Merging DACH with Polaris is a rough idea. DACH all play on the Frankfurt server, while Polaris play on UK+Nordics server, which will inevitably create ping disparities that will never sit right with players (win or lose!).
  • MENA can never be combined due to ping issues, scratch that completely.
  • Merging France with anyone, like some suggested, also isn't a great idea. Benelux's representation is already small, killing that league to create some form of handicapped super league will hurt France's scene in the longterm.

• iammika1999 mentioned having broadcasts in English. Bad idea for most of these leagues. There's a lot of regional/national pride tied to the VCLs, which gets stripped when you remove language-specific streams. It also kills a lot of people's jobs in favor of a hiring pool that's dried up or not large enough (english-language casters or casters capable of commentating in english for tier 2 in EMEA).

the underlying issue isn't how fragmented the EMEA VCLs. it's an aggravating factor, definitely, but the real issue is the lack of money. nobody has cash to burn, and riot have barely opened their wallets to tier 2 (they pay a small stipend to the TO to help with upkeep, which isn't even enough to cover prizes). the ERLs work in EMEA -- NLC may be in the shit but the other leagues aren't doing bad by most metrics despite slightly subpar numbers -- it's just a matter of getting a solid base built, but that requires money. and money's not really anywhere right now.