My previous stance about franchising is neutral, but now I think franchising is just not great.
I won't repeat the same opinions people have about why franchising is bad, but I'll add mine, it is about Tier 2 investments.
From my perspective investments can be in the form of fan events, off seasons tournaments, academy teams and other activities. These investments are usually done by T2 orgs or Riot's regional branches themselves into T2. Ultimately, these investments will result in better talent regeneration. (I can explain why this can happen but just ask me I'm to lazy to edit😂.)
Imagine a certain subregion's total investment is around 1M$ but because of the nature of franchising themselves only 250k$ will end up on the subregion's tier 1. This isn't great because it caps the amount of investments subregions can put in by basically lower the expectation of how much the investments will bear returns. Meaning this will slow down T2 it self.
A great Tier 1 are found on the basis of a good tier 2. When the tier 2 falters the tier 1 eventually will sooner or later.
Tldr; japan invested so much onto T2 valorant scene, but due to franchising inherent nature T2 orgs will eventually cap their investments which is not great for a subregion that's doing their best to catch up against other subregions. This means that Japan T1 will catch up even slower.