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ROX Tigers in peril? That ain't no scoop

League of Legends Worlds stage (Photo: Twitter)
Expert
18th October, 2016
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ESPN sparked controversy over the weekend, reporting that the ROX Tigers would disband to chase lucrative deals in North America and China.

The Tigers quickly responded by denying and denouncing the report – an expected response from a team that wants no distractions ahead of a League of Legends Worlds semi-final clash with SK Telecom.

So much fuss over so little! One doesn’t need “sources close to the organisation” to tell you which way the wind is blowing. Hint: it’s not toward Korea.

Korea’s domination at Worlds has briefly distracted us from the precarious situation its teams are in. Since the heyday of Korean esports in the mid 2000s, big contracts and long-term stability have been the sole purview of a select handful of teams with the backing of major corporations. This wasn’t an issue back when Korea was the only country in the world with a mature esports industry, but it’s now beset by American sports consortiums and billionaire Chinese hobbyists.

Despite the wealth of their mother companies, Korean teams haven’t been able to keep up in spending. Famously, Samsung Galaxy was unable to retain any of its ten players after taking first and third place at the 2014 world championship – a stark demonstration of how a Korean team’s budget can be entirely divorced from its success. Even SK Telecom T1, the greatest LoL team of all time, has been bleeding members every year.

At this point, it’s hard to expect anyone to “rescue” ROX when foreign suitors come knocking. It’s unlikely spending from existing Korean teams will increase significantly, or that a game-changing Korean company will enter the space. Korean esports has actually lost corporate patronage from its peak in StarCraft, with conglomerates such as as Hwaseung, Woongjin and STX all having disbanded their teams by 2013 (Jin Air’s entry in 2011 stands out as a rare bright spot).

League of Legends has had an undoubtedly positive effect on Korean esports, but it hasn’t exactly been reeling big business back in. At best, we’ve had sponsors like Najin, a mid-size commercial real estate company that entered esports due to the CEOs personal interest. Even they were in and out of LoL within three years. At worst, we saw shoe brand SBENU back a team for a year before the entire company suffered a controversial collapse.

The Tigers almost followed the same path. They were initially backed by fledgeling domestic streaming company KOO TV, which ignominiously folded a mere three months after starting service. ROX were only saved by a stroke of grace, as KOO were backed by Chinese streaming giant YY who decided to continue the sponsorship.

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This illuminates China as a potential reason for positivity in a static Korean scene. Chinese businesses have shown their willingness to advertise through LCK – a league where sponsorship has come predominantly from domestic sources. Longzhu’s naming sponsorship of IM is most notable, while ROX and SKT have Chinese sponsors as well. Of course, sponsoring LCK teams only reveals a certain degree of interest. Competing with the richest teams in the world to sign the best players in the world? That would be another level of commitment entirely. Yet, it’s one of the few scenarios ROX fans can hope for to keep Tigers together as a unit, albeit in a I-hope-TSM-makes-semis-at-worlds kind of way.

At Worlds, we’re seeing that the rest of the world must catch up to Korea in skill. After worlds, we’re going to see Korea struggle to match the rest the world in terms of capital. Unfortunately, both gaps seem equally unclosable.

Kwanghee “Waxangel” Woo is one of the original eSports writers and editors, having covered Starcraft 2 and League of Legends since launch. We welcome Khanghee as our first eSports expert on The Roar.

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