Cast 22: How Esport Casters are both in command, but also at the mercy of the Industry.

The other day the internet was abuzz about OGN casters Christopher “MonteCristo” Mykles, Erik “DoA” Lonnquist, and Christopher “PapaSmithy” Smith electing to reject an offer to cast the Mid-Season Invitational tournament in Shanghai for League of Legends due to Riot Games not providing what they considered market rate for their services.

Contract negotiation can be tricky involving multiple parties and as esports continues to grow and evolve this most certainly isn’t the first or the last time we will be hearing about contracts being the topic of discussion.

This particular situation seems to have been looming for sometime, and in this article, I’ll be talking about both parties involved and how casters control a lot of their own destiny but still will be facing similar difficult career decisions and obstacles in the ever changing landscape that is esports.

Don’t hate the game understand the owner.

First we’ll start with the developer Riot Games. Riot sits in an interesting position because not only are they the developer of the game, but they are also the tournament organizer as well. Riot has taken specific steps to bring as much of the production aspects in-house as opposed to outsourcing them to ESL or a third party. At the initial stages of development Riot Games did outsource the production to independent parties, but as they have grown over time, it has always been clear that their goal was to control the production and esports broadcast of League of Legends internally.

This philosophy was evident when they launched the LCS series and opted to create their European LCS studio in Berlin as opposed to Cologne where independent contractor ESL/MMC’s Studios are located that they were using before.

By creating their own in-house studio they primarily were looking to have casters in-house on salary as part of the entire broadcast package that they could control. This led to the parting of ways of independent contract casters Leigh “Deman” Smith and Joe “Don’t Call Me Joe” Joe Miller who stayed with their employer ESL after broadcasting the EU LCS League of Legends under contract initially.

The reason that Riot wants casters on salary is so that they will have a consistent and reliable product in broadcast that is completely in line with their vision of how their game should be presented in an esports setting.

Working with independent contractors obviously has its benefits as it allows the engagements to be for specific events and only when needed without carrying extra overhead, but it can also create both scheduling and philosophical conflicts that may not fit with what Riot wants to do. Having casters on guaranteed salary also negates any potential conflicts with contract negotiations that may slow down or interfere with the event broadcast schedule. This benefit also helps in keeping operating costs at a consistent projected level for budgeting. It’s this last particular point that is at the heart of the recent events, and seems to have been looming with the OGN casters for some time.

OGN FTW…For Now

As I mentioned earlier, Riot Games strategy has always been to own and operate as much of the production broadcast as possible. When Riot was still a small company expanding their player base to other regions, they decided to make an agreement with OGN, a cable television station in Korea. In 2012 OGN Champions was launched to create and promote competitive play within the country.

This, of course, brought about the excellent OGN broadcasts we all know about today that feature MonteCristo, DoA, and PapaSmithy broadcasting the series in English, and helped elevate their visibility as community leaders and experts within the region.

As time progressed, OGN invested heavily in developing the League of Legends competitive scene in Korea and eventually drew in the large KESPA organization teams SKT1, KT Rollster, and even had their parent company CJ field its own teams CJ Entus Frost & Blaze.

OGN having control of how the competitive structure was presented allowed them to set up the multi-team system. This system not only allowed them to have the ability for internal organization scrimmages, but also allowed for organizational match-ups in a tournament setting between rosters reminiscent of the year long GSL for Starcraft.

These multi-roster team match-ups allowed organizations to play for extended periods of time, which was more conducive for sponsorship, and would be known as the OGN Masters series that debuted between the original OGN Champions Winter and Spring seasons. OGN Masters aim was to help provide the desired year long visibility for the organizations and allow them to experiment with roster combinations for the upcoming winter tournament.

While that situation was excellent for the Korean scene it unfortunately conflicted with Riot’s own personal vision of what regional play should be, and that became abundantly clear at the 2014 League of Legends World Championship that featured Samsung White and Samsung Blue meeting in the semifinals.

Will the real Samsung please stand up…

Having two teams from the same organization meet in the semifinals of the World Championships was not what Riot Games had in mind when assembling teams from all over the world to compete for the title. The lack of diversity set them in motion to try and get the Korean competitive scene in line with the rest of what they were building with the North American LCS and European LCS.

In October of 2014 Riot Games, OGN, and Kespa agreed to dissolve the sister teams and move towards a format similar to the league LCS format. This new format, now known as the LCK, wasn’t just about the changes to the sister team situation. There were also concerns about the roster turnover in Korea and lopsided results.

When Riot Korea started the process of changing the format of the OGN broadcasts that should have been the first sign that they were moving towards a similar situation like what happened in Europe where they moved to their own studio in Berlin. This wasn’t just about the format. This was about Riot being able to control the broadcast of their game and conform it to their global business vision for League of Legends esports.

Don’t change the channel…unless we say so.

In January of 2015, this announcement from OGN reflected the impending move towards the broadcast being under Riot Games control instead of OGN, and this was just the beginning.

The OGN Casters MonteCristo, DoA, and PappaSmithy are not Riot employees and are independent contractors hired by OGN much in the same fashion that Deman and Joe Miller are associated with ESL. While Riot still doesn’t have a studio in Korea to broadcast their own Korean League there are many signs that Riot is looking to alternative options to get closer to that goal.

In December of 2015, there was reporting of Riot Games moving to copyright their own version of Champions and also splitting the broadcast with Korean sports station SpoTV and OGN. Naturally this sparked controversy with the casters at OGN who are under contract with that specific network and felt they were losing their show and programming that they developed and possibly were being locked out of covering the games on SpoTV due to their exclusive contracts with OGN.

Eventually, Riot Korea decided against splitting the broadcast between SpoTV and OGN after a public backlash, but the signs of their intentions were clear. Riot Korea opted for a revised agreement that would allow everything and the playoffs on OGN, but some overlap to occur on SpoTV for 2016, however, there are no plans in 2017 to keep it that way as of yet.

This latest situation with the OGN Casters and Riot concerning the MSI tournament is yet another chapter in the long expansion of Riot Games in their quest to homogenize the competitive League of Legends scene across all regions under their direction.

Decisions Hang in the Balance…

When selecting casters for the League of Legends MSI tournament the contracts were under market rate for independent contractors, and unfortunately the OGN casters were put in a tough position. Either accept the low rates and set a precedent for their value as independent broadcasters, or refuse the offer and demand fair market rate compensation. They chose the latter.

The market rate for independent casters is indeed higher currently than what Riot was offering, and a big part of that is because other companies like Blizzard Entertainment and Valve are offering more due to not having the internal esports broadcasting structure Riot Games has. This however might be changing as well.

Blizzard Entertainment has made some very aggressive moves acquiring Major League Gaming (MLG) this past year and are in the process of expanding their studio space for television development. It’s clear that while significantly behind Riot Games in internal esports structure they are heading in a similar direction.

Valve is also consolidating more and more of Dota 2’s competitive scene under their control as opposed to the loose independent structure of tournaments they were using before as well. Both Valve and Blizzard have similar ideas as to what Riot Games has accomplished even though they are at vastly different stages.

These ever evolving esports infrastructures put the independent contract casters at a cross roads that require nimble and careful decisions to be made for their future. When they are associated to one particular game and audience they must be mindful of the game developer’s esports broadcast plan.

If the organization is moving towards consolidation they will have to choose between taking a salary position with the developer and losing their independent freedom, or pursue the open market for more lucrative contracts; but risk the possibility of losing and leaving behind the audience and fans they have worked so hard to develop with a specific title.

These decisions can be quite difficult as organizations grow and develop their internal esports broadcast operations as the balance of power shifts from independent contract to in-house production; but as with most of the games involved, balance will always be a big topic of discussion and who better than a caster to navigate and understand these changes as they unfold and make the best call for themselves and their future.