Rich · @H2KRich
24th Dec 2015 from TwitLonger
Public Player Salaries
First of all let me say that I am all for a player union. Considering that esports is primarily played by kids/inexperienced young adults I think it makes sense that they should have access to a group that looks out for, and represents their best interests in general.
However, what I do have a problem with is how (especially in League of Legends), there is always an incredible player bias when it comes to the 'outrage' surrounding certain issues. What are we talking about here?
Making salaries public so the players don't get screwed over.
I can see the reddit threads already... "OMG organisation X only pays player Y that amount of money?!. What a bunch of *****, he could have gone to team Z, they are really holding him back. MYM 2.0".
Publicly releasing player salaries without any context is going to end in total carnage. If a rule is introduced where player salaries need to be made public, then there must also be a rule where teams must announce their sponsorship/income revenue.
Team X might only be paying player Y $2,000 per month, but maybe that's all that they can afford. The team is still within their rights to make that player that offer. To take it a step further, maybe the owner of this team has struggled to pay even that, and he is actually making cuts elsewhere to make sure this player gets as much from his organisation as possible. However, if this information is not available to the public also, then his team might be labelled 'greedy' or 'shady'.
People are so presumptuous about how much they believe organisations make, assuming that teams are actively trying to milk players for every penny. Let me tell you this: The difference in sponsorship revenues from smaller LCS teams to larger LCS teams is VAST. The teams you may think are paying 'better' salaries are actually, almost certainly paying out a 'worse' deal in terms of the percentage of their total revenue that makes their way to the players. Now of course I am not suggesting that the player is getting screwed over by being offered more money, I am just showing that there is context that needs to be provided to present a fair picture of the situation and esports ecosystem.
If you want player salaries public, you must then also have company revenue streams public.