Riot Games has always tried to control all aspects of esports in League of Legends, not shy about punishing teams and players who somehow violated the idyll of competitive LoL. That was the fate of TSM CEO Andy Dean and former TSM pro Doublelift. The former was accused of being rude to the players and sent to “rehab”, while the latter was banned from restreaming the LCS for calling the league a “dead game”.
To begin with, it is worth going through the situation with the head of TSM. Andy Dean is already quite famous for his rather aggressive approach to communicating with players and staff. You can even find a video on the net from 2013, which captures the argument between Andy and Dyrus.
Riot ignored this situation for quite some time, but in early 2022 they still had to launch an investigation, during which it turned out that so many former TSM employees were unhappy with Andy Dean’s rude attitude, intimidation and neglect and called the organization one of the worst places to work. Andy himself explained his actions by “high demands” on the staff.
Even though the Riot investigation found no evidence of discrimination or violence, the head of the American organization was fined $75,000 and forced to take “management courses.” In addition, Andy is now on probation, and if he violates Riot rules in the next two years, then his punishment will be much more serious.
As for Doublelift, as part of one of his streams, he decided to go through Riot’s not the most successful decisions, along the way complaining about the decline in the popularity of LCS among viewers.
LCS is dying. The number of spectators is decreasing. Nobody can deny it. Everyone knows this. Everyone feels it.
double lift
The developers of LoL did not seem to like the decadent mood, so the former professional player was temporarily banned from broadcasting the LCS and issued a “second strike”. The first he received for watching a video that contained obscene words on the stream. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that in the words of Doublelift’a there is a fair amount of truth. The summer split draws an average of 40,000 fewer viewers than last year, and the recent show match could not even match some of the regular season matches in its popularity.
