The owner of TSM came out yesterday and lit a fire under Riot.
TSM players very rarely do interviews, and hearing from their owner — Andy “Dinh” Reginald — is something we don’t get to see very often, either.
Yesterday, an interview with Reginald by William “scarra” Li of theScorecame out, and it was 17 minutes of the TSM owner being angry with Riot.
There were a lot of issues Reginald had, but they all came back to one thing — instability.
“I think it’s a combination of lack of revenue and how unstable the patches are that really makes things volatile in terms of investment perspective,” the TSM owner said before adding: “It’s really scary to own an Esports team, because the patches change a lot. So when you own a team and the patches change in a really unfavorable way for your players, there’s a higher chance that you’ll do bad and you can get relegated. I’ve structured TSM in a way where I’m always looking out and I’m always adapting, and that’s not necessarily a good thing because it doesn’t create me any comfort or the players any comfort.”
When on the topic of franchising, Reginald made sure to make revenue stand out as a serious problem: “A huge issue is the revenue opportunities for the teams, and I don’t really want to touch on that too much in this interview.”
Once this came out, Marc “Tryndamere” Merrill (President and co-founder of Riot) went on Reddit and threw serious shade towards Reginald’s way.
What the living hell is Tryndamere trying to do here? This simply comes off….well, embarrassingly out of touch — and extremely sour.
Obviously, the comment came and is coming with a lot of backlash. As of the moment of this post, Tryndamere’s original post is already at -621 points.
One of the most vocal voices in the League community came out and voiced how disappointed he is by this.
You want players to get paid more, @MarcMerrill?
— MonteCristo (@MonteCristo) August 23, 2016
Get sponsors for your league and give teams rev share. That will work 100%.
Let’s be clear: LoL doesn’t make teams money in the post-VC world. Merrill is vomiting a line told to him by the Riot eSports department.
— MonteCristo (@MonteCristo) August 23, 2016
Also reminder that Tryndamere runs a company that will not pay casters an industry standard rate. He definitely knows the broader market.
— MonteCristo (@MonteCristo) August 23, 2016
Reginald hasn’t come out with his response yet, but he has promised one very shortly.
Going to respond to Marc's comment. So much to say that it'll take me a while to write this all down.
— TSM Reginald (@TSMReginald) August 22, 2016
Thought about the situation. I have a lot to say..... I will be sharing my thoughts at 10am PST.
— TSM Reginald (@TSMReginald) August 23, 2016
This should be good. Make sure you have some popcorn ready.
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