LCS: Doublelift Bashed NA’s Mindset So Here’s 5 Ways Teams Can Fix It

1. Incentivize Contracts

I’ll preface this point by saying that I don’t know how contracts in the LCS are structured. It has been reported that Huni‘s $2.3 million dollar, two-year deal with Dignitas was fully-guaranteed, but I do not know if that is true for other players or organizations. However, if we assume that contracts are structured the same or similarly to Huni’s deal, I think that is one area where LCS teams need to take a harder stance.

If teams are truly concerned with being competitive, they should structure the contracts to have much less base, guaranteed money, with much more tied to incentives. This is how it tends to be in most other sports, with players getting bonuses if they hit certain milestones for individual or team performance.

Including clauses that provide extra payout if the team makes playoffs, makes finals, wins an LCS split, makes Worlds, makes it out of groups, and so on, would give players more incentive than just pride to go the extra mile to win. But if that might risk players forming super teams to get those payouts easier, teams should also include clauses for certain individual honors (MVP, Player of the Week, player of the game, player of the series in the playoffs, etc.) and statistics (reaching 50/75/100 kills, finishing top-three in your position in KDA, etc.).

To be sure, many teams likely do this (and if not, they should) but the point is that teams need to put more of the money into these incentives than the base. Give players a decent guaranteed salary, yes, but make it clear how much more money they could earn if they hit their incentives.