Hey everyone,
In this post, I’ll break down the current imbalances in the ECL system. Before I get into specifics, credit where it’s due: Sportsgamer and Kenu have done a ton great of great work for ECL, and I´ve always been grateful for it. But right now, the system feels unsustainable, and if nothing changes, I don’t think it will last much longer.
Last weekend, Sportsgamer published the current prize pools.
My conclusion is simple: this isn’t acceptable relative to what we pay for the licences. Especially for Elite. The prize pools we had in Elite last season before the reduction were just about acceptable. Again, for the money we spend.
This leads to the main flaw in the current system: the total amount players pay is too high compared to the total prize pools. A big reason is that the lower divisions have prize pools that are too large relative to Elite. And before someone says, “we don’t want to pay Elite players prizes”. Yeah, I get that. But the mistake happened back when the licence fees were introduced through every division. To a working system back then where players wanted to play as high as possible. Elite and Pro at that time were the toughest they have been. I believe introducing the licence fees like that worked for a while before people saw that the lower you play the easier it is to get prize money. Or not to lose money, however you want to see it.
I will now explain what I mean and I’ll use the super early bird prizes to be as fair as possible to Sportsgamer here.
Examples if per team 6 players pay the team licence and everyone pays 15e for their own licence per season:
3rd best team in Europe
You pay 98.33€ per season. You get back 97.69€. So you are losing money while being one of the best teams in Europe.
19th best team in Europe (Pro 3rd)
You pay 65€ per season. You get back 65.69€.
51st best team in Europe (Lite 3rd)
You pay 48.33€ per season. You get back 51.88€.
91st best team in Europe (Core 3rd)
You pay 31.67€ per season. You get back 36.16€
If you’re the 91st team you get more back than the 3rd best team…
And due to this imbalance, teams want to play lower than their level is. The lower you play, the less risky it is to lose money. And even make some money if you win the league you´re in.
We have seen the extreme in teams with mostly elite players(from 1-2 seasons prior) go play lite due to this... Sportsgamer can force them to “play” qualifiers, but they can´t force them to actually play. We saw this from one team as they were skating to the boards or even just being AFK for like half of the game...
There’s a lot of comparisons you could do to show the imbalances. I´ll throw one more in.
You get to the playoffs in Elite and lose in a tight game seven series to a team that goes on to be the champion. Congrats, you played a great season, and your team was one of the best in EU. You still lost 59.25€ in total this season. And must pay the 98.33€ again for the upcoming season to maybe play as good.
You have a team of players that don´t have or want to put extra money into ECL. So you go play in Lite due to it being less risky to lose your money. Even though you could compete in pro if everything clicks. Your team wins lite. You get 40.60€ to celebrate for being the 49th best team in EU. So even though your team was 44 spots lower that the 5th best team in the same league that season. Each player in your team made 100€ more than them.
This isn´t how a competitive league works, as you should always want to play as high as possible, and be motivated to do so.
How to fix it then? I have one suggestion, which would be at least better than how things are now.
Casual and Competitive leagues.
Casual league
Only player licence (same as now)
First team get back 150€(licence amount for 1 season per player x6)
Competitive league
Elite
16 Teams
Pro
16 Teams
Lite
Rest divided into groups of teams so that everyone gets 30 games.
For example 200€ licence per team + player licence.
with 64 teams the prize pool would be 9536€ after taxes. With most of it going to the top division, as it should be in a competitive division.
Divided for example(this is just a example, dont get too tied to it):
Lite 1st 350€
Pro 2nd 350€
Pro 1st 550€
Elite 4.-8. 350€
Elite 3.-4. 550€
Elite 2nd 750€
Elite 1st 5000€
Elite would every season have open qualifiers for 1 spot, so everyone would have a fair chance to play in their own level.
I will not spell the whole system here but this gives a good picture of it.
If Sportsgamer is open to it, I’m happy to walk through the full concept in more detail and help refine it.