'League of Legends' teams send letter to Riot Games detailing many issues in LCS

The current state of professional League of Legends is riddled with problems, according to a joint letter allegedly sent by 18 North American and European League Championship Series teams to developer and competitive organizer Riot Games. The letter's legitimacy has yet to be verified by Mashable, although ESPN reported it confirmed the letter is real via unnamed sources.

The letter -- obtained by Slingshot on Saturday -- lays out six problems that the LCS teams want to solve in League esports, mostly focusing on relegation and compensation:

1. The lack of job security, fair compensation and longer careers for players caused by insufficient compensation and relegation.

2. The damage to the Teams' ability to invest in LCS players cause by insufficient compensation and relegation.

3. The weakening relationship between fans and LCS caused by relegation.

4. The harm to Team sponsorships caused by relegation and LCS' restrictions on sponsors.

5. The effective elimination of the path to pro caused by the Teams' need to redirect resources from LCS to Challenger as a result of insufficient compensation and relegation.

6. The financial hardship suffered by the Teams caused by insufficient compensation paid to the Teams.

The letter is addressed to Riot Co-Founders and Co-CEOs Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill, co-heads of esports Whalen Rozelle and Jarred Kennedy, and head of European esports Jason Yeh.

Eighteen of the 20 teams in the NA and EU LCS have a place to sign at the bottom of the letter, including Cloud9, CounterLogic Gaming, Team Dignitas, Team EnVyUs, Phoenix1, Immortals, Team Liquid, Team SoloMid, Fnatic, Giants Gaming, G2, H2K Gaming, Team Misfits, Origen, Splyce, Unicorns of Love, Team Vitality and Roccat.

You can check out the entire letter here:

The letter writers outline the proposals that Riot has made to improve the professional League of Legends scene that it controls. The teams involved with the letter believe that this has not been enough to sustain a healthy league, and some of the proposed changes are not coming soon enough.

Proposals from the teams include eliminating relegation, which takes teams out of the top tier of competition and severely cuts down on their visibility and revenues. The teams are also looking for increased revenue through revenue sharing, and merchandise and digital item sales. The letter states that teams are currently operating at a loss.

Tensions between Riot Games and LCS teams have been growing since September when Team SoloMid owner Andy Dinh had a public back-and-forth with Riot's Merrill. In response to Dinh's negative comments about League esports, Riot published a letter discussing improvements to revenues for professional League teams.

Neither Riot Games nor any of the teams on the letter responded to Mashable's request for comment.