With the announcement that LCS organizations would no longer be required to field an NACL (formerly Academy) rosters, many LCS franchises have pulled out. However, a few have decided to hold on to their teams.
The decision from Riot Games to lift the requirements for LCS teams to field an NACL roster has been controversial. The NACL was seen as a place where North American talent could prosper alongside a league that often imported some of its best players.
Newer players like Joseph ‘Jojopyun’ Pyun along with seasoned veterans like Eric ‘Licorice’ Ritchie and Trevor ‘Stixxay’ Hayes have all come from or had their careers kept alive due to the existence of NACL teams. Putting stock into domestic talent has, at times, paid off in spades for LCS teams.
However, paying an NACL roster and staff isn’t cheap. According to Cloud9 owner Jack Etienne, maintaining its Challengers roster costs about $1 million a year with, in his eyes, not much of a return on investment. The LCS Players Association has said that the average annual salary cost for an NACL roster is about 17% of an average LCS organization’s overall League of Legends-based salary costs in a year.
With all 10 LCS orgs voting that keeping an NACL team should be optional, many organizations have decided to opt out of participating.
Which LCS teams have dropped their NA Challengers League roster?
At the time of writing, only three organizations have decided to keep their NACL team and invest in amateur talent through that avenue. These three orgs are:
FlyQuest
Team Liquid
Evil Geniuses
Team Liquid and Evil Geniuses have both heavily benefitted from their Academy teams in the past, so it isn’t a surprise to see that they value having those developmental pipelines.
That said, there are many organizations that have had very successful rosters within the Academy system over the years that have decided to pull out. Those orgs are:
Cloud9
Immortals
Dignitas
Golden Guardians
TSM
NRG
At the time of writing, only 100 Thieves haven’t announced whether or not it will be holding on to its NACL team. The organization has Rayan ‘Sniper’ Shoura, who is one of the most hyped-up NA rookies over the past few years, and William ‘UNF0RGIVEN’ Nieminen of MAD Lions fame, so the loss of their NACL team would see the departure of some big-name talent.
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