The LCS made several important changes during the off-season. Format adjustments and a rebranding, revealed earlier today, are the main paths of the evolution of this franchise League of Legends turns on.
The changes are more than just changing the logo and brand. According to LCS commissioner Chris Greeley, rebranding represents a complete change in the way the company views its product.
“We don’t have to be conventional sports anymore,” Greeley told Dot Esports.
The rebranding moment is surprising, especially when Riot decided to keep the LCS identity the same two years ago, when the franchise arrived and the EU LCS made the transition to LEC. But Greeley said it has been under construction for at least a year.
“We created this brand redesign project in the off-season of 2019,” said Greeley. “The main objective for us was to reconstruct an identity that reaches all facets of LCS, from content to broadcast production and how we interact with fans and the community, etc.
Another key part of the new LCS concept is the league’s newbies. There is a lot of fresh, young blood this year striving to be the region’s new stars.
“After Bjergsen and Doublelift’s retirement, the rebranding comes at a perfect time,” said Greeley. “This is a turning point and, with the retirement of stars like Bjergsen, Doublelift or Sneaky last year, the brand overhaul serves as a great starting point for building new heroes and stars for the league.”
The initial views of the turns on community about this brand change are diverse. Some people love the new identity, while others don’t like it. But Greeley thinks that some opinions may change once people get used to the new identity.
“I can’t remember a brand change in e-sports where the community looked at it and said, ‘This is amazing,'” said Greeley. “Changing is very difficult. We had this shield for LCS since 2012. It has changed, but the shield has always been there. It was the same basic logo, just slightly different. You can never expect every fan to look at [a new identity] and says ‘Ah, yes, this is exactly what we needed.’ “
The team behind the LCS rebranding is also different from the one that created the LEC and LCK redesigns. While these two came from DesignStudio, this new look for LCS was made by Stink Studios.
“We have a branding team internally who had a lot of conversations because they were looking for a team that they were really comfortable with and that was the direction they decided to take,” said Greeley.
Switching to format changes for the LCS in 2021, these changes were surprising to a large part of the community, as Riot also made changes last season. But the LCS team and teams wanted to implement some new things for the league this year.
“For the 2020 season, we made some changes to the post-season format that worked really well,” said Greeley. “Especially in the summer, the audience was very strong and the stories were very good. We talked about an initial tournament after the season, probably for two or three years, but this is the year that everything went well and we got LCS Lock In. ”
The addition of this Lock In tournament and the MSI qualifier mainly impacted Spring Split, which has been a controversial issue in the community for some years. The idea that Spring Split is almost irrelevant has been a common complaint among teams, fans and players. Greeley “doesn’t share that point”, but he understands it.
“We removed the championship points last season because, with the withdrawal of the regional challenge, they didn’t make a lot of sense to us,” said Greeley. “We spent some time trying to figure out how we can add a little more puff to the spring. With our new format, we provide a very good opportunity to combine records, still have a little more weight in the summer, but now we recognize the performance of the teams in the spring. “
When international events arrive each year, LCS teams do not always perform at their best. And it usually starts a conversation about how NA needs to make changes to be a more competitive league. Greeley believes that Riot’s latest changes are a step in the right direction towards that goal.
“On the league side, we try to push everything to make the league more competitive with things like the format, to make sure teams are competitive on stage, other changes to the academy’s ecosystem,” said Greeley. “I think we are certainly at a better point than we were a year ago.”
The LCS will start with the Lock In tournament on January 15th.
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