I admired your optimism but the writing was on the wall.

Idk how anyone can have faith in DIG anymore. Shopify beat them handily. An upgrade at support would help them a lot.

Did you guys not talk about the long break also being due to the format with 8 teams? If they take out the break, they will finish summer/playoffs giga early, which also isn't great. On top of what you all mentioned, the LCS screwed themselves over with the format/got screwed by losing teams if they weren't going to have a format with more games to fill the time.

God is a based Flyquest enjoyer.

I honestly hope the IOC will include speed running. I have never really watched a lot of speed running but I think it would be very interesting to watch.

I find the point about "going the traditional sports way was not for us" and "shoehorning that way" confusing to say the least. Because there is a traditional way to organize sports that does exactly what you describe Esports is about and has always done things the way Esports would want it. European Sports Leagues organized as clubs owned by many people with relegation and grassroots organizations. That has always existed, is at least as traditional as the American franchising system and has always fit Esports better. And that is what most people were saying back then too. Reframing this as a worthwhile experiment gone awry, in my opinion, is dishonest towards the arguments people made coming from European sports back in the days when franchising in League was first suggested. Still mad respect for admitting you were wrong on this though and opening yourself up towards the criticism that comes with it.

Promotion/regulation was seriously awful, the vast majority of teams that won promotion would get relegated the following split. But franchising was wasted potential, everyone that joined thought it was just a way to diversify their portfolio and not have to put any work into running it. At least, that's what it felt like anyways

I disagree with Travis on the olympic take about it not bringing new eyes / viewers and or not bringing any attention to the teams. I just finished watching the olympic france vs japan basketball game. know some japanese people who watched it supporting japan, heard the constant player name played for x NBA team, and now they want to watch the NBA, and in particular their team. As I was typing this, the caller brought it up as well. You can argue to the degree or amount of attention, but I don't think you can realistically say there will be no new attention.

Huhis English is crazy good

My man Palafox said “thats Meditate by Master Yi” like its a guess the song challenge 😂

I miss mark

its a pretty free solution next year. road show for mexico fans.. ez

i love raz on hll woohoo

KARMINE CORP IS A HORRIBLE ORGANIZATION THAT SHOULD SELL THEIR LEC SLOT AND LEAVE THE LEAGUE ECOSYSTEM IN SHAME

Maybe because I'm unfamiliar with American sports but several international sports do take mid season breaks.

Here's some data for Travis' question @ 54:17 Total stage games played in 2024 (LEC & LCS only, EWC & MSI included): --- FNC - 89 games G2 - 86 games --- BDS - 70 games --- TL - 61 games [LCS] MAD - 60 games --- FLY - 49 games [LCS] SK - 49 games VIT - 46 games GX - 45 games TH - 45 games --- KC - 39 games 100 - 37 games [LCS] C9 - 34 games [LCS] NRG - 31 games [LCS] DIG - 30 games [LCS] --- RGE - 28 games SR - 24 games [LCS] IMT - 24 games [LCS] ---

Amen, it's been so inconsistent. I only know if LCS was on when I see the game highlights appear on my youtube LOL

I don’t even think this is true. The number one problem with esports is the failure from the game devs to capture younger audiences. There is no new exciting rookies coming through like there is in basketball or soccer. You would struggle heavily to find people under the age of 20 that play league. Fighting games seem to be the only genre that were able to capture a good amount of younger people and keep going past 2010…all the young people are playing Fortnite and valorant and whatever party game Kai cenat is streaming. I am very worried because the generation under us doesn’t seem to care about esports as much as we do. The revival of esports will be the next new huge game that is based on competition and the younger generation is playing it. Fortnite was almost that but I believe fell a little short in the esports side of things…I also see a really cringe generation gap in esports. People that watch league won’t watch the Fortnite World Cup cause they think it’s just kids and vice versa which is toxic and bad for our scene.

Someone call PPDoc cause Big Dig summer is looking a little Limp.

Olympics is cool but don’t really think it’s gonna get that much more viewership. People just won’t watch it if they don’t already. The people that already watch it will watch it. Maybe get more people. I really think it’s fucked up it’s in Saudi Arabia. They already have the EWC! And I think they said it’s always going to be there every time. That’s fucking ridiculous if that’s true. The Olympics isn’t in the same place every time. This shouldn’t be either. We already lost regional finals on the road and now it’s always gonna be on the other side of the world at an inconvenient time for us here.

Recognizing them all, I just feel old now.

One big thing that wasn't brought up about the Olympic affiliation is that it should force Riot to reconsider the investment and work they are putting into LoL. I imagine that Riot would give a bit more prioritization of resources to a game that is an official Olympic sport over others.

can't rely on weekend games, but at least we got the Monday night gem.

I also had the opinion that the Olympics was about the athletic competition but then someone pointed out that the improv break dancing is coming up this week. So yeah... who knows what they'll do for esports.

Lol in the Olympics just means more medals for China lol. Usa would be lucky to make out groups at the Olympics. There is 3 or 4 Eu countries that would beat US China Korea. A lot of our top NA talent is Canadian also.

why does the lck seem like games are on all the time and they do best of 3s so i dont get why we have so many few games

Based SR take on the show. #ArmTheRebels

Great work yall. Keep it up. Good conflicting takes as well!

Good message thanks Travis

Wild take to think teams should pick up players to help develop better nationals team. Even in the NBA Mark Cuban has publicly came out and said NBA players shouldnt particpate in the Olympics.

I’m not even gonna lie ….i had no idea when the split started or ended …I actually don’t know what’s going on rn …

Why Raz be looking like that in the thumbnail tho xD

I think the olympics is good for the reach of the sport in general

Function 2's sold out :(

Love having Raz as a guest so often. He has good stuff to say.

I have no clue when LCS is on lately. I just check every Thursday-Sunday

How is it that Riot had the resources from League to build a studio for LCS, but then when they wanted to grow Val, they stole League's resources and gave us nothing? The way to solve this is to give us our stage back at the best times for us. As long as LCS is playing second fiddle, it's gonna suck compared to when it was the premier fixture of Riot esports. If Val is so great, good, let them use their own resources to flourish.

Teams scammed investors/fans. Imagine taking money to buy players with no ROI 😂. I could buy Messi, lebron, Jordan, and guess what? I would get the money back easily from their likeness, media, etc. imagine being in the scene and thinking what they were doing could pan out long term. It made no sense since the beginning money wise.

I think would have been better if they kept Exyu. They need a no ego supportive player to slot in and let their big carries shine.

Travis on fire this episode "stop trying to get validation from your parents as an adult" 😂

I tried to use prizepicks from the link and couldn't even find League so gave up

the olympics usually has a terrible format the first time and then it is revolutionised when a country controls the olympics that has the best outlook on the sport is able to control the format. wait for korea or china olympics for a good league of legends olympics tournament

I do feel like it's a little unfair to say that DIG should have fixed things over the break when your own content is full of players and coaches saying that the break is shit for them. From my experience coaching competitive sports or activities, the way you fix things is with optimal stakes competitive opportunities. What I mean by that is you need competitive opportunities that are high stakes enough that everyone's trying so you're getting good practice but not so high stakes that the pressure makes you crumble or stick with familiar bad patterns simply because they are familiar. I think the combination of the single round robin format and the huge break means that teams have gotten very little opportunity for optimal stakes play. They're either playing a ton of scrims that don't matter or incredibly high stakes matches. You could argue that individual games are optimal stakes competitive opportunities, because you can lose one and still win the series, but personally I think in a single round robin best of three, each individual game still matters so much that you never want to lose one.