LTA to allow teams to stream scrims in new temporary policy

LTA commissioner Mark Zimmerman has announced a new policy, allowing LTA teams to stream their scrims during the first split. This change comes on the heels of both rising demand for more content from players and teams from the fans, as well as the inaugural season of the LTA, setting a new precedent already in their first year of running.

A New Precedent for Content

Streaming has only continued to rise in popularity with each passing year, and the continued opportunities to cross with esports has become too enticing to ignore. Los Ratones, coached and led by League of Legends’ most popular English content creator Marc “Caedrel” Lamont, has set a new standard for content creation in esports – creating content out of their scrims and official matches – while remaining competitive.

As of the time of writing this article, Los Ratones emerged from the Group Stage of their NLC Winter Split with a flawless 4-0 scoreline and have advanced to the Upper Bracket Semifinals after 2-0ing their opening match in the Quarterfinals.

The success of their team, coupled with other teams in the NLC such as The Ruddy Sack also mimicking Los Ratones following their proven success has now paved the way potentially for more widespread adoption among professional teams in Tier 1.

Streaming scrims is not a revolutionary new idea but it is in some ways a bygone relic of an older era, where streaming scrims was the primary strategy for increasing a team's popularity. In today's more social media laden world, the potential downsides of revealing strategies and increasing pressure on younger players have been voiced as particular concerns against such an adoption.

FlyQuest Bwipo Wants Streamed Scrims

One of the biggest news to emerge in recent days surrounding this topic has been FlyQuest Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau’s remarks in a post-match interview. In it, he called out the poor performance of opponents, Shopify Rebellion, following a dominant showing in the opening round of Split 1.

Rau’s comments sparked a round of debate surrounding his open desire for teams to stream their scrims and the hope as a result, raise the overall level of the region.

“7 out of 8 teams didn’t want to scrim us. We ARE the team to beat. We went to Worlds, we got Quarters. We played a very intense Bo5 against one of the best teams in the world.

We want to show the rest of the league and our fans kind of what makes us winners. And the fact that they [other teams] are not willing, and they are hiding things, and then come to stage with this shit… Are you even watching us?? Are you scouting us? What are you guys doing? You were off for 4 months’ vacation and then this is what you bring?

To me, I want to level up the level of the region as a whole and I think that revealing what we do will make everyone else better and therefore we will level up the whole region and have better performances.”

While there are certainly positives and negatives to such a policy adoption, the effort of experimentation and adaptation are cornerstones on which esports was built and it is the very same competitive spirit that FlyQuest and Bwipo displayed that fans of the LTA undoubtedly hope to see in the other teams as well.

Mark Zimmerman has confirmed that this new adoption is a temporary one, and its longevity in Tier 1 League of Legends will depend on whether the effects are positive or not and whether appropriate adjustments and feedbacks can be assimilated well enough to make sense long term.

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Featured Image Credit: LCS

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