The EU LCS will see massive changes in 2019 as it follows in the footsteps of the NA LCS's franchised model. Relegation will be removed and teams will have to apply to become 'long-term partners' of the league.

The application process begins today (Wednesday March 28) with teams having until July 1 to apply. Current teams will have to pay €8million to rejoin the EU LCS whereas new organisations will have to pay €10.5m. Riot are also increasing their efforts to improve benefits for the players, giving their salary a significant boost from €24,000 to a minimum of €60k per year.

On top of that, the league's revenue will be shared out with 32.5% going to the teams, 32.5% going towards Riot's production and 35% contributing to the players' wages. If the league performs well and the player portion is above their combined salaries, the difference will be shared amongst the pros - encouraging them to build more hype around their matches.

The EU LCS is removing relegations for 2019 and taking applications for 'long-term partners'

Similarly to NA LCS, team's places will be permanent and Riot has confirmed there will be both incentives and penalties based on performance. That doesn't however, mean that the EU LCS will become a carbon copy of their American counterparts.

Riot's Project lead for 2019 Partnerships, Remer 'Canechurch' Rietkerk, confirmed in a Reddit AMA that they are working on re-branding the EU LCS with a new logo, trophy and visual identification.

And the EU LCS could also stand out when it comes down to how they develop new talent. While NA has struggled to produce regional talent, the EU LCS has always thrived by growing new players.

We spoke to the Head of EU League Management, Marc 'Snowbird' Schnell who says they aren't sure whether Europe will have an academy league: 'Obviously producing new talent has always been one of our strengths in Europe and that's something that we want to continue to build and stand on. We have this year, changed how we support Europe's semi-pro ecosystem with an expansion of the regional leagues.

Head of EU League Management, Marc Schnell says developing new talent is crucial for EU

'We have the European Masters, which acts as a culmination of all these regional leagues, which we hope will allow all aspiring pros to have more competitions that are meaningful and provide them with exposure to showcase their skills. We believe we have a strong regional ecosystem here in Europe and it is something that ideally we can, in a meaningful way, connect with LCS teams and hope there is player movement between the two areas of competition in a sustained way.

'We're still exploring around whether an academy league like NA's would make sense here or if it is going to be something that's more connected to the ecosystem we already have. There's a variety of options we have here which we're all going to discuss with teams.'

We've already seen some EU LCS teams put their academy teams into the regional league such as Misfits whose academy team will compete in the UK competition 'Forge of Champions'. Competitions such as that will give players a higher level of practise and experience of playing on stage

The EU LCS may not have an academy league as Riot develops its semi-pro regional leagues

And not only will the regional leagues help develop these new players but they could also help build regional fan-bases. Activating multiple regions has always been tricky for Riot and it's something they want to focus on moving forward.

There had been rumours of the EU LCS splitting into four leagues spread across Paris, Berlin, London and Barcelona. Riot aren't in a position to make that work as of yet but we could see them try to interact with more regions going forward.

In 2014, the EU LCS played one of its regular season weeks in the SSE Arena in London rather than their studio in Berlin. It's an idea that Schnell has considered revisiting: 'That's something that we've been thinking about for a while. If the opportunity arises and we feel it makes sense for both the teams and from a business point of view, then yes we will want to do that more.'

If anybody knows about developing and interacting with local fan-bases, it's football teams. Late last year, Fnatic top-laner Paul 'sOAZ' Boyer told us he expects most EU LCS teams to be replaced by football teams in 2019 and it looks like he may have been right.

Riot hope to activate multiple regions' of fans and could occasionally take the EU LCS on the road

Multiple European football clubs are interested in joining the EU LCS according to reports by ESPN. The report also said that Riot will be taking representatives from these clubs to the Spring Split finals in Copenhagen and the MSI finals in Paris. While Schnell couldn't confirm the interest from football clubs, he did say that Riot do take possible partners to their events: 'We regularly interact with a variety of business folks interested in our esports scene.

'That may include football clubs or that may include brands who are looking to partner with us in some other ways. We've looked to do this at all of our road-trip events in the past and it's something that we're going to continue to do in the future. It's not the case that we have specific events for just football clubs, if there are football clubs or any other interested party who wants to partner with us and would like to attend an event, then that's great.'

There are a lot of exciting developments coming to the EU LCS and the next few months are going to have some very big developments. With the EU LCS becoming franchised and the Overwatch League looking for more European teams, 2019 will be a crucial year for European esports.