A year after a high-profile entrance in the European Challenger Series with Bora "YellOwStar" Kim at the helm, Paris St-Germain esports announced it was leaving League of Legends on Oct. 5.

"Our Challengers Series experiences lead us to wonder about the League of Legends competitive scene economic balance," the organization said in a statement. "The revenue sharing model offered by Riot Games is very far from compensating the costs of a structure with European ambitions, partly because of the strong inflation of pro-gamers salaries, in our mind unjustified regarding the audience numbers evolution of the last months."

theScore esports spoke to PSG brand diversification director Fabien Allègre about the factors that led to the decision, including discussions of regionalization, lack of transparency over revenue-sharing and

When did Paris St-Germain start to have doubts about European League of Legends?

It's not a real doubt about the scene in Europe, it just... I mean, first of all the fact that we moved from League of Legends is not the end of Paris St-Germain esports. I want to make it clear because I heard a lot of stuff and I read also on Twitter something about that, so that's definitely not the strategy.

We will continue to let our strategy... the objective is still the same. We definitely want to be involved in esport, that's a part of the project now. But the fact is, you know that when it comes to the economic model, you don't know any company based in the world who are from the beginning accepted to... I mean, we come suggesting a loss on the financial aspect and well if you look at what's happening in League of Legends, I mean the salary increased a lot.

For me, we are not in a stable environment and the fact that Riot wanted to be more oriented on the local, let's say the French, the English league, the German league etc. didn't match really, even if it's not official from their side, but it's just a discussion that we had, they want to move from a European competition to a European plus local, but the focus will be much more local-oriented. And for me, since the beginning, the strategy for Paris St-Germain in esport was much more an international view.

The objective was, of course, to develop the brand ... to become one of the 10 most important franchises in sports. But the other pillar is at the same level, to make Paris St-Germain a global brand. And to become a global brand, we definitely need to increase our investment. I strongly believe in that.

So it's not because we stop and we are not however closing the door to Riot because it's just at this time we don't feel it. That's it. But of course, League of Legends is still an amazing game with a lot of players all around the world. But at this time, I mean, well, at the end of the day as I said, when you have a kind of lack of visibility on the new organization, on the revenue sharing, you need to make some choice. Because I can't go to the board and say, "Well, we're going to lose money on Paris St-Germain esports due to all what you know about the salary of the players, lack of visibility on the revenue-sharing."

As you said, PSG went into LoL expecting to take a loss at first, but were the expenses of running a League of Legends team greater than what you initially anticipated?

The thing is we did it last year in the good way and only in the Challenger Series, but even at this level of competition, the budget was quite high and yeah it's true, if you want to compete on the European scene and aim to be a part of the world competition, well, the budget is far away — not far away from what we expected, but it's a kind of balance. The revenue [is] not there.

So even if you're talking about sponsoring, the merchandising is a part but it's not so huge, and the share of the rights are not really clear. There's no commitment from Riot to give not a minimum guarantee, but to make sure that we'll have at the end of the year a line, a budget coming from them in order to balance a little bit the expenses of the salaries.

And just another example, if they want to move from the European — and we know that in such country like Germany for example, the HR costs are not less expensive than in France. The fact that if Riot wants to move and go into a local competition, it means that for us we'll have 25 or 30 percent more to pay in taxes and some stuff like that only for that.

What was Riot's response to your decision to leave?

I mean, we did it in the good way because as soon as they spoke to us about the new organization and the local competition, I told them that it was not really our strategy.

I'm not saying they have time to understand what will be our final position, but I think they understand a little bit. And the fact is there is not at all, at this time there is no official announcement from them about the new organization. And that's a good thing for me because it means that they understand our position, not only Paris St-Germain's position, but also the others. And maybe we'll have other discussions to make it in a better way and make sure the companies like us who invest a lot of time, a lot of money. We take the risk and at the end, we need also the support of the publisher. And for me that's really key. Even if the game is very big and huge and whatever it is, at the end who pays the salary of the players? Who pays the organization? Who pays the gaming house? That's us.

In football you know, you have the French league, you have the UEFA and if you perform you will have a part of the revenue, but the rules are really, really clear. And that's not the fact [in LoL] so maybe it will help them to make their game bigger and bigger and more suitable for all the company who invest in it.

How does working with game developers differ from traditional league organizers?

There is one big difference for me. [It] is you are not talking to one organization. You're talking to many organizations depending on which game it is. That's the point, there is not a real and only one organization.

Let's say if you want to compare for example Overwatch and Paladins. It's the same kind of game, but when Overwatch is thinking of asking you to pay a franchise fee you need to invest on this way and on the other one, the other publisher for Paladins they are ready to help the company who will give them more visibility on the game. So it's a different approach. And the way now where we're starting to think and the organization for Dota 2 is totally different. I mean, what is key is really to understand that at the end that's the club, the company that invests a lot on not the development of the game [but] we pay for the visibility of the game.

The main difference for me is that you're not talking only to one organization, you're talking to many, many publishers.

What was it like working with YellOwStaR?

I like this guy first, and whatever's happened during this season, it was a big change also for him. He's very professional, but let's say that's sports. At the end it's still sports, so the results were not there and as we decided at the same time to think maybe that we need to move from League of Legends, and Bora wanted to continue on League of Legends, that well, that was not possible to do something else.

But it was a good experience, even for him, even for us. I mean both of the party was happy with that, even if the sport results were not our aim of course. Not the first part of the season, but the second part of the season we didn't achieve the objective and that's the fact.

Does PSG have any plans to expand into another of the major esports? CS:GO or Dota 2 for instance?

Of course we are not however closing the door with Riot and of course we want to continue to let our strategy guiding. I mean, our objective is to be a part of the esports world. So of course we're looking on the other games, but for me there is not, I mean you can say there are smaller games, but I mean at this time we have five players on FIFA, we have the team on Rocket League and we will continue to announce some other game, I can't say at this time which other big name it will be, but maybe in a different way. I don't know yet.

What did you learn from your time in League of Legends?

Having seven or eight people living in the same house seven days, 24 hours a day together... you know you learn a lot from this experience in matters of how this esports world works. I mean, you have the players, the coaches and on the other side you have all the ... I mean, it's all you have in the other activity that the club is managing. It's exactly the same kind of organization, of emotion I will say than in soccer or in the other thing. It's exactly the same.

We learned also that you need to be careful of the financial aspect, of the balance. Coming from United States for example, you have such a big amount of money spent in esports and in France and Europe, you don't have the same kind of... maybe we were a little bit late compared to United States on these matters, but maybe we can't have the same kind of organization at this time.



Even on the commercial aspect when you go on the market and try to find some sponsors, I'm not talking about the endemic brands of course but the other one, I never seen such a big interest in these esports than in other sports because not a lot of people know how it works in esports and what is esports really. So it's interesting from this point of view to make the people understand what are the different games, which kind of publisher you're able to reach, which kind of engagement you can have from this population.

It was good training for the first year (laughs).

What would it take for PSG to return to League of Legends?

We just want to have a stable environment, that's first. And to have a clear road map with them with a clear view on the new organization and a clear view on the revenue sharing. That's it.

Sasha Erfanian is a news editor for theScore esports. You can follow him on Twitter.