Team SoloMid coach Weldon Green says that without significant changes to the pay structure of the LCS, he does not think he can continue to coach effectively.

In a Periscope livestream, Green discussed the current revenue system for teams in the LCS, saying that Riot has no reason to change their revenue system because the competitors aren't big enough yet. Green cited Smite and Dota 2, which have less active users than League of Legends, as examples of how Riot has cornered the market and are monetizing it effectively. However, Green said that because Riot does not view other games as serious competition, they're less likely to change their pay structure for teams and players without a labor movement.

"Essentially, if you look at it from a purely systems standpoint, Riot wants orgs and players to be separate, because it weakens the movement, it gives them the most bargaining power and the most revenue," Green said. "Whereas orgs want to join with players now and join against Riot Games, because it will give them the most bargaining power and the most cut of the pie at the end."

Green said that that's what we're starting to see now, with the organizations banding together following Marc "Tryndamere" Merril's controversial statements about team revenue. One of the changes Green says he wants to see is Riot monetizing the broadcast by selling the rights to another company, citing League viewership being higher than some college sports as a reason for the sale.

"It would make a lot of money that they would split among the teams which would enable teams to sign multi-million dollar contracts, which would incentivize massively more talent being attracted to League," Green said. "It would make it worth it for these 19-year-olds, who I'm requiring, to essentially sign their lives away.

"But it was a split. A single split as a test. But next split I'm not going to do that, I'm not going to push them to the same extreme as in the Summer Split, because it's not worth it. They're not being paid enough to make it worth going through a Michael Phelps-style training, even though it would make them better."

But that kind of change will take time, and Green says that for the time being, it's not likely he can continue to coach the way he coached TSM this split — with the mentality that they were athletes being paid millions for their efforts. As it stands right now, Green says that streamers are making better salaries than his players are, and while he says TSM owner Andy "Reginald" Dinh pays well, he also says it's barely enough to make it by in Santa Monica.

"I hope that things change because otherwise I cannot coach in the way that I coached this split," he said. "I cannot do it again, unless the athletes are being rewarded a lot more for their efforts. Regi pays insane salaries, he pays like the highest of any org, I would say, but we're still not talking NBA-level, we're not talking multi-million dollar contracts, and that's what streamers make."

Green also said that while there are a few players that can keep playing despite the low salaries, simply for the love of competition, most players need to see higher salaries, and so does he. Otherwise, he can't justify his more intensive training methods.

"That's the kind of thing that demotivates you unless you're actually a competitor. Someone like Bjergsen or Doublelift, who are like, 'I could make way more money, but I just want to win,'" he said.

"But even they're looking at it like, 'I'm training like an elite athlete now, I'm on TSM, I'm with a professional coach and we're training like Olympians train, like NFL players train. And our reward is a regular salary that a Riot employee might make. Except they get to have normal lives, whereas I have to be an elite athlete. Which means I have to sacrifice, I have to be imbalanced, I have to do all this stuff just to maintain my well-being so I can train harder, because that's what athletes do.'"

Daniel Rosen is a news editor for theScore esports. You can follow him on Twitter.