We have some disappointing news to share with our fans today. After all of us received invitations and negotiated with Riot Games to join the broadcast crew for this year’s Mid-Season Invitational, we failed to arrive at an industry standard rate for our services and therefore cannot work as casters in Shanghai.

We set out at the beginning of this year to determine average freelance rates in the eSports market and conducted a survey of contracts received by casters across titles including Counter Strike: Global Offensive, DotA 2, Starcraft 2, Halo 5, and Hearthstone. We were surprised to discover from our peers that Riot’s offer to us was approximately 40% to 70% of the rate received by talent for major events in all of these titles. We shared these rates with Riot in the hope of reaching an agreement commensurate with the market but, while they offered a nominal increase, their deal remained far below industry standard for 2016.

Since we are freelancers and not Riot employees, we rely on these contracts for our income and feel that we would damage our careers in the long term by accepting below-market rates. Furthermore, by agreeing to a significantly lower wage we fear that we may contribute to the regression of standards for freelance casters in the industry as a whole.

We love League of Legends and working with Riot Games’ world-class production team, and we are disappointed we cannot contribute to an excellent event like MSI. We would also like to apologize to our fans who were expecting us to join the casting line-up in Shanghai since you have supported us over the years and we hate to let you down.

We hope that Riot Games will reconsider their rates for freelancers so we can collaborate again in the future. In the meantime, you can continue to watch our League of Legends broadcasts on OGN and at upcoming international events not produced by Riot Games.

Christopher “MonteCristo” Mykles

Erik “DoA” Lonnquist

Christopher “PapaSmithy” Smith