Riot Games has shifted the scholarship prize pool for their uLoL Campus Series, and some collegiate League of Legends players aren’t happy.

When Riot announced the 2017 season of uLoL back in September 2016, a new bracket stage had been added with its own set of scholarship prize pools. Teams competing in the tournament would be placed into groups that seeded directly into a bracket stage. An $8,000 scholarship will be awarded to each player from the four teams that win each regional bracket $4,000 per player for second, $2,000 for third and fourth, and $1,000 for fifth through eighth.

The top teams from each region will then move on to a postseason playoff to determine the best collegiate League of Legends team in the nation.

No one voiced much concern over this tweak when it was revealed last year, but it seems that most collegiate players assumed that the regional prizes would be in addition to the national championship prizes that were present in 2016. Last year, $30,000 was awarded to each player from the University of British Columbia team, and $15,000 went to each player from runner-up Robert Morris University.

This year, however, the playoffs will not carry their own separate prize pool.

Yahoo Esports has learned from anonymous sources that the lack of playoff prize pool was not formally explained to the teams participating in the group stages. While the regional scholarship prize pool was in both the original announcement and the tournament rulebook in September, it was never publically announced that the championship prizes would be removed.

Upon learning the information, collegiate players and coaches took to Twitter to voice their concerns about the changes.

Severely disappointed in Riot's plan for collegiate. Although all details haven't been announced, seemingly playing for nothing 1/2 — Gabe Johnstone (@LoLPeregrin) February 17, 2017





@RiotTiza (1/4) it really sucks to see that for the first time, different regions other than the west have more than 1 or 2 strong teams — Loc Tran (@LPandasaurus) February 17, 2017





Has to be the biggest administrative blunder to date by those in charge of collegiate league of legends to date. Unacceptable. https://t.co/n5JM4fOim9 — Connor Doyle (@CC_Artemis) February 17, 2017





Student players from the University of California at Irvine and the University of British Columbia have been most vocal about the changes, likely due to the fact that the two schools have some of the strongest college League of Legends teams in the country and would have a decent chance to take home the national championship prize.

Speaking to Yahoo Esports, former LCS player and current UCI student James “Lattman” Lattman had strong words.

“It’s crushing to watch Riot make such big plans to change the landscape of their collegiate scene without informing any of the driving forces (schools) that are bringing money and competition into the scene. I’ve seen similar examples in the past where Riot took too long to announce anticipated changes to their leagues for organizations to properly gauge the scene they’re attempting to break into, and the results are tragic for the individuals involved.

“All of these individuals’ efforts are undermined when Riot makes plans to change their competitive scene to such a degree with absolutely no notice whatsoever to those who are making major investments in their time and money to compete. These individuals’ only real mistake was not knowing someone in Riot Games who was high enough up to know what Riot’s competitive plans are that year. It truly hurts to see that after years of running multiple competitive scenes, after years of players and individuals committing to a scene that can drastically change with a moment’s notice, Riot still continues to follow the same patterns.”

UCI manager Matt Akhavan echoed the sentiment.

“Our players were surprised and disappointed by the changes, especially since previous iterations of the league featured a large scholarship,” he said.

Some schools with teams less likely to win the national championship may be more pleased with the changes. Yahoo Esports has reached out to some of those schools, but at time of writing has yet to receive a response.





Yahoo Esports spoke to Michael Sherman and Bob Holtzman of Riot Games’ uLoL team to discuss their response to the criticism. According to Sherman, the decision to remove the prizes from the championship playoff was one that Riot has had in place for a while now.

Story continues