With the LCS 2020 schedule announcement came the revelation that the LCS was being moved to a three-day format. Competitive hopefuls prayed that this meant a regular season best-of-3 format a la China, Korea, or even North America in seasons past, but the schedule remains firmly rooted in best-of-1s.

Additionally, multiple fans raised eyebrows at the “forced” Academy League integration among the LCS games, with Academy Rush being a major question mark alongside the LCS games of the week being behind Monday night’s wall of Academy games.

Academy Rush was a disorganized mess

Academy Rush was certainly… something, with multitalented host James “Dash” Patterson delivering some of his best on-the-spot content yet. However, even he couldn’t stop most casual viewers from getting caught up in what looked to be a disorganized mess from an outside perspective. The rationale behind the Academy Rush format was to have rapidfire quick Academy games all at once, with action cuts followed by action cuts and no lull in the excitement.

Unfortunately, the execution of said idea was clumsy at best, and it was incredibly easy to get lost by the sheer bombardment of games, information, and overall lack of context.

Academy Rush can be improved by having running analysis, draft statistics, additional graphics and the occasional “check-ins.” Essentially, viewers – to say nothing of casters and Dash himself – are being thrown to the wolves when it comes to Academy information here. Two-minute snippets of a game with 20 minutes between each is a novel idea, especially given that what is essentially a talk show with some of League’s favorite personalities happens concurrently, but Riot either need to trim or stagger the amount of concurrent games or simply make the format easier to follow.

And the streaming regulations didn’t make it any better

Perhaps the biggest reason to criticize the Academy League’s broadcast is that professional players are forbidden from streaming while the games are being played. While this, in an ideal world, would drive their regulars to the Academy stream, again we stumble at the execution stage. With Academy games occurring during prime stream audience hours of Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and even Monday night, pros that don’t have much by way of personal branding or big contracts lose out on exposure.

Even the top tier of competitors within North America have an issue with this. Yiliang Peter “Doublelift” Peng experienced this first-hand on Friday, having to leave his audience of well over 15,000 concurrent viewers hanging out to dry for fear of discipline or a fine.

The issue with this is, while it does give more respect to the Academy players, it alienates some of the fanbase and perhaps even drives them away from competitive League of Legends and towards career streamers such as Tyler1 and Yassuo. While there is nothing inherently bad about this, shutting down an additional income stream for esports athletes – who are not exactly renowned for the longevity of their careers to begin with – makes Riot seem oppressive in their otherwise reasonable demands.

Simply put, if individuals wish to watch Academy, they will of their own volition. Forcing the professional players that they are invested in to stop is not a good way to guarantee sustained viewership of a brand new League.

The LCS Academy’s new format will be hard to get used to, but is forcing viewers to watch really the way to go? No, Riot's just pushing fans away from Academy Rush 74%, 26 votes 26 votes 74% 26 votes - 74% of all votes

Yes, Academy needs all the attention and support they can get 26%, 9 votes 9 votes 26% 9 votes - 26% of all votes Total Votes: 35 Voting is closed Poll Options are limited because JavaScript is disabled in your browser.

Also a gigantic question mark for the community regarding these streams is that the League now has a sponsorship by Bud Light. While the alcoholic beverage certainly suggests that sponsorship is going well for the LCS, it does alienate a certain portion of your audience by making the show 21+. In addition, local-language restreams in Germany, France, Italy, and more have been indefinitely suspended as a result of this.

With a majority of Academy players being 17 to 20, was having your flagship sponsor being an alcoholic drink an intelligent move? Admittedly most of League’s audience are in their late 20s, so I am decidedly neutral on the matter (if maintaining a somewhat positive outlook due to the relative prestige of the sponsor plus the implications for future partnerships), but it again gives a reason as to why Academy’s initial viewership may be low.

The fanbase criticized the Dignitas’ Academy “superteam” – and rightfully so – but after a 2-0 first week the veteran talents look LCS ready. So much so, in fact, that they could very well drive up viewership and fan interaction themselves.

Academy in this format is still a new venture, so if Riot can adjust the Rush format (in its current iteration, it makes me want to drink a Bud Light or 10) to be a little more streamlined, North America’s secondary scene will be looking brighter than ever.