Riot Games, currently busy with the pre-season of League of Legends, is expected to give an official update on the franchised NA LCS this month.
Riot Games, currently busy with the pre-season of League of Legends, is expected to give an official update on the franchised North American League Championship Series (NA LCS) this month. Until then, the community must continue to take in details from third-party sources.
It was a couple of weeks back when the Cleveland Cavaliers and Houston Rockets from the National Basketball Association (NBA) were reported to have been accepted for the next season.
According to a new report from ESPN, sources close to the matter have confirmed that both organizations have chosen brand names for their respective League of Legends teams. Cleveland Cavaliers will assume the name of “100 Thieves” and the Houston Rockets will operate under the name of “Clutch City Gaming” next year.
The two organizations needed new identities because of rules placed by the NBA that prevent them from using the same brands in other “non-associated” sports. This is similar to how Blizzard made it mandatory for all teams in the Overwatch League to choose new brand identities as well.
Every non-endemic approved application in the NA LCS must pay $13 million in franchising fees to Riot Games over the next few years with $8 million deposited before the start of the new season. Another $5 million will go towards operations and $3 million to a compensation pool to pay the endemic esports organizations that will not be returning next year.
More than a hundred applications were submitted to Riot Games in the hopes of acceptance, from which only ten made the cut. Besides the Cleveland Cavaliers and Houston Rockets, other teams backed by the NBA include FlyQuest, Echo Fox, and the Golden State Warriors.
