LEC & LCS suffer significant production issues amid Riot layoffs
Michal Konkol/Riot GamesThe effect of mass layoffs at Riot Games related to the production teams behind both the LCS & LEC were immediately felt on both broadcasts, with the LEC having various production issues and cut sgements while the LCS suffered lengthy pauses.
Putting on a production, especially a livestreamed one, requires a lot of things to go right. The amount of moving parts involved with esports broadcasts like the LCS and LEC is immense, and having a team to fix problems as they arise is just as important as the team tasked with putting everything together in the first place.
With a massive portion of the LEC’s broadcast team and many LCS staff members getting laid off amid Riot’s decision to let go of 530 employees, fans of both leagues were concerned about how this would affect the broadcast.
It’s not overly surprising, then, that both broadcasts were noticeably affected by having less people on staff.
LEC & LCS broadcasts affected by Riot layoffs
Both broadcasts opened with a short message for those whose jobs were affected by Riot’s layoffs, many of which had been working with the company for years and were suddenly let go.
Here’s a message from those still working on the LEC:
And another similar message from those still working with the LCS:
The LEC was the first broadcast to go live for the day, and, all things considered, things went pretty smoothly with the content they were able to put out. Though there were a few moments where on-screen assets didn’t pop up when they were supposed to, the broadcast was mostly unaffected. At least, on the surface.
Footage of the overlay from LEC Week 1 with a unique overlay that’s missing in Week 3 post-layoffs.Many LEC-exclusive features, like the overlay showing active cooldowns during tense teamfights were entirely missing, replaced with the default overlay. These were small yet noticeable omissions that took away from some of the unique production assets that made the LEC stand out.
Additionally, the pre and post-show segments were cut entirely and won’t be around for the entire week. Executive broadcast producer Triaged explained that this decision was made for the health of the remaining LEC staff, and that these segments would return in the future.
The LCS unfortunately didn’t fare as well, with three different pauses that took the team a while to sort. Two of these pauses were purely chalked up to player issues, with one player having an issue with changing their settings and the other being one team claiming there were network issues. However, an investigation into the claim came up with nothing.
The third, however, was an audio issue and subsequent chronobreak that took nearly 20 minutes to sort out, leaving players visibly frustrated and fans tired of all the pauses.
It’s possible that these pauses could have happened on a normal day of LCS matches without factoring in the layoffs, but the fact that there are less people on-staff who could solve these problems likely led to much longer pauses than there would have been if the broadcast was properly supported.