Even if the development of the U.S. e-sports industry can be described as "Qionglou Yuyu", it is like the "Wild West" in the normative nature of industry contracts, which is enough to sound the alarm for us.
Source: The Washington Post
Compilation: Two troubles
Image: From the web
On the 19th of last month, overseas gaming esports media Game Haus published an article called "Esports Trends in Global Regions", which mentioned such a set of data: by the end of 2021, the United States has about 19,400 professional esports players. The total annual revenue of the players is about $169.1 million; China has about 4839 professional esports players with an annual total income of about $128.3 million; and South Korea has about 4169 professional players with a total revenue of about $100.5 million. The above three countries are among the top three in terms of global esports player income.
This set of data caused the author to question at the time, from the perspective of the scale of professional players, the United States is more than 4 times higher than China and South Korea, but in terms of income, the former and China and South Korea are not proportional to each other, if calculated according to per capita income, the income of Professional E-sports players in the United States is much lower than that of Chinese and Korean players, what is wrong with the U.S. e-sports industry?
After this question arose, on March 4, the Washington Post published an article titled "Inside 'contract hell': Esports players say predatory contracts run 'rampant'", which seemed to answer the above question.
The following is a compilation of the Washington Post article:
Blase, an esports pro from the United States, still remembers the year he changed his fate, 2016. That year, Activision Blizzard officially announced that it would form a franchise e-sports alliance around its own game product "Overwatch".
For Overwatch players including Blase, Blizzard's action was like a dream at the time. They fantasized that if they could become a professional player in OWL, they would not only enjoy the millions of dollars officially offered, but even become part of the sports industry tycoons like New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Los Angeles Red Sox owner Stan Klenk.
Blase, now 22, recalls the scene, but at first, the reality was as they expected, with the establishment of OWL, all kinds of capital is eager for Overwatch, and his mailbox is quickly filled with a large number of esports team quotations. But the illusion is a dream, and in the eyes of the current Blase, behind the dreams that once were beautiful, what awaits them is a "contract hell".
According to Blase's recollection, it wasn't all overwatch teams that threw "olive branches" to them, and the influx of offers was filled with a large number of obscure "esports clubs" that tried to bundle these potential pro players with low contract salaries with themselves, and then waited for the real OWL team to buy people, so that they could make a lot of money at a very small cost.
The "pits" waiting for the e-sports dream teenagers are more than that. In order to trick these immature young people into their thieves' boats, the clubs also deliberately set a "expiration time" of only a few hours for these contract offers, in order to seize the psychology of young people who are eager to become professional e-sports players, and deprive them of time to think rationally or ask for help from adults.
Blase also actually reached the highest stage of OWL, serving the London Spitfire team. In his view, since 2016, these "tricks" hidden in the players' contracts have never stopped.
Judging from Blase's account, the well-to-do OWL League Club seems to be more like a wronged boss, and at the beginning it was started by some wild teams that controlled excellent talent resources. But in fact, many regular e-sports clubs are not "good people". The Washington Post interviewed more than a dozen current or former pros and their agents as they wrote this article, and in what they say is that trap-laden contracts are so ubiquitous in today's esports industry. What's more, many respondents are reluctant to disclose their names because doing so would cost themselves their jobs.
These interviewees disclosed that in addition to the trap of contract quotation confirmation time, most organizations in the industry have a "overlord contract" template, which contains 30-40 pages of clauses, including overlord clauses that similar teams can trade players at will, even to foreign teams, and do not require the consent of the players themselves. These overlord contracts also appear in the content that "including during the event, players can be traded at will". At the same time, although some professional players will negotiate with the club on some terms related to their own interests, usually the final version of the contract will give the club the power to unilaterally terminate the contract, as long as they notify the player two weeks in advance and pay the player an additional two weeks' salary.
There are other things, such as if a player fails to make a start, then the club can cut the player's salary based on the number of substitute games. Some clubs in the industry have reduced their salary costs by placing signed players on the bench.
Therefore, even if the development of the global e-sports industry is advancing by leaps and bounds, the United States also plays a very important role in this field, but in the standardized development of contracts, this market is still in the state of "Wild West". More regrettably, unlike mature professional sports leagues in the United States, there is no player rights organization such as the "players' union" in many e-sports leagues such as OWL, so players have no way to protect their legitimate rights and interests in various overlord clauses.
In fact, most of the domestic e-sports leagues in the United States have also made some measures to safeguard the interests of players, such as Activision Blizzard's Overwatch League and Call of Duty League have formulated minimum wage standards for players, health insurance, psychological counseling services and other content for league clubs. However, for those clubs that control the lives, training and salary payment of players, these measures are a drop in the bucket for solving the problem of overlord contracts.
When the Washington Post interviewed The Riot Games, the manufacturer behind League of Legends, about the Overlord contract, the relevant spokesperson of The Fist Games also did not comment on it.
Beyond the Esports Stage: Contract Chaos "Grows Wildly"
Due to the lack of official supervision between clubs and players in most leagues, many clubs are squeezing players through various overlord clauses in contracts. Ryan Morrison, a staff member of an e-sports talent agency and law firm in the United States, told reporters about such a case.
"A player was woken up by club personnel at two in the morning and told that a doctor's waiver needed to be signed," Morrison recalled, "the player's wrist was injured during a long game and was in the rest treatment phase following the doctor's advice, but the club wanted to get a chance to play by getting him to sign the waiver and threatened the player to terminate the contract if he didn't sign it." ”
Such cases are not uncommon in the industry. Athena, 25, a Rocket League game anchor at esports club Team Envy, revealed to reporters another way for clubs to squeeze players: through brokerage contracts to become the exclusive agent of players or anchors' commercial cooperation, and then take a very high percentage of their advertising and sponsorship cooperation revenue.
Such cases are more in the industry, and in 2020, the well-known esports organization Faze Clan and Fortnite star anchor Tfue went to court over contract issues. The cases of both parties revealed that Faze had extracted up to 80 percent of Tfue's revenue from its business partnerships.
In any case, this phenomenon has led to the content of contracts between clubs and players and anchors in the e-sports industry is very deformed. In Hollywood, agencies can only take 10% of clients' revenue, while in professional sports leagues like the NFl, agent roles receive only 3% of their income from clients at most.
Tfue and Faze's lawsuit also raises another question for the esports industry: Do esports clubs have a "talent agency" function? As we all know, talent trading is now also part of the club's revenue, and even in China, there are already some clubs that specialize in this kind of work. In some U.S. states, talent agencies must be licensed by legislatures to operate. But in fact, most esports clubs that trade in talent brokers do not have such licenses.
What's more, there is "deep resentment" for professional players to hire third-party agents. ICON is an American e-sports talent agency affiliated with the parent company of esports club TSM FTX. At the time of writing this article, ICON's agent revealed to reporters that there are many clubs in the industry that cannot see third-party institutions like ICON, and when some clubs sign contracts with e-sports players, they will try to prevent players from finding a third party to intervene, or terminate the contract between players and third-party institutions as a precondition.
For some mature professional players, they naturally do not compromise with such unequal demands as clubs, but for more fledgling young players, they can always be led by the nose of these clubs, because the work from the esports giants is "unattainable", which brings an opportunity for more clubs to set overlord clauses.
Going back to the first question mentioned above, some clubs extend their "claws" to minors by setting signing times. Most clubs will contact minors online without the consent of the player's parents and allow minors to sign contracts quickly by setting up "high-pressure measures" such as signing times. Morrison said such traps are still rampant today.
Although many legal experts have said that the law has now recognized the "shorter date of signing" as a reason to "coerce signing", thus invalidating some overlord contracts, the crux of the matter is that for more minors, even if they can realize that their interests are damaged in the period after signing the "unequal treaty", they will not take the initiative to rise to the legal level to seek help, because this is likely to bury their entire future e-sports career.
Compared with the "gray" vested interests, more people are beginning to cherish the "feathers"
Fortunately, as the development of the e-sports industry becomes more mature and is concerned by more external industries and people, more and more cases caused by overlord contracts begin to have a more significant social impact, and in this process, more and more "problem clubs" are exposed, resulting in the collapse of the club brand overnight. Such an effect has also begun to force more clubs to cherish their "feathers" and take the initiative to improve the standardization of industry contracts.
Fnatic, a well-known e-sports organization, has repeatedly expressed its concern and efforts for the standardization of industry contracts in public. Andrew Cook, the club's general counsel, said Fnatic has always resisted the widespread overlord contract problem in the industry and hopes to create a positive and healthy working environment for its own players.
There is also Complexity Gaming, which was recently acquired by GameSquare Esports, whose chief operating officer Keller Battista told reporters that the club has always implemented various policies to protect the legitimate rights and interests of minors, such as signing contracts with underage players and various subsequent business activities, the club has "forced the participation of parents or guardians of players throughout the process", and regularly organizes parents or guardians to "hold parent-teacher conferences" in daily activities.
Batista said: "Unequal contracts do not form a good relationship between clubs and players, and in the long run, this will not help to increase brand value." ”
With the emergence of these organizations and cases, many practitioners, including professional player Blase and game anchor Athena, said that this is the "first step" worth celebrating in the industry. Of course, they all agree that the Players Guild will be the key to eradicating the Overlord contract.
"The guild of players can protect the rights and interests of players through a more powerful voice and add value to the industry." "Such an organization should have existed in the esports industry for a long time, but most of the players in the industry either didn't know what it was or they didn't care about this kind of industry chaos," Blase said. ”
Fox, a law professor at the University of Berkeley, also offered his own views on the industry's frequent legal disputes: The esports industry now looks like MLB 80 years ago, experiencing the era of "exploitative contracts". In his view, all today's mature professional sports leagues, including baseball, are very compatible with the "player union", and in the e-sports industry, players are still the fundamental value of the industry, and it is inevitable to "copy books" to traditional sports.
epilogue
From the full text, the Washington Post clearly points the finger at the contract chaos in the US e-sports industry and a large number of irregular club behavior. However, this does not mean that the esports industry in other countries can watch the fire from the other side and stay out of the matter. Especially in China, although the phenomenon of overlord contracts is not as rampant as in the United States, there have still been many contract dispute cases in the past, and I will not give examples here.
Perhaps, the solution to the problem is not the only option of forming a tournament. From the above, it is not difficult to find that one of the root causes of the problems in the US e-sports industry is also the lack of official supervision of the league and the event. So as a lesson from the past, can we seek solutions or prevent problems from the perspective of the upper echelons of the industry? For example, in a fixed league, can the official introduce a unified contract template for the clubs in it? Is there effective regulation of brokerage contracts between clubs and players? Is it possible to impose mandatory restrictions on the percentage draw of the club to protect the rights and interests of the players?
These measures are not thankless for the league and event officials. When a large number of "unequal treaties" in the industry are exposed, it will not only cause the club brand to collapse, but also continue to release the signal of "industry irregularity" to the outside world, which will inevitably affect the enthusiasm of talents to enter the industry, hang a series of negative labels for the event and the entire industry behind it, and ultimately affect the image and benign development of the entire industry.