The AlphaDraft Challenger League won’t be quite as lucrative as the League of Legends teams competing in it expected.
The company behind AlphaDraft, Fandom Gaming, Inc., is shaving $3,000 off the original $12,500 prize pool, sources close to the organization tell the Daily Dot.
The company will instead put the money up for an invitational tournament, with entry not guaranteed to participants in the current league. Unsurprisingly several teams within the league are unhappy with this change, as the original prize pool they were promised has now been heavily reduced.
The organization will also be restructuring its schedule for the tournament to avoid conflict of viewership with the upcoming Riot Games Mid-Season Invitational. The rearrangement will put a lot of strain on some teams and, due to strict AlphaDraft rules on roster changes and substitutions, could potentially force some to forfeit their spots in the league. Four of the 10 teams originally participating in the five-week season have already dropped out.
AlphaDraft recently entered League of Legends as part of the growing daily fantasy esports industry. Alongside the tournament, the platform allows users to play in daily fantasy esports leagues using real money. The company also sponsors many popular content creators within the community, including heavy-hitters such as SivHD and Uberdanger.
Teams within the league include Cloud9 Tempest, Misfits, Frank Fang Gaming, Elomingle, and more, but several teams have dropped out previously due to roster changes and organizational issues, including, most recently Noble eSports, Storm, and Dreamek. Challenger teams are ever-changing and the roster rules imposed by AlphaDraft haven’t kept up with the liquid Challenger scene.
AlphaDraft did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
Update May 1 5:37pm CT: AlphaDraft founder and CEO Todd Peterson provided the following statement on this story:
AlphaDraft is the sponsor of this tournament. We work with WellPlayed to put together a fun, enjoyable and fair tournament. Unfortunately some of the teams invited could not make their originally agreed upon games, made last minute substitutions that aren’t permitted by the rules, or forfeited games. They had to be eliminated to remain fair to the remaining teams. That left the tournament unplayable as originally designed.
We worked with WellPlayed and all of the remaining team managers to come up with a sensible solution and everyone agreed that this was a way to make lemonade out of lemons. The same $12,500 prize purse remains and it will be divided among the six remaining teams. But for a few minor schedule tweaks, the original tournament remains intact. Most importantly, the new structure and modifications were developed with, and agreed to, by all of the participating team managers.
Photo via Riot Games and Fandom Gaming, Inc | Remix by Jacob Wolf
