Will this really work?
LoL: Riot Tries to Save NA With A New Challengers League
Chemistry takes on a new form with the upcoming NA Challengers League, or as Riot likes to call it NACL. Of course, the first thing I had to think of was salt, but that's beside the point. What exactly will this NACL be, and what is the purpose of this new league?
With the LCS suffering from lack of viewership, as well as a decent developmental program, it seems that Riot is finally going to do something about it by creating a new tournament format.
North American Challengers League Announced
On November 8, 2022 Riot announced the North American Challengers League, which is going to be a tournament taking place throughout the year. The tournament will have two splits, a spring and summer splits and will pit 16 teams against one another.
Teams Competing at NACL
From the sixteen teams competing at the event ten will be the former Academy teams, now known as fixed teams of the league. This means these teams cannot be relegated from the NACL.
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The six remaining slots will be handed out to provisional teams, formerly known as Amateur teams. These teams will have to play a promotional tournament to qualify and if they're amongst the bottom four teams, they will have to play a promotional tournament against the top four teams of the NACL qualifiers to stay in the league.
NACL Format
The North American Challengers League will have two splits, as already mentioned. They will also have a double elimination playoff system where a winner of the NACL will be crowned at the end.
The purpose of thie league is to foster better growth for young North American native players. Young talents will be able to get scouted by teams through this tournament. A 'Notification of Interest' system will be added into the player contracts of the league.
This means teams that see a player they would like to have can state their interest in a player even if they're currently under contract with another team. Will this really help out the issues with NA League of Legends? Time will tell.