By Mashum Mollah
Pro players of League of Legends from North America are now said to be earning an average starting salary of a whopping $320,000, this is an amount that puts them on a par with the average salary of players turning out in Major League Soccer.
Computer game competitions might stretch as far back as the 70’ with them massively gaining in popularity in the early 2000’s but it is in the last ten years and particularly since about 2014, when the Sports industry and started to boom in a huge fashion. It was since around this time that players were able to seriously think about turning professional at gaming and earning some good money for doing it.
The Sports industry shows no signs of slowing up either with its economy set be worth more than $900 million at the end of this year.
League of Legends is, of course, one of the most popular eSports games out there and tournament prize pools have grown so much in recent years from the early days of $50,000 to as much as $5 million in recent times. You can check LOL stats here.
1. More Than 1,000 Professional League of Legends Players :
It has been indicated that for League of Legends, there are now more than a thousand players that are earning a full-time income from playing the game professionally in tournaments. Top players are picked up by teams that they give these players multi-year contracts of that average of $320,000 per year.
Additionally, on top of their base salary players are even given other benefits such as health insurance and 401k. Professional players now have far more financial security as well as just five years ago players would not be given a flat contract.
2. It Wasn’t Always the Same Model :
Back in 2013, it was far harder for professional players of League of Legends to be able to secure that financial security as payments was all performance based. Players would only get paid if they performed well in the competitions.
This meant that players had huge amounts fo pressure – especially new players trying to forge a career. If they were not able to put in some consistent performances in their first few months as a professional, not only would they not be seeing any money coming in but it would also be hard for them to justify their place in a team.
These days new players will usually be signed on a contract for a year with a salary of close to that average starting salary stated. This gives those players the freedom to put their concerns about finances to one side and a year to show the team they are worth a place and worthy of a new multi-year contract once their current one runs out.
You can think of these teams as franchises almost in the same way as sports teams. They will pay money for players from other teams, trade players and even pick up new players that play for colleges as part of a scholarship (yes this is a thing). You can even boost your lol rankings.
Playing League of Legends professionally surely sounds like a dream for many of you but if you ever manage to become good enough, there is some very good money that can be earned that will set you up for life.
You better go and get some practice in!
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