LoL analyst Caedrel has no doubt that the LCS will become less relevant than the North American Challengers League (NACL) if MrBeast and other top creators join the developmental league.
The Game Haus’ Sander Hove reported on June 27, in collaboration with Nick ‘LS’ De Cesare, that MrBeast is among the top creators who have expressed an interest in entering the NACL, a developmental league that is one rung below the LCS.
Tyler ‘Tyler1’ Steinkamp, a popular League of Legends streamer with 5.2 million followers on Twitch, has reportedly “been denied the ability to enter the NACL”, although he is believed to remain interested in having a team in the developmental league.
Other top creators credited with an interest in joining the NACL are Charles ‘MoistCr1TiKaL’ White Jr. and Ludwig Ahgren, the co-owners of Moist Esports, who field a Valorant team in the North America Challengers.
Questioned on his stream about the report, Caedrel said that the LCS will fall behind the NACL if these big-name content creators end up joining the league.
“If T1, MrBeast and Moist all get in Challengers League, it’s going to be more popular than LCS,” he said.
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“If that happens, then of course NACL is going to be more popular than LCS. Are you kidding?”
The LCS is currently going through its most severe crisis. TSM, the only remaining organization that has competed in every single split of the LCS, is moving to another region, and the league is drawing the lowest viewership in its history.
In the Valorant NA Challengers League, the arrivals of creator-backed teams have helped drive up interest in the competition. The five most popular games of Split 2 involved either Moist Esports or Disguised, the esports project launched by Jeremy ‘Disguised Toast’ Wang, according to data firm Esports Charts.
Disguised recently entered the NACL with his own team for the Summer Split, featuring three former members of the Cloud9 Challengers Spring roster. The team’s matches are averaging a league-high 10,951 viewers.