Nick Allen talks Challenger League, new LCS rules, and Riot international involvement

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

Editor's Note: We had some slight interference picked up in our recording setup and have edited as best we could. Apologies.

In this interview, Riot Games Esports Manager Nick Allen addresses many of the recent esports topics and issues Riot has been involved in. Below is a topic breakdown with time stamps for those that wish to navigate to specific sections of the interview.

Challenger League

0:30 - Coke Zero's involvement with the challenger league

1:50 - Difference between coke's involvement in challenger and LCS

2:25 - Has the challenger series solved the problems with amateur in 2013?

3:25 - Challenger DDOS issues, how Riot works with teams

4:30 - How does the format/ruleset compensate for DDOSing?

6:45 - Concerns at all about challenger teams camping top slots in ranked?

8:20 - Lessons already learned from challenger series

Visas, new rules, and recent rulings

9:20 - LCS player visa situation - how much does Riot help teams in obtaining them?

10:25 - Is Riot obtaining visas for the players?

11:15 - Do all players currently participating in the LCS have visas?

13:00 - Bjergsen $2000 fine, why did they pick that fine and that amount?

14:20 - Why did Riot decide to use traditional sports fines as a guideline?

15:10 - Is Riot fine with Good Gaming Agency (Alex Garfield) still working with two teams?

17:00 - Why did Riot decide to change the team ownership changes right before NIP/LD but not before Velocity/EG?

19:40 - Any concerns that existing team owners (Reginald/Jack/Hotshot) giving up ownership to follow Alex Garfield example?

International LoL esports

21:40 - What kind of involvement does Riot have with international organizations lACE, OGN, Garena?

22:40 - How much can Riot influence/change the international rulesets (making Korean orgs only have one team) ?

23:30 - Does he think that Korean orgs having multiple teams give Korea an advantage?

24:45 - Could Riot approach an international organizer and force a change?

26:00 - Does Riot feel that NA's lack of strength is an issue with the NA ecosystem? If so, should something be done?

Community Stats

27:30 - Could Riot open up the API to the tournament servers so that 3rd parties can analyze esports match stats?