The LEC will reduce its Sporting Financial Regulations threshold from €2 million to €1.65 million for the 2027 season.
On Friday, September 25, the League of Legends EMEA Championship announced that it is reducing its Sporting Financial Regulations threshold by a substantial amount.
As revealed, LEC’s SFR for the 2027 season will be reduced from €2 million to €1.65 million, which translates to a 17.5% decrease.
Additionally, the league’s minimum SFR will also drop from €1 million to €825,000, translating to the same 17.5% decrease.
The changes, which are coming to Europe’s top League of Legends league next season, effectively limit teams’ payroll of the five highest-paid players through a spending cap.
Teams can exceed the cap, but they will then be subject to an additional luxury tax, equivalent to 50% of the excess spending, and penalties to help ensure the financial sustainability and balance of the league.
The threshold has a 5% error margin, meaning if a team exceeds it by 5% or less, they will not get penalised.
On the other hand, if a team falls below the minimum threshold, they will not be penalised; however, they will lose some of the revenue from Riot Games.
While changes to the SFR threshold affect the maximum and minimum player salaries, it does not count players’ other revenue sources, such as cash prizes or sponsorships.
Those changes were hinted at in 2025, when Riot Games stated they intended to reduce the maximum threshold, likely in response to the dropping viewership.
The threshold is expected to be reduced further in the coming years.
Even though the changes will be implemented for the 2027 LEC season, the regulations include a clause named “Special Reduction”.
With it, if a player has signed a contract before the new salary rules come into effect, their salary does not fully count towards the team’s budget for the year.
Salaries of players whose pay is above the line are capped at one-fifth of the league’s threshold when used to calculate the team’s total spending.
In this case, their salary count is capped at €330,000, or 20% of €1.65 million.
As per the new rules, the SFR will also count any termination pay the teams have to pay to released players.
This amount will count fully towards the team’s total spending, preventing organisations from avoiding the cap through buyouts.
While LEC has introduced some financial changes for the 2027 season, so has the LoL Champions Korea.
LCK’s spending cap will remain at 4 million won, approximately €2.6 million, but the league is introducing four progressive tiers of luxury tax, reaching 60% for spending exceeding 250% of the implemented cap.
These changes aim to prevent the dominance of bigger teams and force organisations to manage their budgets more during transfer windows.
Conversely, the LoL Championship Series (LCS) does not have any salary cap, thus making the league more appealing for star players.
Notably, LYON’s jungler Kacper “Inspired” Słoma is reported to have signed a contract with his salary exceeding US$500,000 per year.
Mark Prezelj
Esports Betting Analyst
Mark Prezelj is a Slovenian esports betting analyst with over 3,500 articles at EsportBet and the founder of Lines64.com — someone who has been reading odds longer than most readers have been watching esports.
