A superstar reveals their salary at T1 but inadvertently reignites the Zeus incident
Last week, the T1 – Zeus drama seemingly reached its conclusion when The Play (representing Zeus) released unfavorable information about T1, and the team’s representative confirmed that the statements made by the T1 CEO when the drama first erupted were purely personal. However, perhaps every time HLE faces T1, the incident will be brought up again. But before the season begins, a side detail that just emerged also easily brings to mind the Zeus situation.
Accordingly, while playing the Arena mode with Lehends, Oner mentioned that his salary for a 2-year contract with T1 is around 5.3 billion won (approximately over 26 million CNY). Nevertheless, Lehends did not seem surprised to learn the salary of his junior from the opposing team. After that, both players focused on winning the Arena match.
In reality, Oner’s salary is quite high compared to the average player in both the LCK and another rapidly developing League of Legends region, the LPL. Recently, when discussing the (expected) salary of Faker, veteran streamer Miss, a notable name in Chinese Esports, stated that a superstar in the LPL only earns around 10 million CNY/year.
Thus, Oner’s salary surpasses that of a superstar in the LPL. Moreover, there have been reports circulating among T1 fans that the team has a salary tier system, where Faker’s position is always the highest, followed by Zeus and Gumayusi in the ZOFGK lineup. If Oner’s salary is astonishing, one can imagine that Zeus and Gumayusi could be even higher.
Perhaps it is precisely because of this high salary fund, coupled with the LCK’s salary cap, that T1 has to cut back on some player benefits, which is a factor mentioned in Zeus’s contract when The Play indicated that T1 had offered “unacceptable benefits for a player who has won the World Championship twice.”
T1 is likely under pressure to continuously succeed
As the most successful team in League of Legends history, T1 also faces financial pressures, as they have too many superstars in their positions. T1 has to consider many factors to survive, but perhaps the current methods have not shown effectiveness, and the consequences are already coming with serious ramifications.