Chinese LoL players used to earn as much as $6.6M

Salaries of the best Chinese League of Legends players had reportedly reached as much as $6.6 million annually before the LPL set a cap back in 2020.

According to the Blix insider Alejandro Gomis, the rumors from a few years ago about the extraordinary player salaries in the LPL were true. Based on Gomis’ sources, the annual salaries of the top seven Chinese LPL players were as high as 30 million RBM (~$4 million).

The player with the highest salary was reportedly Zhuo “knight” Ding, who’s believed to have had the highest salary of them all — 45 million RBM ($6.6 million).

The salary cap in China

These numbers highlight the differences in salary between top players and regular
players. In 2020, the LPL introduced a salary cap to improve the situation. According to Gomis, the LPL salary cap has multiple tiers based on how good the players are. Naturally, the S-tier with the highest cap is for the top players who perform best both in the LPL and on the international stage. On the next A-tier, are the players who are exceptional in the LPL but do not play competitively worldwide.

Teams also have salary caps that should not exceed $1.5 million. There are rumors that this amount has been revised upwards again, but the insider could not confirm that. There is a also “luxury tax” in China intended to punish those who don’t comply with the limitations. The amount of the penalty varies and is based on the difference in how much the salary cap was exceeded.

Team salaries, on the other hand, have several exceptions. For example, “every year, each team can bring in one player that is not subject to Financial Fair Play.”

This means that teams can sign a prominent player from a different country. Thus, it was also possible for legendary player Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok to receive staggering offers that even exceeded $6.6 million.

Salary of players in other regions

There were also very good salaries for players in the North American LCS until recently. This went so far that all kinds of players from all regions of the world were brought to America and stayed because of the salary. So if a player didn’t get a spot in a team in the European LEC, but had the opportunity to move to the LCS instead, he was happy to do so at an attractive salary.

Unfortunately, this did not improve the level in the region and just because a team gets a supposed star player from another league does not mean that he will play just as well in another team and on another server. LCK players don’t earn badly either, of course, but above all T1 players don’t really have to worry about money.

Header: LPL