Riot tells pro League of Legends players they can’t stream competing games

There really isn't a way to fix those queue times, though. When you have a small player pool (like you do on the far end of the skill curve), you have two choices: Accept long queue times or accept the likelihood of wildly unbalanced matches.

I suspect it's the opposite. The current trend was to play another game (Hearthstone in particular) and in some cases the streamer would actually keep playing Hearthstone during champ select/the beginning of the game - a really bad message to be sending your customers (especially with free-to-play games where someone spending money with a competitor means disposable income they can't spend on you).

People who read the news stories might think it sounds controlling (but the number of people who read the story and get notably upset is very small compared to the people watching these streams).

Seems like a calculated and rational choice by Riot.

" during which here is literally nothing to do besides playing other games"

Read a book.

College Sports have some strange rules regarding what they can do concurrently. Of particular note is the case of Jeremy Bloom[1], who was an excellent college football player and an Olympic skier. The NCAA really seems pretty anti-students-rights anyway, though, and I can't speak to more professional sports.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/30/sports/college-football-ol...

The quick answer is no, there is no cross-sport prohibition in most sports leagues. The long answer is that almost anything can be negotiated and that player are usually willing to make concessions in these deals in turn for more money.

Many modern sports contracts have clauses in them that protect the employer if an athlete is injured doing an athletic activity outsider of their normal training. A good example might be a football player blowing out his knee playing pickup basketball. These clauses usually give the team the ability to withhold future salary or even go after previously paid wages. Although these clauses aren't always exercised depending on the player's relationship with the team, the severity of the injury, and the activity that caused the injury. A team doesn't want to risk alienating a player or their fans unless there is a huge gap between the financial impact of the injury and the player's future perceived value.

There are also various sponsorship agreements that players and teams have with companies that have restrictions about supporting a competitor. For example an NBA player sponsored by Nike might not be allowed to wear an Adidas shoe during a game.

Considering these precedents and that Riot appears to act as some combination of a sponsor and team/league that employees these eathletes, I think this decision is pretty reasonable.

Sports contracts generally prohibit the player from playing other sports, even recreationally, to reduce their risk of injury.

Here, for example, is the NBA's take: http://bammgt.com/?page_id=339

This would be an appropriate comparison if they had restricted all competitive games (although the Hearthstone ban is fairly damning), but given that they didn't, I think it would be more enlightening to ask if pro sports leagues prevent their players from participating in other leagues for the same sport.

My knowledge of professional sports is pretty limited to the US, where there is essentially a monopoly in each sport. Does anyone know about this? I suspect soccer or cricket, both fairly international sports, might have good examples?

Deion Sanders[1] played professional football and baseball at the same time.

Interesting little tidbit: On October 11, 1992, Sanders played in a Falcons game at Miami and then flew to Pittsburgh, hoping to play in the Braves' League Championship Series game against the Pirates that evening and become the first athlete to play in two professional leagues in the same day. Sanders ultimately did not, however, appear in the baseball game that night.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deion_Sanders

Sports will have have restrictions on playing other sports, but the motivation is reducing the risk of injury. They'll also restrict things like motorcycling for the same reason.

Sometimes.

As noted above, there are clauses placed in individual contracts in an attempt to limit injury.

The UCI (pro cycling sanctioning body) also prohibits the top-tier cyclists from racing in events that lack a UCI sanction.

This has been a large problem in US pro-mountain biking, as most long-distance races are not UCI sanctioned. In theory, pro racers wishing to participate in these events risk fines.

I remember there was a huge advertising campaign back in the '90s around the fact that Bo Jackson was an all-star player in both the NFL and MLB.

Riot's side of the argument would be something like: how do you think Nike would feel if Tiger Woods decided to switch to Titleist balls next week despite having a contract that pays him to use Nike golf balls?

And over on /r/Starcraft. It's pretty bad, but frankly I'm not surprised. At a convention they stopped Dota2 from being played there.. I wish I had the link for that.

That isn't right. These players are not allowed to stream the games at all as long as they are affiliated with Riot. From the original source:

"onGamers has confirmed with the team representatives that LCS players are disallowed from streaming the games listed below outright"

False. The contract stipulates that during the LCS, they CANNOT stream any of these games on the same stream that they play LoL, as that could be considered adjacent to LoL.

Not that I agree or disagree, but as a counter-point: Riot has sunk many dollars into organizing leagues for LoL teams, and has put on numerous high-profile events in attempt to push professional gaming into the mainstream.

With what do you substantiate your claim.