BBL’s roster situation is absurd, but not necessarily rule-breaking

Rumours of BBL Esports signing the entire roster from affiliate club BBL PCIFIC have caused outrage within the competitive VALORANT scene, with questions raised as to the relevance of PCIFIC now having a spot in VCT at all. But while the whole move looks farcical on its face, it’s likely far less sinister than is being purported.

What are the BBL Esports rumours?

According to a report from Sheep Esports, VCT EMEA’s BBL Esports are set to sign the entire roster of their tier two affiliate BBL PCIFIC. This news came days after the PCIFIC roster had just won promotion to the region’s top division via its Ascension tournament. Now set to be a standalone VCT EMEA team in 2026, PCIFIC is completely without its promotion-earning roster and will be forced to rebuild from scratch.

The response to the news was heated. Many questioned what use there even was in seeing PCIFIC have a spot if their roster was to change entirely, with some fans going as far as to speculate whether the VCT place could be revoked and instead awarded to an Ascension runner-up.

Others wondered how such a scenario could actually be possible. A common question asked has been around rules requiring ascending teams to keep at least 3/5 of their roster going into VCT, however this has never actually been in effect.

This confusion likely stems from The Guard’s promotion in 2023, whereby their failure to accept the VCT Americas participation agreement led to the org abandoning its Ascension-winning roster. The lineup was then released from their contracts and, after community pushback, allowed to search for a new org and present their best choice to Riot.

It’s thought that Riot would not have allowed a replacement organisation to step in without having kept 3/5 of The Guard’s roster.

Affiliate or academy?

A huge point of contention comes from BBL PCIFIC’s presence as an affiliate team of BBL. Academy teams — tier two sides run entirely by VCT partnered orgs — are not allowed to compete in Ascension tournaments. As BBL PCIFIC was an affiliate rather than an academy of BBL, the team was permitted to fight for promotion.

Riot first opened up the possibility of affiliate links ahead of the 2024 season, aiming to help teams to ‘collaborate more closely on content and other commercial partnerships’, as well as allowing ‘Two-Way Players’ who could be interchanged between main and affiliate team rosters in an effort to provide a space for substitute players to compete.

Player loans were also opened up, allowing tier one orgs to loan players out to Challengers teams.

There are a number of reasons for blocking academy teams from entering promotion tournaments. The first, and most obvious, would be the prevention of an academy team from being able to play in tier one. Should a VCT organisation have two teams competing in tier one, then there would be a clear opportunity for those teams to face each other, causing a conflict of interest.

Instead, Riot could allow academy teams to compete in Ascension but block them from promotion. Were an academy team to then win Ascension, this would require Riot to either grant the slot to runners-up, rendering the academy’s appearance pointless, or allow the organisation to sell the slot on.

Riot has been staunchly against the idea of teams selling VCT slots, part of the reason for the debacle following The Guard’s exit in 2023.

In Riot’s other huge esports title, League of Legends, Fnatic’s tier two academy team won promotion to the EU LCS ahead of the 2017 Summer split. As Fnatic was already a member of the league, the organisation sold the slot to Ninjas in Pyjamas, who went on to field an entirely different roster featuring none of Fnatic Academy’s promotion-earning players.

Was BBL PCIFIC actually an affiliate?

The waters were muddied during the EMEA Ascension tournament when BBL co-owner Ferit “wtcN” Karakaya was reported to have claimed that BBL PCIFIC players were in fact under contract by his organisation and that BBL had rights over their transfers.

Figures in the scene had disputed the likelihood that his statement was actually correct. Additionally, the statement was predominantly shared on social media using a screenshot of an AI-translated X post, which the original poster appears to have since deleted.

What does seem more likely is that BBL had rights of first refusal over BBL PCIFIC players should they wish to move teams. Such an agreement would allow BBL to negotiate with the players before any rival organisations had the chance to.

Is there an issue after all?

Any potential issue depends on exactly what the relationship was between BBL and PCIFIC. If, as wtcN was reported to have claimed, BBL did already have the tier two players under contract, then this could have only been possible within the confines of the rules if they were two-way players or loanees. In this scenario, the players would’ve technically been tier one pros and would have had their contracts listed on the VCT contract database.

In reality, the signs point towards them having been genuine PCIFIC players with the organisation receiving support from BBL as a de facto sponsor. First rights or not, when it was decided by the PCIFIC roster that they wished to stick together for 2026, as reported by Sheep, then an offer from BBL would’ve likely been the more lucrative option coming from a more established partner team. It’s not unreasonable to think that the players may have preferred to make the switch.

While the situation does look bizarre on its face, it’s not a certainty that there was actually any wrongdoing. PCIFIC, by all accounts a standalone org and not an academy project, fielded a roster that won Ascension, earning the team a place in VCT EMEA for 2026, whether the roster stays with them or not.

For BBL, their relationship with PCIFIC may well have earned them an advantage in trying to sign their players for 2026. That same report from Sheep Esports also revealed that Lar0k and Loita in particular had been the subject of ‘strong interest’ from other teams. It appears BBL beat them all to the punch.

If anything, clarity on the situation would be welcomed in order to avoid a similar circus in future. Rules broken or not, seeing a promoted side lose its entire roster to its senior affiliate days after earning promotion is not a good look for the VCT.