So let's start by saying Riot has been completely silent on this matter even when pros players , coachs and prominent people in the scene made many complaints ... the only time they responded is obviously "we missed the mark" comment from /u/RCrower and that was complete lie as we see it right now

EU LCS History

it's so sad that potentially the biggest region playerbase wise is getting shafted just because EU Riot has shown time and time again to be incompetent in 2 different Esports and for people that are wondering why is that all you have to do is look the EU LCS vs NA LCS history

EU LCS was being treated as the stepchild , having worse schedule , worse and experimental formats for no reason (European love ties don't they) and here's a throwback thread when EU fans were constantly complaining how NA LCS is straight up a better product in every way.

NA LCS viewership was crushing EU LCS' , it wasn't even close until 6 years from it's inception where we got a full rebrand and the coming of the franchise LEC and there's many factors why LEC is one of the most successful leagues in esports right now but the main change is that it simply got more attention than it did before and the product became better and the viewership came with it , surpassing LCS' by a large margin.

Story of LEC By theScore Esports

EU VALORANT

For those that don't follow EU VALORANT (I don't blame there's almost nothing to follow) but the main complain since the beta is that EU compared to NA is getting way less events thus less orgs and thus less viewership and interest overall and it's ripple effect ... But I always had hope even if TOs like ESL/Blast aren't interested in running events (maybe scared Riot would do the same they did with LoL) , I thought it's fine once Riot start doing their own events and circuit it will be much better  

First Strike

We start with First Strike which is already a bad indicator of how Riot is handling the EU scene with inconsistent rules and ton of BO1 qualifiers and no streams and thus they received the first backlash from pros and community and that's where the comment i referenced earlier came from "We missed the mark" and there was hope for the 2021 circuit to be better cause it's gonna be fully under Riot with small involvement from TOs

VCT Stage 1

Challengers 1 :

Come 2021 and it's simply a disaster from start to finish and just to give examples I'm gonna mainly compare EU to NA

We start with qualifiers EU playing Bo1s , something that doesn't happened to NA and you can't even use the excuse "EU has more teams" cause NA start Bo3s at Round 128 while EU is Bo1s til Round 32

But the problem at least for the fans isn't the Bo1s it's the broadcast for the Challenger 1 qualifier we got to watch a total of 0 Broadcasted games whatever be it Bo1s or Bo3s and you might ask how many games were Broadcasted for NA Challenger 1 Qualifier ? 35 Broadcasted Bo3s with seeding matches to have proper seeding for the main event (oh yeah forgot to mention EU had completely random seeding for this qualifier and Heretics First strike champions got knocked in a Bo1)

After all who cares about the qualifiers all what matters is the main event of the tournament right ?

Well EU finally got it's first Broadcasted games and it's just 4 Bo3s without reseeding or anything doubling down on the random seeding they started with ... but they worst thing we get no finals no proper tournament at all and it's months now in 2021 and EU hadn't had many if any finals to build storylines and know who the best teams are

Meanwhile NA had a double elim properly seeded event with EVERY game broadcasted making it 14 Bo3s Broadcasted to 4 of EU's

Again after this first Challenger 1 , many pros complained and we got "some" improvement

Challengers 2 :

Fun Fact : before the pros complained about this , the original format was even worse with Bo1s until Round of 8 for this qualifier but quickly fixed it to make it Bo3s from Round 128 like NA which's good

But nothing changed for the fans as it's 8 Broadcasted Bo3s overall in EU compared to NA's 25 Broadcasted Bo3s

And I mean at this point , it's not even debatable the interest in watching EU from fans is an all time low with no broadcasted games no storylines ... people don't even know how the teams rank up cause we hadn't had finals in months nor know the upcoming players when compared to NA people were talking about the 20th best NA team and their style etc meanwhile in EU there isn't enough vods to watch the best EU teams

Challengers 3 :

Same shit format 8 Bo3s Broadcasted compared to NA who's consistently changing and upgrading their product that did 62 Broadcasted Bo3s

there isn't much to say really

Masters 1 :

You would hope by now at least the Masters will be the saving grace and it's the same format across all region

But ofc not why would EU have the format fans wanted and it's the best format implemented so far in VALORANT which's just 8 team Double Elimination all Bo3s when you can keep experimenting with groups and single Elim bracket

The worst part isn't the broadcasted games here (EU 13 to NA 14) but the fact that EU was ignored for so long that the viewership and interest is so low and people don't even know the teams nor their storylines like the team that won Masters , Acend was seen playing 2 Bo3s on broadcast before Masters compared to NA's Sentinels it's not even close and it was legit saved by an insane finals put up by both teams

TL'DR : EU vs NA Stage 1

it's just so sad to see for the region that potentially has the biggest playerbase to be treated this way , it really hampers the grow of the game and the scene

Stage 2 isn't getting much better with the clusterfuck that Turkey/CIS have to play with EU for 2 spots for some reason when LATAM have their own spot and don't share with Brazil or Asian countries get their own spot meanwhile historic regions like EU , TR and CIS get all together 2 spots ... But at the same time TR/CIS don't play at the same qualifiers as EU so they have easier routes to Challengers Finals and the ruling around it is so confusing and weird like this for example where EU teams can play in Turkey qualifiers ????

The formats changed so we finally have finals (they probably just did it cause they need the top 2) but we still don't get the Double Elim so if the 2 best teams run into each other unlucko gotta try all over again instead of having a second chance vs another opponent

And the biggest topic for fans is still no broadcasted games at all until the "main event"

And this is some of the tweets just from today where community members are constantly complaining about it and Riot is completely silent

https://twitter.com/SideshowGaming/status/1377662739565383682

https://twitter.com/Average_Jonas/status/1377183299542478852

https://twitter.com/Average_Jonas/status/1377638076651077633

https://twitter.com/MitchMan/status/1377710225571127299

https://twitter.com/BanKsEsports/status/1377701166755241987

https://twitter.com/Tanizhq/status/1377692552187543558

https://twitter.com/Tanizhq/status/1377574528277172234

https://twitter.com/seangares/status/1377703657957814272

https://twitter.com/pansy/status/1377621291142889479

https://twitter.com/haloofthoughts/status/1377719699098767361

https://twitter.com/daprcs/status/1377699017283489795

https://twitter.com/RyanCentral_/status/1377732534428168196

Why do orgs even invest in an EU VALORANT Esports if all the branding/exposure they gonna get is their name in a table in VLR ? like 90% if not more of their games will never be broadcasted

And Fans can't follow any stories and don't care about the players and it's ripple effect and the viewership will keep going down and if Riot doesn't treat EU the same way they do to NA then this scene is gonna struggle and it's growth will be stunted for no reason just like EU LCS