Editorial: Contract lengths should be public

Remember when Henry "⁠ HenryG ⁠" Greer built the  Cloud9  'Colossus' team in 2020? It was unusual then just as it is now for a team to share much about the players' deals, but the commentator-turned-general manager threw the status quo out of the window and announced to the world how much his players were being paid.

He and the team learned the hard way that this approach went too far. By publicizing their deal values,  HenryG 's players were subjected to unusual pressure and ridicule when they inevitably didn't perform up to par with the kind of money Cloud9 paid them from the get-go.

But it becomes a different story when no money is involved. The pressure is gone when all you reveal is contract lengths, but that detail is just as important as the money, if not more. Unlike salaries and buyouts, which can be a source of additional pressure on players, it benefits most of the scene if shared across the board.

Fans have the most to gain, and this is where even the entertainment value of sharing deal lengths can pay dividends down the line. When a player's contract is about to run out, the chances of that player moving elsewhere naturally increase and the community gets to buzz with talk about the possibilities, especially around the winter and summer breaks.

Imagine if we knew when Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov's current deal with G2 was ending. Right now it's anyone's guess and it creates a lot of confusion about the team's future. With Nikola "⁠ NiKo ⁠" Kovač reportedly due to join  Falcons , m0NESY could very well be considering a future elsewhere, but is that even feasible given G2's previous stance that he's not for sale for any price? It seems to me he might have to wait until the end of that deal, but that date is a well-guarded secret.

Players themselves have plenty of motivation to share when their contracts end. It improves their chances of being approached around that time and every new offer increases their value. Of course, in most cases any manager worth their salt will be able to find out when their targeted player will be available by asking the right people behind the scenes, but it would make things significantly smoother if that information was readily available.

So why then is it uncommon for contract lengths to be announced at the top level, and remain a luxury typically reserved for franchise players like Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut, Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz, Kaike "⁠KSCERATO⁠" Cerato and Dzhami "⁠Jame⁠" Ali?

You might have noticed that a new feature that displays current contract lengths was added to player profiles on HLTV last month. After that happened, several writers and I got in touch with most of the prominent team organizations and player agencies in an attempt to gather as much data on current contracts as possible.

Those approaches turned up nothing that wasn't already public. Now that's nothing new. We regularly ask about contract lengths around player announcements and it is rarely successful. Agencies typically give the same negative answer, citing confidentiality clauses preventing them from sharing information about their players' contracts. Meanwhile, team organizations often make it abundantly clear that more transparency is not in their interest.

"I don't see why I would do that," one such answer from a prominent team's manager said during our recent round of inquiries. Another painted a more elaborate picture of the problem: "We see the upside for players, agents and fans, but the potential downside is for teams. More information about player contracts out there tends to give players/agents more negotiation leverage and drive up costs for teams," they said.

Any organization that shares that information of its own accord puts itself at a disadvantage compared to those who don't. For many of them it becomes a question of "if everyone else does it, we can do it," as one of the respondents said.

The problem is that no one will put themselves in that position unless they are compelled to. In sports and other esports it is often the franchise leagues and player unions that require these details to be made public for transparency, player protection, and compliance with various rules like salary caps.

In Counter-Strike, there is no single franchise that oversees the whole circuit. Valve have the ultimate power, but they only step in to make high-level decisions when they feel the need to protect the game.

It should then come down to a player union. Unfortunately, the Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association (CSPPA) not only effectively doesn't exist anymore, it rarely made use of its collective bargaining power even when it was somewhat functional in the first place.

Instead, the only way that information now gets shared is through player agencies putting their foot down when they can. That is however often limited to players who have the power and leverage to dictate their terms, while the vast majority of the rest are at the mercy of their teams.

It shouldn't have to be this way, but without a real body enforcing a universal change, more transparency around player contracts might just remain a fantasy for now.