Community reacts to Valve not covering coaches' travel to RMR

Following the shocking revelation that Valve had decided to no longer pay for teams to send their coach to RMR events, the community reaction was sharp and disapproving of the sudden change especially among coaches in the scene.

Besides Detonate's head coach, Joshua "m1cks" Micks, who broke the news, Fluxo's head coach and two-time Major winner, Wilton "zews" Prado, was one of the biggest names calling out the decision. He described Valve's change as further proof that the massive publisher treats coaches "like garbage" despite said coaches dedicating their lives to the esport.

EG White's head coach, Joseph "Muenster" Lima, echoed a similar sentiment, arguing that is further proof that Valve universally views coaches negatively while also arguing that the publisher has no coherent vision for the game due to being so hands off in developing the esport.

ATK's head coach, Daniel "sprayxd" Kogan also reasserted another common sentiment about Valve; that criticizing the behemoth is largely pointless due to a lack of communication and outreach by Valve to tackle issues in the space.

Another major point of focus in the community regarding this decision was how it will disproportionately affect smaller teams. Complexity's general manager, Graham "messioso" Pitt noted that while Complexity can easily afford to send Tiaan "T.c" Coertzen to Monterrey, the financial strain will be a serious consideration for teams like Detonate, yur, Nouns, and Paquetá.

To that end, Detonate's owner, Levoski Brown, noted his shock at a travel stipend issue coming up in "Tier 1 esport like CS:GO." However, Levoski was quick to note that the issue is clearly not a monetary one from Valve's end but rather, in his opinion, to punish "necessary" and "successful" coaches. For Detonate, it can be argued that a part of the reason they have been able to qualify to the Americas RMR.

One final comment of note comes from Malek "maleK" Bennouioua (Not to be confused with EG's Strategic Coach), who pointed out that Valve have never explicitly given a stipend for coaches, rather just a sixth person. Importantly, however, for the majority of CS:GO history, a team's substitute has been their coach at Valve events, and Valve not paying for a substitute player is equally unusual, as pointed out by m1cks in a reply.

Among the diversity of opinions across the scene, it is clear that Valve's decision has not gone over well, especially with coaches. It will be interesting to see how this story continues to develop especially as zews has pointed out that Valve and BLAST expect a coach/manager to be present for interviews and activations despite not paying for one to be present.