A Million Dollar Roster That Can’t Win: c0ntact Gaming’s Cycle Of Trial Players

Back in January of 2020, c0ntact gaming purchased their roster from CR4ZY worth 1.5 million dollars. Since that acquisition, the team hasn’t won a single tournament - they haven’t even placed in the top-three. At this point in time, sixty percent of the original roster has been dropped. The reason why c0ntact is able to invest so much money is due to their CEO and Founder Drew McCourt, who also happens to be the son of Frank McCourt - the billion-dollar businessman who owns the Los Angeles Marathon and Marseille football club. Drew went from working for a family-owned investment firm to pursuing a career in esports. However, the success he has in Overwatch and Call of Duty hasn’t yet followed through in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO). 

THE BEGINNING OF C0NTACT GAMING

The original roster started off 2020 with no success, and at Flashpoint Season 1 they placed ninth after losing to HAVU and MAD Lions Gaming. Losing to MAD Lions was expected, but getting mopped by HAVU in set two wasn’t. The original CR4ZY roster competed at an A-Tier level whereas HAVU was a B-Tier team. MAD Lions ended up winning the entire tournament, meaning c0ntact was in a tough position. After Flashpoint, the team had somehow sunk even deeper. Between ESL One: Road to Rio and HomeSweetHome Week 5, c0ntact had finished between ninth and fifteenth. Once again the org was left opening up their wallets and proceeded to sign on Marco "Snappi" Pfeiffer who’s now the team captain. 

With Snappi on the team, tournament results were expected to change. Except that didn’t happen at all. Instead, c0ntact placed sixth at cs_summit 6. The new team lead was expected to clean up the dirty work, but instead came out with a 0.96 overall tournament rating, and compared to his teammates that would be considered average - not really what the investors at c0ntact had in mind. However, debut tournaments can often be hard to perform in. At FunSpark ULTI his performance went up to 1.08 and eventually lost to HAVU, and went on to lose 0-2 - which was even worse than their Flashpoint matchup.    

Once Eden Arena came around, c0ntact had a chance to work their way back up to A-Tier events. It seemed like someone flicked a switch at that event because c0ntact lost 0-2 against AVEZ. A team they had beaten multiple times in the past with ease. Snappi bottom fragged in two out of three matches resulting in a 0.64 player rating. Truly an all-time low for c0ntact’s team captain. After Snappi failed to outperform his opponents, Owen "smooya" Butterfield joined the roster. At the DreamHack Open Fall Qualifier, smooya was definitely a worthy pickup, and most of the time he kept the highest player rating and made round winning plays.

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AN ENDLESS LOSING STREAK

At both IEM Beijing Qualifiers, c0ntact placed nearly dead last. At this point, the team might want to consider playing at a lower level; they have the branding power, but that doesn’t build a team. Instead, players should focus on team bonding and learn how to casually communicate with their teammates. Within the past two months, c0ntact has been working with two trial players named Lotan "Spinx" Giladi and Rigon "rigoN" Gashi. After one month of scrims, the two rookies have joined the main roster. The new roster has three upcoming tournaments, and if they can’t earn a top-three finish, it might be time to look at C-Tier CS:GO.

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TRIAL PLAYERS 

Before joining c0ntact gaming, Spinx was an independent player with a small track record. Starting in 2018, he played in a couple of monthly FACEIT tournaments and online qualifiers. In 2019 his earnings went from two hundred to ten thousand dollars. Spinx caught the attention of c0ntact gaming after placing first in the FPL August event with nearly two thousand points. By then he had a total of twelve top ten FPL monthly titles - that’s definitely an impressive winning streak, but surely a stretch to go from FACEIT pubs to S-Tier events. The same goes for their other trial player rigoN.

Team Founder Drew McCourt is starting to face his first challenge in esports. Besides CS:GO, he’s also the owner of Paris Legion and Paris Eternal, and both teams are ranked top ten within their divisions. Investing in CS:GO was an interesting choice, since he still had a CoD team that needed work. Drew has an MBA from Stanford University and hopes to put those years of schooling to work. Right now his CS:GO division is sucking up money, but it’s an early investment. The idea to purchase an upfront roster was risky, and definitely didn’t pay off. 

Due to multiple roster changes, the team really hasn’t had a chance to settle in. Flashpoint Season 2 can definitely put this team on the map, with eight spots to earn money and a chance to win five hundred grand is a big deal.

Now is the time to see how c0ntact gaming really plays. 
 

Images via c0ntact gaming