Out With The Old And In With The New - CS:GO Orgs That Are Taking Over
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is known for the greats - including Astralis, Team Liquid, Cloud9, and Fnatic. Most recently, a handful of teams have made attempts at entering the competitive scene and earning their recognition as the best in the world. These teams still have long journeys ahead of them, but that shouldn’t take away from their current achievements. Funding esports rosters can cost a lot of money, that’s why players depend on investors and sponsors to pay them as gaming talents.
Tech giants and occasionally the millionaire next door have taken notice in the growth within revenue from competitive gaming. That’s why the New England Whalers, Triumph Esports, and Chaos Esports Club have been given exciting opportunities for careers in esports. These teams have grown exponentially by earning multiple titles and gaining traction from fans of competitive CS:GO.
THE NE WHALERS AND TRIUMPH SHINE IN NORTH AMERICA
The NE Whalers, founded in 2017, have had a great year so far since their debut back in 2018. Their journey began with the help of Diego Freitas, Devon Foote, and Sean Roche. Freitas and Foote started out at Apple before joining forces and investing in esports. As a genius in the sales department, Foote became responsible for promoting the NE Whalers and reaching out to investors. Freitas, on the other hand, specialised in I.T and spent two years at Tesla, which led to a career at ESL. Roche came into the picture after meeting up with Freitas during his time at a Red Sox's event. As the Chief Growth Officer for Greenhouse Agency, Roche understood the favourable circumstances of investing in an esports team.
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With the help of a caring staff and multiple investors, the NE Whalers are currently considered top competitors in the ESEA Mountain Dew League. After failing to secure qualifier spots in 2019, the unknown rookies at the time finished fourth at the NCS Grand Finals. Not only was it their first B-Tier event but they also earned some good cash competing against the UCF Knights, Team Divine, and RGB Esports. On top of that, their A-Tier events in 2020 had drastic changes from zero earnings to beating FURIA two to nothing in their group stage matchup. At cs_summit 6 they finished in last place but stepped up their performance at IEM New York. They finished in sixth place and earned seventeen-hundred RMR points along with a major achievement for the organisation.
Triumph is another North American team that has seen a lot of growth within the past two years. Scott O’Leary founded the team in 2019 after nearly twenty years in the I.T industry as a software engineer. He moved onto esports in mid-2015 after establishing the company Rivalcade, a platform which combines tournaments and marketing tactics. After a couple of years of experience in the esports industry, O’Leary felt creating his own team was the right move. Six months later, Triumph received their first investor which was the one and only Kevin Garnett. An ex-NBA player worth millions of dollars who became attracted to the concept of investing in gaming. A childhood pastime that has been enjoyed by many for multiple years. After securing funds and sponsorships from a few companies, Triumph was ready for their breakout season.
Click to enlargeIn 2019, Triumph skipped C-Tier events and went straight to B/A-Tier tournaments with tons of confidence as a new team. While they didn’t earn any impressive results, Triumph still managed to grab roughly five-grand from ESEA and DreamHack events. After an underwhelming season, Triumph went back to the drawing board and proceeded to boost their earnings by ninety-three percent in only one year of playing. At the time, S-Tier events were right around the corner including ESL One: Cologne and ESL Pro League Season 12. They finished between seventh and eighth at both events and most recently earned a second-place finish at IEM Beijing. Team Liquid lost to Triumph in the semi-finals despite their recognition in North American CS:GO.
CHAOS EC REACHES OUT FOR SUPPORT
The last powerful up and coming team in CS:GO is Chaos EC. Even though they were founded back in 2015, they’ve had the majority of their success since 2019. Chaos EC received attention from investors after finishing first at WESG 2019, an event that awarded the team a total of twenty-five thousand dollars. A digital media company known as GG Group acquired the esports foundation along with celebrity investors Logic and Pusha-T. Two mainstream rappers that have opened up their wallets to help develop a future for Chaos EC. Sponsorships from private internet companies tagged along including 100TB and PIA, allowing the independent team to expand their opportunities with trial players and marketing.
Chaos EC went on to earn eighty percent of their lifetime achievements this year alone. They moved on from B to S-Tier events and are now considered the fourteenth best team in the world, putting them ahead of teams such as Renegades, Cloud9, Virtus.pro, and Fnatic. On November 22, Chaos EC blew up in the North American scene after beating Evil Geniuses in the semi-finals at IEM Beijing. A top ten team that finished first in the BLAST Premier Finals back in June. Chaos EC went on to beat Triumph in the finals earning their first-ever A-Tier title after competing for a total of three years. This was also after the departure of their veteran player Joshua “steel” Nissan who left to play VALORANT back in August.
New teams are constantly entering the competitive scene in CS:GO with plans to become the best. While most don’t succeed, a lot of teams manage to find their way throughout the cutthroat environment of esports.
Images via Chaos Esports Club | Triumph
