eSports organizations often create crazy drama; they are often run by people who are from the world of eSports themselves that are barely out of their twenties, who don’t have much real-world experience, trying to manage and promote other people that are maybe even younger who, again, have very little real-world experience, so the act of following such teams can often be fun and horrifying in equal measure.
Given that a lot of the culture of an e-Sports organization can be implied by the various dramas that have dogged them, this list will also touch on some of those dramas, which serve as potential indicators of things that might go on behind the scenes.
Most Valuable esports Teams: Our Ultimate Organization List
The ordering of this list will mirror the order of Forbes’ 2022 list of the best organizations in the world, though we will touch on various factors that might invalidate that list in 2024.
TSM
TSM is short for TeamSoloMid, and was founded by Reginald (Andy Dinh) in 2011. With TSM’s rosters including having included Doublelift, Huni and Bjergsen, and even having signed chess prodigy Hikaru Nakamura at one time, TSM is largely considered to be a great balance of having a set of creators that are both famous and talented.
The most famous drama to have occurred is probably the allegations that were made by Doublelift regarding allegations of bullying, saying on Twitter “so many people at work experienced public humiliation, mental breakdowns [and] crying at work“.
According to Forbes, TSM was, in 2022, worth 540 million dollars, which is a staggering number, and is the highest number on our list: in terms of financial success, globally, TSM is top.
100 Thieves
The second on this list of the top teams worldwide, 100 Thieves (one of the most popular team) call themselves a “lifestyle brand and gaming organization“, and that ordering is indicative of the way in which 100 Thieves prioritizes with respect to marketing. Clicking on the 100 Thieves site, for example, the first thing you see is apparel: merchandise, it seems, might yield high return-on-investment, and ensuring that their teams are kitted out in fashionable wear works synergistically.
The sleek and cool merchandise leads people to have positive associations with the brand, which then carries over to the players, creating a sense that the players themselves are cool and sleek, which, when said players win, positively reinforces the subconscious association.
The biggest drama the company has found itself embroiled in is, potentially, the accusations made by Froste, who claimed that the contract that The Mob signed stipulated that they must live near the “content house” of 100 Thieves, which necessitated, by virtue of the location of said house, that he pay disproportionately high amounts of money in rent, and that they weren’t paid a high amount for the work that they were doing. Nadeshot responded, dismissing the aforementioned accusations as being lies.
Having received a valuation of 460 million dollars, which is the number that Forbes gives, which makes it one of the fastest-growing organizations, and the aforementioned brand synergy will probably help the company to continue to grow.
Team Liquid
Having been acquired by aXiomatic, Team Liquid is the third entry on this list, and was founded by Victor Goossens.
It was valued by Forbes as being worth 440 million dollars.
With their site listing them as having teams in nineteen different games, this is a team that has utilized product diversification to their advantage. Seemingly fairly drama-free, Team Liquid has leaned into the oceanic connotation of their name with their site being bathed in a beautiful blue, and their roster has included players such as Doublelift, Amaz and Bjergsen.
FaZe Clan
FaZe Clan, often abbreviated to FaZe, has its headquarters in America – specifically, Los Angeles – and has humble beginnings, really starting out as a trio of people that shared their trickshot content.
Dramas have circulated about the CEO having been celebrity-oriented, believing in the publicity that having, for example, Snoop Dogg as a member of the board would bring, which seems fairly on-brand for an organization based out of Los Angeles, a city that often has been lampooned for its tendency to purportedly exacerbate narcissistic thought patterns or behaviors in its residents.
Forbes had them valued at 400 million dollars in their 2022 article. However, in 2023, FaZe was acquired for only $17 million by Jerry Jones after their stocks tanked.
FaZe has had various dramas, one of which being FaZe Rain speaking negatively about Grace Van Dien after he found out FaZe were planning to add her to their talent pool, with language that some have said was misogynistic. A lot of the issues FaZe has faced has been the juxtaposition between its “trickshot” roots and its newfound corporate branding. That being said, considering its humble beginnings it has come far, and is still one of the biggest eSports teams in the world for both revenue and content creation.
Cloud9
Cloud9 is one of the most valuable gaming organizations in the world – was founded in 2013 by Jack and Paulie Etienne, and started out with its League of Legends team. Its roster has included Forsen, Jensen and Sneaky.
Listing fifteen games for which they have teams on their site, and their teams have, historically-speaking, performed fairly well, and googling “Cloud9 drama” doesn’t yield much, indicating that they have, in general, successfully kept their noses clean.
The aforementioned Forbes list values them at 380 million dollars, and their relatively drama-free brand, combined with their relative success in terms of competitive play, does imply that the brand have the capacity to continue to grow.
G2
G2, which was once known as Gamers2, is a team based out of Germany, and it was founded by ocelote (Carlos Rodriguez), though he has since ceased to be CEO on the basis of controversies that arose as a byproduct of his alleged allegiance with Andrew Tate.
Its roster has included Caps, Rekkles and Trick, and was worth 340 million in 2022 according to the Forbes article. Having partnered with Red Bull, their sixth-place placement on this list is indicative of their being one of the top esports companies in the world.
G2 have given great performances in the past, even if they’re not top of the pack. For example, G2 qualified for the 2024 Mid-Season Invitational thanks to their win at the LEC Spring 2024. Just like in the winter season, they were head and shoulders above their opponents. In their first match at MSI 2024, G2 gave a great fight to T1, but eventually lost 2-3.
German fans, though, are constantly rooting for the team based out of their country, attending all their games and even placing bets. At the May games, the odds on G2 fluctuated around 2.9. The team’s next matches will take place on July 31 and August 1. So, make sure you don’t fail to study the Overview of betting sites in Germany from sports betting experts, choose the right one for you and take part in this world of excitement and big money.
Gen.G
Gen.G was founded by four people – Kevin Chou, Kent Wakeford, Michael Li and Phillip Hyun – in 2017, and very quickly acquired a farily large roster.
Gen.G lists teams in only six games on their site – League of Legends, Valorant, Mobil1 Racing, PUBG, NBA 2K and EA Sports FC – and has done well with respect to its PUBG team, but has really found huge success with its League of Legends team, arguably proving to be the second-most successful team of all time.
NRG Esports
NRG was founded in 2015 by Mark Mastrov and Andy Miller, and it differs from a lot of the other organizations on this list on the basis that the founders were not known for being gamers, but were instead known for being businessmen. Mastrov, for example, initially found success through co-founding 24 Hour Fitness, whilst Miller found success through Quattro Wireless, and then moved to Apple, and Mastrov and Miller co-founded Sacramento Kings before they moved on to this venture.
At the beginning of this article, I touched on the fact that a lot of the “drama” that happens within teams can be explained by the relative emotional immaturity of the founders themselves, which is further evidenced by the fact that googling “NRG drama” doesn’t return much of anything. It is unsurprising that two people that have been known to have success running businesses succeeded in running a business well.
That being said, it being the penultimate organization on Forbes’ list does indicate that they’re not the highest-valued team, but their 240 million valuation is nothing to sneeze at, and seem to be very quality-based in their choice of team members, with Mastrov and Miller’s partnership seemingly being stronger than ever.
T1
T1, which was once known as SKT T1, is the tenth organization that appears on Forbes’ list, having been valued at 220 million dollars, and is a South Korean team famous for its prolific performances, especially within League of Legends, whose founding was a byproduct of a collaboration between SK Telecom and Comcast Spectacor.
Faker is still a part of their active roster, having been so for ten years, and is possibly the most famous of their roster on the basis of being considered one of the GOATS of eSports.
Its success is performance-based, which is to say that people know T1 as a high-performing team first and foremost. There have been thirteen League of Legends World Championships thus far, and T1 have won four of them, being runners-up twice, which is to say that they’ve competed in the finals six times, making them easily the most successful League of Legends team ever given that six times having competed twice as many as Gen.G, the only team that’s even close.
The surprising thing, then, is that the team that is perhaps the most performance-oriented is also the one that is worth the least on this list, perhaps evidencing the cynical idea that success in business is less about having a “good” product, and more about how you market it. Despite the fact that this is not the most valuable eSports organizations, some might well consider it to be the best.
Conclusion
Competitive gaming is fun to watch for the reason that the conflict will be capped off with conflict resolution: someone will win and someone will lose, and this binary outcome tends to attract people as it allows for dramas to end more conclusively than they do in their own lives.
