With Evil Geniuses finding itself operating on just a skeleton crew of employees according to those that have been laid off by the organization, management is reportedly looking to continue reduction.
Per a report from long-time esports reporter Richard Lewis, Evil Geniuses is planning to eventually part ways with both its men’s and women’s Counter-Strike divisions, and management is prioritizing a sale of the LCS slot via a deal that is reportedly “in the works” but not done yet.
Lewis reports that the sale of the Evil Geniuses’ LCS slot “has been shopped around behind the scenes for some time,” and that the “most likely buyer at this stage, provided a number of checks and agreements are met under the supervision of Riot Games, would be Enthusiast Gaming, the parent company behind the esports brand Luminosity Gaming.”
According to Lewis’ sources, the deal is “quite far along in the process and Enthusiast is currently the preferred buyer.”
This report does not confirm, however, that Evil Geniuses will entirely leave the competitive League of Legends scene, as one source stated to Lewis that the organization plans “to just stay in Riot titles,” which means it would “keep the men’s [CS2] team until December [2023] and will likely cut the women’s teams before that.”
Theoretically, this means that EG could go forward with just League and VALORANT divisions, but there are serious question marks about those possible goals. If the team is selling its LCS slot, then it would likely have to move to a new region, such as what TSM has done with its move to China.
For both its League and VALORANT divisions there are questions about rosters as well. Several members of the EG League roster have already reportedly agreed to deals with other teams, and with its world championship VALORANT players reportedly in contract jail, there’s no guarantee that any of the players that lifted the Champions 2023 trophy will return for the VCT 2024 season.
