On Oct. 19, Team Curse announced it would relinquish the branding of the two LCS teams that currently played under its umbrella. Now it seems Curse has already found a prominent buyer. Team Liquid is in talks to take over as the brand sponsor, sources with close ties to Team Curse have informed the Daily Dot.
“There were several parties interested in making the deal” the source said. “But in the end it’s Team Liquid that sealed it.”
According to several sources, other interested parties included the legendary North American Call of Duty organization OpTic Gaming.
“Following Curse Academy winning the expansion tournament, their players were talking about the deal and said it was between Team Liquid and OpTic,” one person said.
Other sources indicated that the move is in the advanced stages and said that they could expect an announcement soon. “The staff emails are currently in the process of being deactivated and moved across to Team Liquid domains” we were told. “So expect it to be made public soon.”
For years the Team Liquid organization has been synonymous with StarCraft. The site was founded in 2001 and rose to become the central hub for Westerners to discuss that game. With the advent of StarCraft 2 in 2010, Team Liquid expanded to incorporate a professional team of players, and in 2012 also moved into Dota 2. Subsequent moves into Hearthstone have seen the organization continue to grow in stature. But until recently it was never clear if it would acquire a League of Legends team.
Several hints had been dropped recently about the possibility Team Liquid would acquire a League of Legends team. On Nov. 21, Team Liquid’s sales manager issued the following tweet, which showed a League of Legends logo in Team Liquid’s colouration in the background.
Ken “Hot_Bid” Chen—Team Liquid’s former COO and current editor in chief of the popular satirical esports site “Esports Express”—said in a recent interview that he couldn’t possibly comment on any possible expansion into League of Legends for his former organization. This only prompted more speculation.
Now, it seems, the speculation is close to an end.
Image via Team Liquid
