Golden State and Washington Wizard Owners buy controlling stake of Team Liquid
The Washington Wizards and the Golden State Warriors have informally entered eSports.
Team Liquid, one of the most successful global esports team franchises and a bastion of North American esports tradition, has announced the sale of the controlling interest in their team to a diversified and accomplished ownership group, aXiomatic. The ownership group is led by Golden State Warriors owner Peter Guber and Washington Wizards owner Ted Leonsis.
aXiomatic will serve as an ownership group that will look to own even more assets in the eSports space. Bruce Stein, CEO/COO of companies such as Sony Interactive Entertainment among other companies, will serve as aXiomatic’s CEO.
Steve Arhancet and Victor Goossens, the men behind Team Liquid, will continue as owners and in their respective roles as Co-CEOs of Team Liquid.
In a statement, Guber said that the future success of their entry into eSports will rely on: “…the resources and resourcefulness of our ownership group to Victor, Steve and the team they built…”
“Ted, myself and the individuals that comprise our ownership group have an enormous wealth of experience and talents across virtually every major media and sports business category.”
Team Liquid has been in the business of eSports for the last 15 years. It began as one of the most dedicated and bona fide gaming communities centered around competitive gaming excellence, catering to a generation of fans across titles past and present. In the 2000’s, the Team Liquid community served as one of the best places to glean competitive insights on Korea’s bustling StarCraft: Brood War scene, the irc-days of the Quake scene, CounterStrike and many other games.
In recent years, Team Liquid has grown into fielding talented individuals and teams to compete at the highest levels of competition. Today, the team boasts some 50 players across different teams in StarCraft 2, League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, Halo, Street Fighter, and Smash.
The wealth of resources Gruber, Leonsis and co. will bring to Team Liquid include some powerful names in media, technology and sports. Their investments and co-ownership group includes names such as Magic Johnson (NBA Hall-of-famer and investor), Dick Glover (Mandalay Sports Media CEO) and Steve Case (CEO of Revolution and Co-Founder of AOL).
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