When Dignitas’ Danish League of Legends Challenger squad qualified for the Championship Series, the e-sports organisation were left with a lovely problem. Riot only allow one team per owner in the LCS, so Dignitas would have to sell one slot and its players for what was predicted to be a very large amount of money. So it’s proven, with the sale of the Danish team to Follow Esports for nearly $1 million.
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When I talked to Odee about the Dignitas team sale in mid-September, he’d already had offers in the region of half a million dollars. But the team owner was yet to decide which squad would go, and keen to understand the motives of potential buyers before selling.
He’s settled on Follow Esports – the self-described ‘TV Guide’ of online competition. Four players from the Danish Challenger team will be transferred under the deal: Martin ‘Wunderwear’ Hansen, Chres ‘Sencux’ Laursen, Kasper ‘Kobbe’ Kobberup and Nicolai ‘Nisbeth’ Nisbeth. Follow plan to recruit one more player to complete the line-up, naturally, plus a head coach and lead analyst.
Odee couldn’t tell the BBC the “exact amount” of money that changed hands, but said it was closer to $1m than those early offers. He adding that Follow were a “great buyer” who would look after his former employees. You have to feel for the players of both teams involved in the deal, who spent a long time in limbo – though Odee kept them in the loop.
The new Follow squad will play in the next LCS; South Korean side SKT1 beat Koo Tigers in Berlin at the weekend to become this year’s world champions. Did you catch any of that?