It looks like LEC will have a new team joining in for the second year in a row, with Misfits Gaming looking for a way out.
Misfits Gaming has been one of the mainstay organizations in the history of LEC, or EU LCS before that, ever since they got promoted back in the 2016 Challenger Series. But aside from finishing second place and qualifying for Worlds 2017, with a roster that included current-day stars like Barney ‘Alphari’ Morris and Steven ‘Hans Sama’ Liv, they never found too much success in LEC postseasons.
Still, 2022 has been a much better year for them. They had a great regular season performance, albeit not the same can be said for playoffs, they have the reigning MVP and a good young core and their Summer Split performance has been ramping up. So it was quite shocking for most fans when reports came out today, saying Misfits had already sold their LEC spot.
The report came from the former Esportmaniacos reporter ‘Eros’ who said the deal is done and “… a new owner will be announced tomorrow.” According to Eros’ sources, Team Heretics (LVP) and Karmine Corp (LFL) were among the candidates for the open slot. KCorp, which was founded by the popular French streamers Kamel ‘Kameto’ Kebir and Zouhaïr ‘Kotei’ Darji, has been a team fans wanted to see in the LEC lately. The popularity of the organization reached very high levels after they won the last three EU Masters back-to-back-to-back, attracted players like Carl Martin Erik ‘Rekkles’ Larsson to LFL and organized multiple successful live events in France.
🇬🇧Sources:
Misfits Gaming to leave the LEC for next year
The team has reportedly already sold the LEC spot and a new owner will be announced tomorrow.
Sources say that team was pondering several teams including names such as Team Heretics 🇪🇸 or Karmine Corp 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/cl6lo4hRLp— Eros (@i_Eros_) July 26, 2022
On the other side, Upcomer’s Brieuc ‘Woolooo’ Seeger reported that if the deal was already done, as it was reported to be, the newest LEC team will not be KCorp, nor it will be KOI, which is another popular team owned by the Spanish streamer Ibai ‘Ibai’ Llanos and professional footballer Gerard Piqué.
According to Eros, the sale of the LEC slot will cost the buying organization €40-50M. To give people a comparison, this is nearly four to five times the initial buy-in which was around €10M, and Schalke 04 sold their slot to BDS for €30M before the start of the 2022 Spring Split. The price of a LEC slot potentially doubling in the span of less than a year might make it hard for some teams to consider making the jump to LEC from ERLs.
Teams like KCorp, KOI or Heretics who are founded by popular streamers or content creators who are close to the industry have good amounts of backing. However, other than that, not a lot of teams can just buy a LEC spot for €50M. Of course, lately, there have been some traditional sports teams that have been getting into the ERLs that can be interested in making the jump. But these teams probably also could not afford or would want to spend that much money on their esports divisions. Teams such as KRC Genk Esports or KV Mechelen Esports, which are both associated with Belgian football clubs. Of course, we have bigger profile teams like Barça eSports competing in the LVP, but even Barcelona’s football club is going through a financial downturn. Considering all the candidates and reports at hand, Team Heretics looks like the biggest contender for the slot. Heretics are currently second in the LVP with a record of 12-5 with only one match left.
And the other side of this coin is the Misfits team and roster. As mentioned before, Misfits did not have a good start to Summer after an overall successful Spring Split. Even after they managed to turn the ship around and secure five wins in a row, they are currently tied for sixth with a record of 5-6. With only three weeks left before the playoffs, Misfits also made some roster changes yesterday, promoting their ERL jungler Nikolay ‘Zanzarah’ Akatov and sending Lucjan ‘Shlatan’ Ahmad down to the Misfits Premier. Even if they do not make the playoffs this split, Misfits have an exciting young core and it will be interesting to see what will happen next for them with a new organization.
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