Short name NiP Location Sweden | Founded 2000
2012 (reform) Manager Emil Christensen | |
Divisions Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Overwatch, Dota 2 Colors Dark brown, Burnt sienna, Beaver | ||
Ninjas in Pyjamas (NiP) is a professional esports organization from Sweden that is best known for their Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team. NiP's Counter-Strike enjoyed its greatest success from their initiation in 2000 until their dissolution in 2007. One of the star players on the team was Emil "HeatoN" Christiansen, who later became the organization's manager. In 2012, the team reformed with a Counter Strike: Global Offensive lineup upon the release of the game. The NiP CS:GO team is anchored by former fnatic players Patrik "f0rest" Lindberg and Christopher "GeT RiGhT" Alesund. NiP previously had a League of Legends team that competed in the League of Legends Championship Series Europe during the Summer 2013 split. NiP also have teams in Overwatch and Dota 2.
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History
Ninjas in Pyjamas was formed in June 2000, but solidified as a team in 2001 after several lineup and name changes.
Their biggest success was winning the 2001 Cyberathlete Professional League World Championships after an extremely close final with X3 (a forerunner to Team 3D). Ninjas in Pyjamas struggled to find a sponsor, and as a result, joined the prominent e-sports organization SK Gaming and were known by the names SK Scandinavia and later SK Sweden. At SK, they continued their success. The prize money from their tournament victories in 2003 totalled approximately US$170,000, and every CPL event that year.
Feeling they could secure a larger share of sponsorship money, the team left SK in early 2005. Later in the year, some members returned to SK Gaming, forcing NiP to replace them.
Emil Christensen with Tommy Ingemarsson, Managing Directors Peter Hedlund and Victor Lindqvist reformed NiP as a Swedish stock company in 2005, due to problems with SK. NiP continued to participate in international tournaments, placing high in many events. They signed some of the biggest sponsorship deals in the scene at that time. The team received about 100,000 members on their website in Europe during their first two years and was also the first team outside of Asia to enter the Asian market. Within six months, they had about 90,000 members on their Asian website. The team was among the most outspoken opponents to the change from the original version of Counter-Strike to the newer Counter-Strike: Source.
On November 3, 2015 Richard Lewis wrote an article on Breitbart.com claiming that Ninjas in Pyjamas allegedly ows its Counter-Strike: Global Offensive division a significant amount of prize money from previous tournaments. Since this was released, the organisation has received a massive backlash from the community who are trying to support the players, and put pressure on the organisation to both tell the truth and give the players their earned winnings. Ninjas in Pyjamas quickly released a statement which states that the claims made by Richard Lewis are false, simply dismissing them and saying that their players are being paid properly. Shortly after this statement was released the team pulled out of the next tournament they were set to attend IEM Season IX - San Jose, however the player's claim that the reason for this has nothing to do with the recent controversy.
On November 13, 2015 NiP's parted ways with its Dota 2 team, consisting of Elias 'Sealkid' Merta, Jonas 'Jonassomfan' Lindholm, Adrian 'Era' Kryeziu, Simon 'Handsken' Haag and Linus 'Limmp' Blomdin. The cited reason was disappointment over recent performances, as the team had failed to qualify for both The International 2015 and Frankfurt Major 2015. However, as of January 2017, NiP have once again entered the Dota 2 scene, this time with a new roster.
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Bold denotes a CS:GO Major