Short name Liquid, TL Founded 2000 | ||
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Divisions Counter-Strike: Global OffensiveDota 2HaloHearthstone: Heroes of WarcraftLeague of LegendsOverwatchStarCraft IIStreet FighterSuper Smash Bros. Colors Prussian blue, White, Teal blue Manager Victor GoossensSteve Arhancet Partners AlienwareCrunchyrollDiscordHTCAOCJ!NXHyperXMonster EnergyNeedForSeatRazerTwitch.tv Profiles | ||
Team Liquid is a multiregional professional eSports organization based in the Netherlands that was founded in 2000. With the release of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, Team Liquid began sponsoring professional players. In 2012, Team Liquid recruited a North American Dota 2 team, marking their first venture into multi-genre management. In January 2015, Team Liquid officially merged with Team Curse under the Liquid banner, bringing on Steve Arhancet, his supporting staff, and former Curse League of Legends, Street Fighter, and Super Smash Bros. teams. Team Liquid's website was originally started in 2001 as a news site focusing on StarCraft.
Contents
- History
- Ownership
- Main websites
- Tournaments and events
- Team Liquid Starleague
- Team Liquid StarCraft II Open
- Team Liquid Legacy Starleague
- Community events
- eSports team
- Main management
- Counter Strike Global Offensive
- Dota 2
- Halo
- Hearthstone Heroes of Warcraft
- League of Legends
- StarCraft II
- Super Smash Bros
- Street Fighter
- Overwatch
- Former members
- References
History
The website was released on May 1, 2001 by Victor "Nazgul" Goossens and Joy "Meat" Hoogeveen under the domain teamliquid.cjb.net. On September 22, 2002 the website was moved to the current address of teamliquid.net. A day later the very first poll was posted as a vote for the website's name with the current name winning over other suggestions such as likwit.com.
Although Team Liquid was known as primarily a StarCraft news site, there are many sub sections on the forums dedicated to other games as well. It was announced on August 30, 2012 that Team Liquid would be expanding to also including Dota 2 as one of their main coverage games. On December 8, 2012, Liquid expanded their eSports franchise for the first time, with the announcement of the recruitment of a North American Dota 2 team.
On January 6, 2015 Steven "LiQuiD112" Arhancet joined Victor Goossens as co-owner of Team Liquid, officially commencing the merge between former Team Curse Gaming under the Team Liquid banner.
On January 24, 2015, it was announced that HTC had become an official sponsor of Team Liquid.
On September 27, 2016 Team Liquid sold its controlling interest to aXiomatic eSports, an investment group consisting of Golden State Warriors co-owner Peter Guber and entrepreneur Ted Leonsis, basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson, AOL co-founder Steve Case.
Ownership
AXiomatic is an entertainment and sports management company. Investors for the group include businesspeople Peter Guber, Tony Robbins, sports Magic Johnson, Ted Leonsis, and technology Ted Case, Eric Lefkofsky. The CEO is Bruce Stein, a former CEO and COO of Mattel Toys, Sony Interactive Entertainment and Kenner Products (Hasbro). On September 27, 2016 aXiomatic announced that it had acquired controlling interest of eSports team Team Liquid.
Other investors include Dodgers executives Lon Rosen and Tucker Kain, Warriors executives Rick Welts and Kirk Lacob, the Washington Nationals owners at Lerner Enterprises, Chicago Cubs president of business operations Crane Kenney and former NFL player Dhani Jones.
It was announced that Victor Goossens and Steve Arhancet would continue their roles as co-CEOs of Team Liquid after the acquisition.
Main websites
Tournaments and events
In addition to running a community site and team, Team Liquid also hosts a variety of tournaments and events.
Team Liquid Starleague
Team Liquid StarCraft II Open
Team Liquid Legacy Starleague
Community events
eSports team
The gaming clan "Liquid" was founded by Victor "Nazgul" Goossens near the end of 2000 after deciding to leave his previous clan. Liquid started with four members for the first months and grew to eight players over the following year. The members of the Liquid clan are handpicked by Goossens based on both personality and talent. The team has a dedicated news site separate from the more community oriented site at www.teamliquidpro.com, announced and released on May 10, 2011.
With the arrival of StarCraft II, Team Liquid announced plans to become an active Pro-Gaming Team. Shortly after, sponsorship by The Little App Factory was announced, which qualified them as a sponsored professional team. This allowed Team Liquid to pay their players a salary and send the team to events around the world. On August 13, 2012, three players traveled to Korea in order to live in the OGS training house and compete in GOMTV's Global StarCraft II League (GSL).
Of the three players entering the preliminaries, only one, Dario "TLO" Wünsch qualified for the first two GSL events. He was eliminated out in the Second and First rounds respectively.
The third GSL was the strongest showing of Team Liquid thus far. Three players, Hayder "Haypro" Hussein, Jos "Ret" de Kroon and Jonathan "Jinro" Walsh qualified for the main tournament. While Hussein lost first round and de Kroon in 2nd, Walsh made to the semi-finals, losing 0–4 to the eventual winner Jang "MC" Min-Chul.
In 2012, during GSL Season 2, members Song "HerO" Hyeon Deok and Yun "TaeJa" Young Seo made it to the Round of 8 of the Code S tournament, with TaeJa being eliminated while HerO advanced to the semi-finals of the tournament.
On March 2014, Team Liquid announced that it had picked up two legendary Melee players: Ken, who is known as the "King of Smash" and KoreanDJ, who is widely considered as the first player to defeat Mew2King ever since he was considered a God, thus starting its Smash team. After acquiring Curse Gaming, it also signed Hungrybox, who is considered to be one of the Five Gods of Melee, and Chillin, who was the first player to defeat Ken during his prime. On August 11, 2015, it picked up top Super Smash Bros. for Wii U player Nairo, who was the only player to knock ZeRo out of a tournament, ending ZeRo's 55 win tournament streak at MLG World Finals. On September 28, 2015, Team Liquid announced that KoreanDJ resigned from the organization and retired from competitive Smash, citing persistent hand and wrist pains.
On January 6, 2015 Liquid acquired the Team Curse's League of Legends roster, which consisted of Quas, IWillDominate, Voyboy, Cop, and Xpecial. The team finished the LCS Spring regular season in 6th place with a 10-9 record. On Week 5 and 6 of NA LCS Piglet was benched and replaced on the starting roster by KEITHMCBRIEF in an effort to try to improve their standings. In the playoffs they beat Counter Logic Gaming 3–0, before losing to Cloud9 3–2 and finishing in 3rd.
One week after the Curse merger, it was announced that Team Liquid acquired a Counter Strike: Global Offensive team that previously played under the title "Denial eSports".
On January 24, 2015, it was announced that HTC had become an official sponsor of Team Liquid.
On September 28, 2015, Team Liquid and Piglet parted ways after another failed qualification bid for the League of Legends World Championship, just a few hours after KoreanDJ resigned from the team. However, this was apparently a fake leak, as just a few hours later, Team Liquid announced on its Instagram that Piglet has extended his contract until November 2016.
On October 9, 2015, it was announced that Liquid would once again be fielding a DotA team, after more of a years absence from the competitive DotA scene. Signing the team formally known as 5JungZ, the new Liquid Dota would consist of a medley of new and old European talent.
Main management
Victor "Nazgul" Goossens is a founding member and now co-owner and co-CEO of Team Liquid. Nazgul originally competed in Brood War prior to forming Team Liquid.
Steve "LiQuiD112" Arhancet joined the Team Liquid staff when Team Curse merged with Team Liquid. Since the merge, Steve has taken the role of co-owner and co-CEO and primarily manages the League of Legends team.