The esports industry has come a long way and has seen many tags during this time. Some clubs disappeared in a month, while others have come a long way and exist to this day. Therefore, in this article, we will talk about organizations that appeared in the late 20th and early 21st century.
SK Gaming
The German esports organization SK Gaming (Schroet Kommando) was founded back in 1997 by Quake players. During all this time, the club has been represented in 12 different disciplines, including League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, World of Warcraft, Dota 2, and others.
Currently, SK Gaming has seven teams in four disciplines - LoL, VALORANT, Brawl Stars, and Clash Royale.
SK Gaming has major victories in various disciplines, including the triumph at ESL One Cologne 2016 in CS:GO, and victories of CS 1.6 teams at ESWC, CPL and ESL. The club was also successful in Quake and Warcraft, where it also won world championships. Since its inception, the club has attended more than 800 esports tournaments and earned $8.4 million.
Evil Geniuses
Evil Geniuses had not the best reputation in the CS community due to the failed management of recent years. But few people know that the club was founded in Seattle, USA, back in 1999. The club had teams from various popular and not-so-popular disciplines, such as CS, Dota 2, League of Legends, Valorant, StarCraft II, and many others.
As we mentioned earlier, the last years were not the best for EG, as the organization started to face financial problems due to poor management. Therefore, at the beginning of 2024, the club left all the disciplines it was participating in at the time and focused on Valorant, as the team had won the Valorant Champions 2023 just before. Although the results of 2024 could hardly be called successful.
It’s also worth mentioning that EG made the history of esports thanks to the same victory at Valorant Champions 2023. The coach of that champion team was Christine Potter Chi, who became the first woman in the history of esports to win an S-Tier tournament with a men's team.
EG's most significant victories include The International Dota 2 in 2015, the abovementioned Valorant World Championship in 2023, and the 2018 Call of Duty Championship (Call of Duty: WWII).
In total, Evil Geniuses has earned $28.5 million in its history for more than 1000 tournaments attended. Dota 2 was the most successful for the club, bringing in $22.1 million.
Team Liquid
The Team Liquid eSports organization was founded in 2000 in the Netherlands and originally started as a StarCraft: Brood War clan. The organization began its more professional activities in 2010 when the first professional contract was signed with a player in StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty.
Since 2012, the club has started to move towards signing rosters from new disciplines, and the first was a Dota 2 roster. The club was represented in 26 disciplines. Currently, Liquid has rosters in 15 disciplines and its bases in the United States, Brazil, the Netherlands, and Asia.
Liquid has a lot of significant victories in various disciplines, the club won The International 2017 and The International 2024 in Dota 2, Intel Grand Slam S2 in CS:GO, five LCS Splits in LoL, Esports World Cup 2024 in SCII, and a huge number of tournaments.
The organization has attended more than 2800 esports tournaments and is the only one that has earned more than $50 million in prize money, namely $53,310,833.
Ninjas in Pyjamas
The legendary Swedish organization Ninjas in Pyjamas was founded in 2000. It began its history as a clan in Counter-Strike. Since its inception, the club has long been one of the best in various versions of CS, winning various tournaments, but probably the biggest victory for the organization is the triumph at ESL One: Cologne 2014, a CS:GO major.
It is worth noting that from 2003 to early 2005, NIP was a part of SK Gaming and played under the SK Scandinavia and SK Sweden tags. But later they became independent again. In 2007, the club announced that it was ceasing operations, but returned to esports in 2012 with the release of CS:GO.
Currently, Ninjas in Pyjamas has three CS2 squads, teams from LoL, Apex Legends, Rainbow Six Siege, FC25, Fortnite, and fighting game players. NIP has attended 518 tournaments and earned $8.7 million in prize money.
KT Rolster
Few esports fans in Ukraine know about the South Korean organization KT Rolster, although it is one of the oldest in history. The club was founded in 1999 and was focused on StarCraft, where it won many major tournaments.
In 2012, the organization began to expand and enter new disciplines. Currently, KT Rolster is represented in League of Legends, Wild Rift, and EA SPORTS FC. Interestingly, the club left StarCraft, which started the history of the organization, in 2016 and is now more focused on LoL.
Since 1999, the KT Rolster tag has been represented in 256 tournaments and earned $3.9 million in prize money.
Local organizations worth mentioning
Well, we have mentioned the most famous organizations that have existed for more than 20 years and are still at the top now. But there are lesser-known clubs that continue to exist, but have a more local significance.
Here we can mention Black Dragons (1997), K1ck Esports (1998), Karma Clan (1999), Team LEISURE (1999), and Team Redline (2000). All of these clubs often participate in local tournaments, and they have either attended major international competitions for a very long time or have not participated in them at all.
However, Team Redline is worth highlighting in this list, as this organization specializes in virtual racing and competes in the relevant disciplines (Assetto Corsa, iRacing, and Rennsport). Another interesting fact is that three-time Formula 1 champion and current Red Bull driver Max Verstappen drives for this team in his free time.
We hope that we have not forgotten anyone, but if you know other examples, let us know in the comments and we will definitely make the second part of the article.
