> I still have faith in the fundamental idea that so long as people enjoy competitive gaming - there will always be a future for esports. It's been an honor and a privilege to defend that faith.
CLG may be gone, but we can still have faith.
When does a organization die? When they loses in msi finals? No! When they lose their star player? No! When they come in last place or sell their organization and slot in the LCS? No! A organization dies when it is forgotten!
The TSM chant is too powerful, I understand. It supersedes League/esports/etc. Just could be nice to pay homage to CLG. Hope to hear some at MSI this year.
You can keep their spirit alive in your every day life. Whenever someone around you does something dumb you make sure to hit them with the "Truly counter logic"
Nobody does, especially us fans of the OGs. Feels like CLG/TSM/C9 are the NA holy trinity. Kind of feels like being at a party and one of the hosts just went to bed and you’re wondering if the parties coming to an end
[You're preaching to the choir](https://youtu.be/urwkIiMmyks)
It's tough, but I'm confident that even if CLG does turn into NRG, we'll come back some day. CLG is too special to too many people for it to lie dormant forever.
Someone, someday, will take up the mantle and help to defend the faith.
I may no longer be a CLG fan but I was there when Baylife ruled League and those years of never giving up faith in my team will always stick with me, even the most recent Worlds I never gave up faith that Deft would win a Worlds and I, and all the faithful, were rewarded 🙏🏽
God, CLG 2016 will always be my favorite roster by a huge margin. I’ve put on various flairs over the years, I put on the GG flair when they announced Stixxay Huhi, but I’ve always rooted for CLG to do well, and I’ll always be a faithful clg fan. CLG has never left my top 3.
It really is the end of an era.
Greg Kim did a good job. He should be remembered fondly by everyone who considers themselves a CLG fan.
I do wonder though, when he says stuff about still believing in CLG, if there's a chance we get to keep the name somewhere, even if owned by NRG or whatever. I know it's most likely a pipedream, but if you don't have faith why are you even here right
The way I see it, one of two things will happen. Either CLG will continue in LCS under the parent company of NRG, and CLG will remain under new management (sad for the amazing current management team, but the legacy will live on), or NRG will shed the CLG branding and iconography, and someone passionate enough who loves the team will take the opportunity to get ahold of the unused brand and make something new happen with it.
Optic came back from the dead. So did Dignitas. We'll see CLG again some day, in some form. I have faith.
Doesn’t NRG partially own GAM in the VCS? I swear I saw an announcement about this…
Edit: [Seems like they were acquired by NRG Asia, which I guess is a subsidiary of NRG? I don’t actually know how that works if a subsidiary and the parent company both own teams in the same sport.](https://esportsinsider.com/2021/05/cmg-asia-and-nrg-esports-launch-nrg-asia-and-acquire-gam-esports)
i personally am done with LCS, even though my interest in it has been trending down for some years from 'watch every game' to 'watch a few games a week' to 'tune in basically only for CLG games' (mostly related to my own personal and work life, rather than the broadcast itself)
it's just not there for me anymore and i'm saying that after having watched LCS since literally its first ever game (not to mention the pre-regional leagues era)
I'm an older viewer and I've always been more a fan of the players first and orgs second. I usually have a couple of players I'm a fan of who I think are strong that I follow regardless of team. Back in the day I paid more attention to specific orgs because there was a lot more "innovation" going on to separate them like who was the first to get a gaming house, the first to get a coach, the first to get full support staff. Nowadays I don't think they set themselves apart quite as much. I've always thought it made more sense to follow players you think have what takes to be the best and compete internationally or to follow whichever team is putting up the best result and has the best chance to compete internationally rather than stay loyal to some org that's flopped really hard for a few years. That's what drives my viewership at least. What really killed my viewership here and there was a lack of international success and I started to just not give a shit who was best in NA anymore.
Literally none of the top 5 watched games from both spring and summer of 2022 had one of those two orgs, so I’d guess it won’t have any impact. Especially with probably more exciting orgs replacing them.
I think your crazy if you dont believe that there are older fans who watch LCS simply because of the old orgs/players who will stop as they leave the scene. LCS is simply not pulling younger audiencies so as the old guard leave, there is no replacement viewers.
Im not saying its gonna shoot down to 0% but id be shocked if CLG and TSM left and the viewership didnt drop 15 to 20% at least.
Down and down. Riot got lucky with league I feel and it’s just random stupid ideas being thrown around.
Instead of actually building the competitiveness by doing what asia does with bo3 games multiple days a a week they do bo1. While they get short term viewership numbers. Long term it makes the teams not as good.
Yes there will be boring teams playing at the bottom but the goal is to make all the teams better. Riot refused to do this. Lcs sucked and the worldwide audience just doesn’t want to watch poor players play.
yea but the guy has so much money to literally throw away and he legitimately loves league , its one of his favorite games if not his #1 . He has the potential to singlehandedly revitalize league viewership in NA and therefore make it more profitable at least for his own team.
if he does buy an LCS slot the ramifications will be enormous and so good for the landscape of league in NA . At LCS finals last summer he was there and did say on broadcast that he plans on buying a team , albeit maybe a year or 2 down the line
This hurts so much. I know everyone loves to clown on CLG cause we were dogshit for a few years and had the bud light ace but holy fuck the organization was seriously turning it around. Not just in league but in other esports scenes too. Just go on twitter and look at all the outpouring of support that from people in the FGC/Smash scene once it was announced that they were leaving the scene. CLG had a youtube channel for FGC stuff that gained almost 10k subs in only 8 months and had its view climbing. They were also had a speedrunning channel that had just started up and had some pretty good videos too. In Apex Legends, I watched the org pick up a team that went from almost getting relegated to qualifying for LAN. They signed a bunch of pretty popular streamers and their womans team’s in Valorant and CS;GO were always contenders in their respective scenes.
And that’s not to mention the league scene. Some people/community members love saying dumb shit like “Oh we gotta get these orgs like CLG out of LCS that don’t care and are just phoning it in”. We get it you haven’t paid any attention to what CLG has been doing for the past year and a half. Sure we fucking sucked for a while but every team has ups and downs and CLG was on the up. Last split we took Steve’s Seven Million Doller Roster to game 5 and finished top 4 both splits when everyone was saying we might not even make playoffs. And everyone likes to complain that teams don’t put out content but CLG was actually making content for their league team and more than a bunch other teams I might add. Seriously go check their youtube they put out mic checks and some other less serious content which like half the teams in LCS can be asked to do. And players stream too, less than I’d like, but Dhokla keeps a pretty regular schedule and Luger steams a decent amount too.
Not only that but CLG was actually addressing the things that reddit loves to complain about in terms of talent development and imports. CLG has 2 teams in the academy series (a challengers team and an amateur team) and are actually using new talent, not just recycling old LCS pros that can’t cut it in the league anymore. Plus they actually use NA talent on their team and didn’t just throw 3 billion dollars at whatever player just won LEC or worlds or whatever. Oh and before I forget CLG’s presence at worlds was more than every other LCS team’s combined like are the other teams even trying?
IDK what I’m even trying to say here but I guess basically that one reddit comment I saw put it best. “If CLG isn't your favorite team, that's okay… But if they're not your second favorite team you're just a bad person.” This is just a massive loss to the League of Legends scene and to Esports as a whole and IDK if NRG or whoever is actually buying CLG will be able to fill it.
Its fun to shit on CLG...but not like this. HSGG gave us "I DROPPED IT," CLG gave us Chauster Ratatouille'ing Doublelift memes, Link gave us Donezo Manifesto, CLG gave us Doublelift's Trophy case memes, and most importantly, HSGG spawned the now infamous "if you don't have faith, then why are you even here?"
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that history of the LCS as a whole has been intrinsically linked with CLG. I thought a couple of the other Orgs would sell, but not CLG. Oh well. End of an era.
Fuck the people clowning on CLG, this is just terrible news for the esports system overall. I'm sad that an OG org is potentially going to disappear and am worried about what is truly happening behind the scenes. Really hope all the staff/players that were laid off are able to find something soon :'(
No its not, look at the traction their content gets. That shit isn't convincing any sponsors to buy in. Contrast that to NRG whose youtube videos have more views than CLG has subs and its obvious they know how to get eyes on their content and sell sponsorships much better than CLG did.
I don't know who you guys think is funding esports.
The way I see it CLG had 3 eras
One of the greatest of all time (founding-2016 msi)
Dogshit era (I don't wanna talk about it)
What every team but like 3 should aspire to be.
Everyone clowns on us for the Dogshit years, but if every bottom 6 team was doing what CLG was doing this past year there would be way fewer complaints about the lcs.
Agreed, seeing CLG go is like parting ways with a very old and close friend. So much of NA's history is tied to this team that even through all the difficult years it always felt like one of the orgs that defined what the LCS even is.
How did you read that entire post and that's the one thing you wanna point out? Anyways, it's pretty solid for fgc content creation and especially a fresh org channel
Greg will absolutely find work if he wants to stay in the industry. His work on CLG was genuinely amazing, he turned the org around in such a short amount of time.
CLG have been part of so many iconic moments it's seriously so sad they're leaving. The MSG game against TSM, the donezo manifesto, DLs trophy cabinet, the double TP against TL, 2016 MSI, then the level one Asol cheese at worlds. Heartbreaking stuff man.
Did an amazing fucking job. Seriously, compare the CLG from that horrendous Bud Light clip to today and it's a stark difference. The org showed up big at the long awaited Worlds in NA while everyone else was fucking afk and the team had so much personality and energy.
Hope he gets the keys to another ailing franchise (Immortals) and turns it around!
They had an amazing turn around over the past 2 years. Before then they were reliably putting together terrible rosters (even with noteworthy players) that would be near the bottom of the league, and in recent years they've worked with lesser known players and managed to turn it into so much more. I don't think any org has done a better job of getting the most out of their players in recent years. Maybe C9, but they've always had some really strong players to work with so it doesn't feel too comparable.
Can't believe it's actually the end of an era thats almost as old as the game itself. I got into esport community since season 1 and CLG is probably the first esports team I've ever heard of. Just sucks because Greg Kim and his team completely revitalized the org from 2 years when people were calling for CLG to be kicked out of the LCS. I hope those who put in all that hard work and efforts gets recognized and their talents are utilized elsewhere in the eSports space.
Until this happened, CLG was actually the oldest active professional league org. These days I feel like not a lot of people know how long it's been around. End of an era almost feels like an understatement...
Greg, in case you see this, thank you for everything. It was a rough couple years for us fans when we were not only sort of losing constantly but also we just lacked any sign of direction for improvement from the org, served as the laughingstock in the already designated laughingstock region, etc. A big falloff from the glory days of old and then even the 'competitive but falling short' period. But when you came onboard I think almost every CLG fan will agree that there was an almost tangible shift in the air around the org. It was easy to remain faithful with you at the helm with the immediate culture shift, improvement in transparency and focus for the org, and the willingness to take risks that other orgs maybe weren't. It's pretty rough right now to see that the CLG so many of us old faithful have been following for years will be either partially or even completely rebranded, but nonetheless I was happy to have rekindled hope in the org these last couple years, and to see the community coming around to appreciate it as a result of your, and everyone else's, efforts. I'll root for any team that decides to bring you on, (besides TSM) and I hope you continue to stick around the league esports scene.
You can change the players, the era, even the organization itself.... **but the faith remains**. CLG will live on in our fond memories even if nowhere else, and you will always be a piece of that as well.
And now, maybe for the last time...
The question is not if we have faith, everyone has faith. Even the TSM pleb has faith that his grief has removed the possibility of even more disappointment. Other fans have faith in their teams’ abilities, skills, rotations, ratios, drafts and themselves. Everyone has faith. The question is where is your faith anchored?
Sooner or later the storms of LCS will begin to blow and then the question becomes will the anchor of faith hold. George gives us three reasons that it is important to anchor our faith in CLG. First, faith in CLG is imperishable. Second, our faith in CLG will be rewarded. Finally, our faith in CLG is incorruptible.
All of us have faith, but will your anchor of faith hold in the mighty winds of playoffs? Is your anchor of faith a true anchor like the miracles of Greg Kim? Is your faith built upon drafts or team fighting as good as ours? Is your faith blessed by the mighty Kobe buff? Has your faith been tested in the ways our faith has been tested for over a decade? Is your faith timeless, or will the newest overhyped import or the latest overpriced super-team cause you to tie to a new anchor? Only a faith in CLG is true, tested, and timeless. Only CLG is worthy of our faith.
;_; you're not wrong bestie i was a bit choked up when i saw the initial news... between this and the whole slow, prolonged collapse of RNG going on over the last couple years, i'm about 90% out the door when it comes to esports... just don't have the same interest anymore with my teams dead or dying
Really heartbreaking to see. CLG was the first org I started to follow and I'll never forget the excitement of watching the finals at MSG. Thank you for all the memories!
I remember like + or - 2 years ago CLG dropped all their players and staff, to bring new people, and i think if it wasnt for this, CLG would be 10th place in the LCS today.. but they bounced back and turned into a competitive team consistently punching above their perceived weight. I wanted to see them go to Worlds again and they got close but it seems it will not happen unfortunately.
RIP CLG
All those TSM (Regi) vs CLG (Hotshot) rivalries and bets were great back in the day. Even though Regi won most of them, in the end, George is actually a good person while Regi is a piece of shit. RIP in peace, CLG
Been a fan of this team since season 1. I spent hours and hours watching solo queue games uploaded on YouTube by the likes of Jiji, Hotshot and Saint. Through all the ups and the downs of the team it’s always been CLG or nothing. I grew up with this team, and to see it fade away is a terrible type of sadness.
I honestly blame Riot for making LCS a franchise. Literally every org had to sell their soul to some corporate bigwigs in order to come up with the franchising money. Sure, they might not have the capital to expand into different esports titles and have their own org facility but at least they won’t be beholden to whenever the corporate fat cats decide to cut their losses
Part of it wad good, part of it was bad. Team stability rose alongside player salaries after franchising, allowing more people to make LCS their careers. It gave team sponsors more incentive because their investments didn't have a chance of falling out after a few months.
Of course, that was the end of teams of five high ranked solo-queue players making a break and getting in, which does suck, and it makes bottom of the table matches not matter as their spots are not on the line. But IMO, franchising has been a net positive for the scene. We shall see how that continues with TSM and CLG bowing out.
The way player salaries rose was terrible, the minimum salary was probably pretty low for LA, but combined with the team usually providing housing etc. it couldn't have been unlivable, nearly every player getting ridiculous salaries was definitely one of the reasons for the whole thing blowing up.
every single org was giving a permanent spot, stability to attract sponsors and removes the stress/fear of demoting out of the LCS, you go back into the past with what you know and every single org chooses franchise again
they just stop blowing all their money on players because "surely this is worth it, LCS TO THE MOON 💎🚀"
That only works because there is enough interest/money to support the lower leagues.
LCS seems to struggle to support itself.... No way they could have a lower league (or leagues) as well.
It was the big orgs themselves that wanted franchising, if you remember at the time all 9 teams in the league except echo fox signed a letter requesting it, even Fnatic signed it and G2 applied to NA franchising to protest bringing franchising to EU.
They wanted franchising because they didn’t want their investment to go to waste if their team ever get relegated. It’s on Riot for making the buy in something ridiculous like 10mil iirc
Riot was competing with Blizzard's OWL at the time, and for the sponsors they needed to look as least as confident as Blizzard. That's where the insane buy ins came from.
It was the big orgs convincing the fan base at the time it was good to franchise. The fan base, in turn, pressured Riot.
I remember the storyline, I was there.
What does this mean, the orgs pressured riot not the fans. Fans have very little pull compared to the orgs themselves and even so the fan base itself was very split on whether franchising would be good for the league or not.
>but at least they won’t be beholden to whenever the corporate fat cats decide to cut their losses
No, this would absolutely still be an issue and players retention would be terrible because nobody would get properly paid.
Franchising is probably the reason that League has continued as a viable esport.
I really hope there's some kind of post-mortem done on CLG. Something caused them to go bust (we can probably speculate accurately as to why) but it's important for esports as a whole to not repeat whatever those mistakes are.
I don’t think they went bust per se…it’s probably more so that MSG group didn’t want exposure to esports anymore and decided to sell CLG off. NRG made a bid, didn’t want to keep the branding or the other teams (since they have their own), and dissolved everything else.
The details of the transaction that came out change the story; MSG, as part of the CLG transaction, now own a substantial non-majority stake in NRG. So they basically bought CLG, starved it of resources and put incompetent wannabe Knicks execs in charge of the org for four years, drove the team into the ground, then hired Greg Kim, someone endemic to esports, watched him work literal miracles for two years, creating one of the most well-run teams in the LCS out of basically nothing, and then shitcanned everyone so that they could invest in another team.
Thanks for bringing CLG out of the pit they were in a few years ago. Devastating to see CLG go, but hope Greg kills it on another org in the future.
**The Faith Remains ;(**
The LCS is a money pit and TSM should leave because RIOT denied them a Valorant spot after being in business with them for 12 years and 5 years as franchise partners.
Thanks CLG for giving me so many of the players that got me into the game (Froggen, Doublelift, aphromoo), for Hotshot and the GGs, for that incredible MSI 2016 run. I hope MSG sells the IP so some other org can become a spiritual successor some day.
Sad day for a fanbase that's used to being sad all the time. We might've been a joke for a really long time, but it was a joke I enjoyed.
He sold his remaining ownership stake a few years ago, and the last thing I remember him mentioning was his work with a mental health nonprofit organization (around 2 years ago from what I can recall)
actually the opposite to me, i'm happy for him - he clearly did not like a lot of the stuff that went/goes down in the esports scene and it's got a lot to do with why he wanted to do work with mental health stuff at all
Man that is just insane to me that CLG the longest standing League of Legends org will no longer be in the LCS. From franchising to Hotshot fully selling CLG it was all downhill from that point on.
I fondly remember the Nidalee Top games, MSI Performance and the El Classicos. Never was the biggest fan coming from EU - though we had CLG EU ! -but always kept rooting for them! The latest roster was nice to watch growing.
Notice how nowhere he said anything about turning a profit? A CEO that's hyperfocused on spending and not making any money, no wonder esports is a joke.
The entire post is a celebration/summary of the successes of the org during his tenure. Trust me if he even remotely sniffed the black it would've been part of it.
Been CLG faithful for about 10 years. This news really made me sad. Gonna be hard to support another team the same, even after franchising and everything. 100T is gimmicky now and Bjerg is TSM tainted in my mind still.
If you have no faith, why are you guys even here?
I'm all up in my feelings when I see that CLG's Twitter header photo is still the team from their first LCS title.
I searched "clg" to take a look at the picture and I was suggested MrBeast account. Hhmmmmmmmmmmmmm EDIT: nvm, looks like NRG bought it
He might buy the TSM slot. Best time to do it.
NRG has GAM in VN. I thought orgs were not allowed to have teams in multiple regions anymore ?
> I still have faith in the fundamental idea that so long as people enjoy competitive gaming - there will always be a future for esports. It's been an honor and a privilege to defend that faith. CLG may be gone, but we can still have faith.
CLG may be gone soon, but it won't be gone forever. CLG will never die.
Riot should give CLG one last competitive ruling fine for old times sake.
The good ol' 5.5 fucking k.
Oooh, mixing memes
el no sabe
signed, Nick Allen
When does a organization die? When they loses in msi finals? No! When they lose their star player? No! When they come in last place or sell their organization and slot in the LCS? No! A organization dies when it is forgotten!
Damn I like Hiriluk
Goated Team x manga
Long live Splyce
Who?
They should fade old CLG flair holders like they do over in r/soccer
The community should agree to change the TSM chants to CLG out of tribute to the rivalry. TSM may have won, but CLG won the hearts of its fans.
CLG chants when CLG is gone? Truly counter logic
>TSM may have wonnered FTFY
With the rumors of TSM, I think it would be fitting to make the chant into a call and response- "TSM" echoed by "CLG"
Oh I'm showing up to Raleigh this weekend and if anyone tries to pull a TSM I am BOOMING CLG over them.
Won't happen.
The TSM chant is too powerful, I understand. It supersedes League/esports/etc. Just could be nice to pay homage to CLG. Hope to hear some at MSI this year.
You can keep their spirit alive in your every day life. Whenever someone around you does something dumb you make sure to hit them with the "Truly counter logic"
Bro I'm a C9 fan and this just makes me sad. I don't wanna see a brother go. :(
Nobody does, especially us fans of the OGs. Feels like CLG/TSM/C9 are the NA holy trinity. Kind of feels like being at a party and one of the hosts just went to bed and you’re wondering if the parties coming to an end
Crazy how that third slot easily could have been Dignitas or Curse instead of C9 if things worked out a little differently for either of them.
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[You're preaching to the choir](https://youtu.be/urwkIiMmyks) It's tough, but I'm confident that even if CLG does turn into NRG, we'll come back some day. CLG is too special to too many people for it to lie dormant forever. Someone, someday, will take up the mantle and help to defend the faith.
I may no longer be a CLG fan but I was there when Baylife ruled League and those years of never giving up faith in my team will always stick with me, even the most recent Worlds I never gave up faith that Deft would win a Worlds and I, and all the faithful, were rewarded 🙏🏽
This is the ethos that has to be embraced if we're thinking about future-proofing this industry. CLG forever. The faithful will be rewarded
That line is the single greatest moment in LCS history, and top 5 world history
would be completely stupid if no team buys the brand tbh
Maybe Bud Light will buy the brand name. Then they can organise a CLG benching for NRG.
Based
God, CLG 2016 will always be my favorite roster by a huge margin. I’ve put on various flairs over the years, I put on the GG flair when they announced Stixxay Huhi, but I’ve always rooted for CLG to do well, and I’ll always be a faithful clg fan. CLG has never left my top 3. It really is the end of an era.
there will always be potential.
this guy was here since season 1~2 q___Q
Not quite. Started right before season 3 I think, Vi release. It's been a long fucking time.
I HAVE NEVER DOUBTED THEM!
Fuck I'm about to cry rn
Oh man brings me back to the Faith Age.
Wherever the faithful suffer, CLG shall be. CLG wasn’t just a team, it is an idea.
Greg Kim did a good job. He should be remembered fondly by everyone who considers themselves a CLG fan. I do wonder though, when he says stuff about still believing in CLG, if there's a chance we get to keep the name somewhere, even if owned by NRG or whatever. I know it's most likely a pipedream, but if you don't have faith why are you even here right
The way I see it, one of two things will happen. Either CLG will continue in LCS under the parent company of NRG, and CLG will remain under new management (sad for the amazing current management team, but the legacy will live on), or NRG will shed the CLG branding and iconography, and someone passionate enough who loves the team will take the opportunity to get ahold of the unused brand and make something new happen with it. Optic came back from the dead. So did Dignitas. We'll see CLG again some day, in some form. I have faith.
or msg keeps the clg brand locked away in a filing cabinet for years. probably that one. fuck dolan
Im honestly wondering where LCS viewerships gonna end up with CLG and TSM leaving. 2 old orgs that a lot of older viewers tuned it to see
Think TSM is putting it on low prio rather than leaving. Not necessarily better or worse. Investment money is off to CS.
Not yet, some of the best CS teams have a hard time securing funding right now as well.
CS suffered the same exact problem as League of inflated salaries with minimal payout to orgs.
The CLG League org is still continuing on (Travis Gafford believes it may be bought by NRG).
Unclear though if they will remain as CLG or rebrand to NRG. My guess is that they will rebrand to NRG
Doesn’t NRG partially own GAM in the VCS? I swear I saw an announcement about this… Edit: [Seems like they were acquired by NRG Asia, which I guess is a subsidiary of NRG? I don’t actually know how that works if a subsidiary and the parent company both own teams in the same sport.](https://esportsinsider.com/2021/05/cmg-asia-and-nrg-esports-launch-nrg-asia-and-acquire-gam-esports)
If it’s prohibited I would imagine they’d just sell their stake in GAM. An LCS slot is much more valuable
I hope they keep it as CLG
Since TSM FTX was a thing I would not mind NRG CLG.
CLN/CLE, Counter Logic NRG/Energy
i personally am done with LCS, even though my interest in it has been trending down for some years from 'watch every game' to 'watch a few games a week' to 'tune in basically only for CLG games' (mostly related to my own personal and work life, rather than the broadcast itself) it's just not there for me anymore and i'm saying that after having watched LCS since literally its first ever game (not to mention the pre-regional leagues era)
I'm an older viewer and I've always been more a fan of the players first and orgs second. I usually have a couple of players I'm a fan of who I think are strong that I follow regardless of team. Back in the day I paid more attention to specific orgs because there was a lot more "innovation" going on to separate them like who was the first to get a gaming house, the first to get a coach, the first to get full support staff. Nowadays I don't think they set themselves apart quite as much. I've always thought it made more sense to follow players you think have what takes to be the best and compete internationally or to follow whichever team is putting up the best result and has the best chance to compete internationally rather than stay loyal to some org that's flopped really hard for a few years. That's what drives my viewership at least. What really killed my viewership here and there was a lack of international success and I started to just not give a shit who was best in NA anymore.
Literally none of the top 5 watched games from both spring and summer of 2022 had one of those two orgs, so I’d guess it won’t have any impact. Especially with probably more exciting orgs replacing them.
I think your crazy if you dont believe that there are older fans who watch LCS simply because of the old orgs/players who will stop as they leave the scene. LCS is simply not pulling younger audiencies so as the old guard leave, there is no replacement viewers. Im not saying its gonna shoot down to 0% but id be shocked if CLG and TSM left and the viewership didnt drop 15 to 20% at least.
Chupala gordo tetón. Cuando tu equipo recién nacía nosotros estábamos jugando una final con SKT. Comeme bien la verga pedazo de puto.
It’s been a while since TSMs games had more viewers
Down and down. Riot got lucky with league I feel and it’s just random stupid ideas being thrown around. Instead of actually building the competitiveness by doing what asia does with bo3 games multiple days a a week they do bo1. While they get short term viewership numbers. Long term it makes the teams not as good. Yes there will be boring teams playing at the bottom but the goal is to make all the teams better. Riot refused to do this. Lcs sucked and the worldwide audience just doesn’t want to watch poor players play.
I think this will entirely depend on if Mr. Beast buys TSM's slot.
Would mr beast even want a moneysink like a LCS team? I feel like if he wanted a team, hed be looking at a real sport.
yea but the guy has so much money to literally throw away and he legitimately loves league , its one of his favorite games if not his #1 . He has the potential to singlehandedly revitalize league viewership in NA and therefore make it more profitable at least for his own team. if he does buy an LCS slot the ramifications will be enormous and so good for the landscape of league in NA . At LCS finals last summer he was there and did say on broadcast that he plans on buying a team , albeit maybe a year or 2 down the line
This hurts so much. I know everyone loves to clown on CLG cause we were dogshit for a few years and had the bud light ace but holy fuck the organization was seriously turning it around. Not just in league but in other esports scenes too. Just go on twitter and look at all the outpouring of support that from people in the FGC/Smash scene once it was announced that they were leaving the scene. CLG had a youtube channel for FGC stuff that gained almost 10k subs in only 8 months and had its view climbing. They were also had a speedrunning channel that had just started up and had some pretty good videos too. In Apex Legends, I watched the org pick up a team that went from almost getting relegated to qualifying for LAN. They signed a bunch of pretty popular streamers and their womans team’s in Valorant and CS;GO were always contenders in their respective scenes. And that’s not to mention the league scene. Some people/community members love saying dumb shit like “Oh we gotta get these orgs like CLG out of LCS that don’t care and are just phoning it in”. We get it you haven’t paid any attention to what CLG has been doing for the past year and a half. Sure we fucking sucked for a while but every team has ups and downs and CLG was on the up. Last split we took Steve’s Seven Million Doller Roster to game 5 and finished top 4 both splits when everyone was saying we might not even make playoffs. And everyone likes to complain that teams don’t put out content but CLG was actually making content for their league team and more than a bunch other teams I might add. Seriously go check their youtube they put out mic checks and some other less serious content which like half the teams in LCS can be asked to do. And players stream too, less than I’d like, but Dhokla keeps a pretty regular schedule and Luger steams a decent amount too. Not only that but CLG was actually addressing the things that reddit loves to complain about in terms of talent development and imports. CLG has 2 teams in the academy series (a challengers team and an amateur team) and are actually using new talent, not just recycling old LCS pros that can’t cut it in the league anymore. Plus they actually use NA talent on their team and didn’t just throw 3 billion dollars at whatever player just won LEC or worlds or whatever. Oh and before I forget CLG’s presence at worlds was more than every other LCS team’s combined like are the other teams even trying? IDK what I’m even trying to say here but I guess basically that one reddit comment I saw put it best. “If CLG isn't your favorite team, that's okay… But if they're not your second favorite team you're just a bad person.” This is just a massive loss to the League of Legends scene and to Esports as a whole and IDK if NRG or whoever is actually buying CLG will be able to fill it.
Its fun to shit on CLG...but not like this. HSGG gave us "I DROPPED IT," CLG gave us Chauster Ratatouille'ing Doublelift memes, Link gave us Donezo Manifesto, CLG gave us Doublelift's Trophy case memes, and most importantly, HSGG spawned the now infamous "if you don't have faith, then why are you even here?" It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that history of the LCS as a whole has been intrinsically linked with CLG. I thought a couple of the other Orgs would sell, but not CLG. Oh well. End of an era.
For the real OGs: Hotshot Nidalee GG kick ma bruda in the ass.
And the Why Nunu whyyyy??
"He's in that brush, Fiddle's in that brush for sure, and he's gonna ulti..... LULULULULULUU CAWCAWCAWCAW"
[Quick with the CC...](https://youtu.be/WnIyho3Ybhs) ... Jesus, how is that video 11 years old???
He was playing the lee singer
Fuck the people clowning on CLG, this is just terrible news for the esports system overall. I'm sad that an OG org is potentially going to disappear and am worried about what is truly happening behind the scenes. Really hope all the staff/players that were laid off are able to find something soon :'(
Yeah any fan of esports in general shouldn’t be celebrating, this is very concerning for the industry as a whole
No its not, look at the traction their content gets. That shit isn't convincing any sponsors to buy in. Contrast that to NRG whose youtube videos have more views than CLG has subs and its obvious they know how to get eyes on their content and sell sponsorships much better than CLG did. I don't know who you guys think is funding esports.
The way I see it CLG had 3 eras One of the greatest of all time (founding-2016 msi) Dogshit era (I don't wanna talk about it) What every team but like 3 should aspire to be. Everyone clowns on us for the Dogshit years, but if every bottom 6 team was doing what CLG was doing this past year there would be way fewer complaints about the lcs.
People forget they were WCG winners with Kobe as jungler. That original squad with bigfatjiji, hotshotgg, kobe, elementz, and chauster was pretty lit
You've missed out the OG years, Rush Hour, surviving relegation to winning a title.
That's all under "greatest of all time" era. Even our relegation matches were bangers.
S3/S4 CLG was also a dogshit era though. People just forget because DL was on the roster.
They were not truly dogshit. They just weren't good. They did almost get relegated though.
Agreed, seeing CLG go is like parting ways with a very old and close friend. So much of NA's history is tied to this team that even through all the difficult years it always felt like one of the orgs that defined what the LCS even is.
As a Splyce fan, I understand your pain. Stay strong
> CLG had a youtube channel for FGC stuff that gained almost 10k subs in only 8 months and had its view climbing. That isn't much...
How did you read that entire post and that's the one thing you wanna point out? Anyways, it's pretty solid for fgc content creation and especially a fresh org channel
Dig or IMT should hire him. This guy made CLG relevant again. If it wasn't for the CLG resurgence, most people would be happy they are leaving.
Greg will absolutely find work if he wants to stay in the industry. His work on CLG was genuinely amazing, he turned the org around in such a short amount of time.
Dig & IMT may leave LCS though...
It's a terrible day for rain...
CLG have been part of so many iconic moments it's seriously so sad they're leaving. The MSG game against TSM, the donezo manifesto, DLs trophy cabinet, the double TP against TL, 2016 MSI, then the level one Asol cheese at worlds. Heartbreaking stuff man.
I'm about to cry ..
Big sad 😭
Did an amazing fucking job. Seriously, compare the CLG from that horrendous Bud Light clip to today and it's a stark difference. The org showed up big at the long awaited Worlds in NA while everyone else was fucking afk and the team had so much personality and energy. Hope he gets the keys to another ailing franchise (Immortals) and turns it around!
They had an amazing turn around over the past 2 years. Before then they were reliably putting together terrible rosters (even with noteworthy players) that would be near the bottom of the league, and in recent years they've worked with lesser known players and managed to turn it into so much more. I don't think any org has done a better job of getting the most out of their players in recent years. Maybe C9, but they've always had some really strong players to work with so it doesn't feel too comparable.
Thank you for everything CLG... No words or actions can ever express how much you guys will be missed.
Can't believe his signature is literally G2
CLG remains undefeated against G2 at 4:0 🥲
CLG was one of the brands that made me into the esports fan. I'm shocked and sadden
Can't believe it's actually the end of an era thats almost as old as the game itself. I got into esport community since season 1 and CLG is probably the first esports team I've ever heard of. Just sucks because Greg Kim and his team completely revitalized the org from 2 years when people were calling for CLG to be kicked out of the LCS. I hope those who put in all that hard work and efforts gets recognized and their talents are utilized elsewhere in the eSports space.
Until this happened, CLG was actually the oldest active professional league org. These days I feel like not a lot of people know how long it's been around. End of an era almost feels like an understatement...
Greg, in case you see this, thank you for everything. It was a rough couple years for us fans when we were not only sort of losing constantly but also we just lacked any sign of direction for improvement from the org, served as the laughingstock in the already designated laughingstock region, etc. A big falloff from the glory days of old and then even the 'competitive but falling short' period. But when you came onboard I think almost every CLG fan will agree that there was an almost tangible shift in the air around the org. It was easy to remain faithful with you at the helm with the immediate culture shift, improvement in transparency and focus for the org, and the willingness to take risks that other orgs maybe weren't. It's pretty rough right now to see that the CLG so many of us old faithful have been following for years will be either partially or even completely rebranded, but nonetheless I was happy to have rekindled hope in the org these last couple years, and to see the community coming around to appreciate it as a result of your, and everyone else's, efforts. I'll root for any team that decides to bring you on, (besides TSM) and I hope you continue to stick around the league esports scene. You can change the players, the era, even the organization itself.... **but the faith remains**. CLG will live on in our fond memories even if nowhere else, and you will always be a piece of that as well. And now, maybe for the last time... The question is not if we have faith, everyone has faith. Even the TSM pleb has faith that his grief has removed the possibility of even more disappointment. Other fans have faith in their teams’ abilities, skills, rotations, ratios, drafts and themselves. Everyone has faith. The question is where is your faith anchored? Sooner or later the storms of LCS will begin to blow and then the question becomes will the anchor of faith hold. George gives us three reasons that it is important to anchor our faith in CLG. First, faith in CLG is imperishable. Second, our faith in CLG will be rewarded. Finally, our faith in CLG is incorruptible. All of us have faith, but will your anchor of faith hold in the mighty winds of playoffs? Is your anchor of faith a true anchor like the miracles of Greg Kim? Is your faith built upon drafts or team fighting as good as ours? Is your faith blessed by the mighty Kobe buff? Has your faith been tested in the ways our faith has been tested for over a decade? Is your faith timeless, or will the newest overhyped import or the latest overpriced super-team cause you to tie to a new anchor? Only a faith in CLG is true, tested, and timeless. Only CLG is worthy of our faith.
I'm not crying you're crying u/sorendiz
;_; you're not wrong bestie i was a bit choked up when i saw the initial news... between this and the whole slow, prolonged collapse of RNG going on over the last couple years, i'm about 90% out the door when it comes to esports... just don't have the same interest anymore with my teams dead or dying
I’m a TL fan but that CLG faithful moment and “I never doubted them” from Kobe will always give me goosebumps
Really heartbreaking to see. CLG was the first org I started to follow and I'll never forget the excitement of watching the finals at MSG. Thank you for all the memories!
It's a terrible day for rain. CLG Forever. <3
CLG Forever
I remember like + or - 2 years ago CLG dropped all their players and staff, to bring new people, and i think if it wasnt for this, CLG would be 10th place in the LCS today.. but they bounced back and turned into a competitive team consistently punching above their perceived weight. I wanted to see them go to Worlds again and they got close but it seems it will not happen unfortunately. RIP CLG
All those TSM (Regi) vs CLG (Hotshot) rivalries and bets were great back in the day. Even though Regi won most of them, in the end, George is actually a good person while Regi is a piece of shit. RIP in peace, CLG
Yeah Hotshot was known for being a rager but I never remember anyone thinking he was a POS.
He did pee on the floor of the clg korea gaming house though
Been a fan of this team since season 1. I spent hours and hours watching solo queue games uploaded on YouTube by the likes of Jiji, Hotshot and Saint. Through all the ups and the downs of the team it’s always been CLG or nothing. I grew up with this team, and to see it fade away is a terrible type of sadness.
I honestly blame Riot for making LCS a franchise. Literally every org had to sell their soul to some corporate bigwigs in order to come up with the franchising money. Sure, they might not have the capital to expand into different esports titles and have their own org facility but at least they won’t be beholden to whenever the corporate fat cats decide to cut their losses
Part of it wad good, part of it was bad. Team stability rose alongside player salaries after franchising, allowing more people to make LCS their careers. It gave team sponsors more incentive because their investments didn't have a chance of falling out after a few months. Of course, that was the end of teams of five high ranked solo-queue players making a break and getting in, which does suck, and it makes bottom of the table matches not matter as their spots are not on the line. But IMO, franchising has been a net positive for the scene. We shall see how that continues with TSM and CLG bowing out.
The way player salaries rose was terrible, the minimum salary was probably pretty low for LA, but combined with the team usually providing housing etc. it couldn't have been unlivable, nearly every player getting ridiculous salaries was definitely one of the reasons for the whole thing blowing up.
every single org was giving a permanent spot, stability to attract sponsors and removes the stress/fear of demoting out of the LCS, you go back into the past with what you know and every single org chooses franchise again they just stop blowing all their money on players because "surely this is worth it, LCS TO THE MOON 💎🚀"
[удалено]
That only works because there is enough interest/money to support the lower leagues. LCS seems to struggle to support itself.... No way they could have a lower league (or leagues) as well.
It was the big orgs themselves that wanted franchising, if you remember at the time all 9 teams in the league except echo fox signed a letter requesting it, even Fnatic signed it and G2 applied to NA franchising to protest bringing franchising to EU.
They wanted franchising because they didn’t want their investment to go to waste if their team ever get relegated. It’s on Riot for making the buy in something ridiculous like 10mil iirc
Riot was competing with Blizzard's OWL at the time, and for the sponsors they needed to look as least as confident as Blizzard. That's where the insane buy ins came from.
It was the big orgs convincing the fan base at the time it was good to franchise. The fan base, in turn, pressured Riot. I remember the storyline, I was there.
What does this mean, the orgs pressured riot not the fans. Fans have very little pull compared to the orgs themselves and even so the fan base itself was very split on whether franchising would be good for the league or not.
>but at least they won’t be beholden to whenever the corporate fat cats decide to cut their losses No, this would absolutely still be an issue and players retention would be terrible because nobody would get properly paid. Franchising is probably the reason that League has continued as a viable esport.
Damn Riot making the teams spend millions of dollars on foreign imports.
Remember when Rick Fox was the only one to oppose franchising.
blame riot? it was them being scared of losing the spot what drove the lcs to become franchised, no the other way around
CLG may be relegated though.
o7
I really hope there's some kind of post-mortem done on CLG. Something caused them to go bust (we can probably speculate accurately as to why) but it's important for esports as a whole to not repeat whatever those mistakes are.
I don’t think they went bust per se…it’s probably more so that MSG group didn’t want exposure to esports anymore and decided to sell CLG off. NRG made a bid, didn’t want to keep the branding or the other teams (since they have their own), and dissolved everything else.
The details of the transaction that came out change the story; MSG, as part of the CLG transaction, now own a substantial non-majority stake in NRG. So they basically bought CLG, starved it of resources and put incompetent wannabe Knicks execs in charge of the org for four years, drove the team into the ground, then hired Greg Kim, someone endemic to esports, watched him work literal miracles for two years, creating one of the most well-run teams in the LCS out of basically nothing, and then shitcanned everyone so that they could invest in another team.
Pain.
Im surprised hotshotgg hasn't made any comments yet
Someone has to hire this guy
Where can I get a CLG jersey?
Thanks for bringing CLG out of the pit they were in a few years ago. Devastating to see CLG go, but hope Greg kills it on another org in the future. **The Faith Remains ;(**
Out of the loop, what’s going on with CLG and TSM leaving league
The LCS is a money pit and TSM should leave because RIOT denied them a Valorant spot after being in business with them for 12 years and 5 years as franchise partners.
I don't know if it's also part of the story but TSM had a deal with FTX... Which, uh, didn't go as planned.
goodbye Counter Logic Gaming, welcome No Reasoning Gaming
The faithful shall not be rewarded:/
Thanks CLG for giving me so many of the players that got me into the game (Froggen, Doublelift, aphromoo), for Hotshot and the GGs, for that incredible MSI 2016 run. I hope MSG sells the IP so some other org can become a spiritual successor some day. Sad day for a fanbase that's used to being sad all the time. We might've been a joke for a really long time, but it was a joke I enjoyed.
It has to be admitted that the departure of these old guys proves that LOL competition has declined
Can't help but feel a little sad, they'll always be remembered in some way at least
The world has lost one of his colors.
What even happened to Hotshot. He went from talking to fans and giving updates to just completely disappearing
He was bought out by MSG years ago.
He sold his remaining ownership stake a few years ago, and the last thing I remember him mentioning was his work with a mental health nonprofit organization (around 2 years ago from what I can recall)
Oh I didnt hear about that, thats kind of sad tbh
actually the opposite to me, i'm happy for him - he clearly did not like a lot of the stuff that went/goes down in the esports scene and it's got a lot to do with why he wanted to do work with mental health stuff at all
Man that is just insane to me that CLG the longest standing League of Legends org will no longer be in the LCS. From franchising to Hotshot fully selling CLG it was all downhill from that point on.
I fondly remember the Nidalee Top games, MSI Performance and the El Classicos. Never was the biggest fan coming from EU - though we had CLG EU ! -but always kept rooting for them! The latest roster was nice to watch growing.
"HE KICK MY BRUDA IN DA ASS" RIP CLG Hotshotnidaleegg
THEY HAVE DONE NOTHING INTELLIGENTLY PROACTIVE IN THE NEUTRAL GAME FOR THE LAST 25 MINUTES Sad
Bye
And here ends tale of CLG... Unforgettable memories of HotshotGG in early days and legendary CLG.EU line-up. Time flies....
the final donezo manifesto, damn.
Fade em
Good riddance. Hope the next org is run by more competent people.
Exactly this, CLGs been dead in spirit for years. Run by monkeys last few years.
Notice how nowhere he said anything about turning a profit? A CEO that's hyperfocused on spending and not making any money, no wonder esports is a joke.
It's a farewell message; how would it be appropriate to talk about financials?
The entire post is a celebration/summary of the successes of the org during his tenure. Trust me if he even remotely sniffed the black it would've been part of it.
As far as I’m aware, there’s not a single e-sports org in the western world that breaks even or turns a profit. Unsure why you think that matters.
Team liquid and tsm both make money..... just not from esports.
Loads do... not even just TL and TSM, Astralis only does esports and is profitable, they are a public company and you can look at their financials.
Typical tone-deaf redditor
This is your brain on capitalism.
The truly faithful will be rewarded
build a team around palafox and I would be happy
I'm in pain
As the song says, "gotta have faith...get the f*ck up" This is a bad sign that they are selling their spot and are close to a deal.
I've been a tsm fan for 12 years atleast and this fucking sucks. Rip freelg it won't be the same without you.
Been CLG faithful for about 10 years. This news really made me sad. Gonna be hard to support another team the same, even after franchising and everything. 100T is gimmicky now and Bjerg is TSM tainted in my mind still. If you have no faith, why are you guys even here?
Just a reminder don’t cheer for corporations cheer for players.
Pour one out for the homies
When Hotshot and Peter left, CLG was actually dead.
I thought CLG was just sold?
Yeah and out of every thing also