Nikolai Shechenko

Team Liquid is a multi-regional professional esports organization based in the Netherlands that was founded in 2000. With the release of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, Team Liquid signed their first professional players.

In 2012, Team Liquid acquired 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. Their European Dota 2 squad won The International 2017, which had one of the largest prize pool for any esports tournament in history. Team Liquid's League of Legends team has won four LCS titles, and their Counter-Strike Global Offensive team was awarded the Intel Grand Slam prize in 2019, a feat achieved in just four tournaments.

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 address of teamliquid.net. A day later the very first poll was posted as a vote for the website's name with the teamliquid.net name winning over other suggestions such as likwit.com. On April 5, 2019, it was announced that the website would be moving to the domain tl.net, with teamliquid.net becoming an alias for teamliquid.com in the future.

Although Team Liquid was primarily known as 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 covering Dota 2 news. On December 8, 2012, Liquid expanded their esports franchise into multiple games for the first time, with 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 September 27, 2016, Team Liquid sold its controlling interest to aXiomatic Gaming, an investment group including Golden State Warriors co-owner Peter Guber, entrepreneur Ted Leonsis, motivational speaker Tony Robbins, basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson, and AOL co-founder Steve Case.

On December 16, 2017, Team Liquid disbanded their Halo roster.

Ninjas in Pyjamas (NIP) is a professional esports organisation based in Sweden that is best known for its Counter-Strike teams. In 2012, the team reformed with a Counter Strike: Global Offensive lineup upon the release of the game. Aside from Counter-Strike, the organisation has teams in Valorant, Rainbow Six Siege, FIFA, and League of Legends. They formerly had teams in Fortnite Battle Royale, Overwatch, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Paladins.

Ninjas in Pyjamas were formed in June 2000. 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 esports 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[clarification needed] 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 13 November 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. Since then, NIP have had two Dota 2 teams, one formed in 2017 that disbanded later that year, as well as another formation in 2018. Christopher "GeT RiGhT" Alesund, one of the original 2012 NIP roster, left after the StarLadder Major Berlin 2019, being replaced by Simon "twist" Eliasson, a former player for Fnatic, and leaving f0rest as the only remaining member of the original roster, until he left in 2020 to come back to the 2014 NIP roster on Dignitas.

G2 is a global esports and entertainment brand.

The club was co-founded by League of Legends player-turned-team owner, Carlos ‘Ocelote’ Rodriguez, and esports entrepreneur and investor, Jens Hilgers.

G2 Esports (commonly shortened to just G2 and formerly known as Gamers2) is a European esports organization headquartered in Berlin, Germany, with players competing in League of Legends, Valorant, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Hearthstone, Rocket League, Rainbow Six Siege, and iRacing. The organization was founded in Spain on 24 February 2014 as Gamers2 by former League of Legends pro Carlos "Ocelote" Rodríguez Santiago and investor Jens Hilgers. The organization rebranded as G2 Esports on 15 October 2015.

G2's League of Legends team competes in the League of Legends European Championship (LEC), the highest level of competitive League of Legends in Europe. The team won the 2016 Spring, 2016 Summer, 2017 Spring, and 2017 Summer EU LCS, the 2019 Spring LEC, the 2019 Mid-Season Invitational, the 2019 Summer LEC, the 2020 Spring LEC and the 2020 Summer LEC. The organization's Rainbow Six Siege team competes in the European League (EUL), the highest level of competitive Rainbow Six Siege in Europe. The team won the Six Major 2018, European Pro League Season 8, the Pro League Season 8 Finals, DreamHack Winter 2018, Six Invitational 2019, and placed second at the Six Major 2019 and European Pro League Season 11.

FaZe Clan (formerly FaZe Sniping) is a professional esports and entertainment organization headquartered in Los Angeles, California, USA. Founded on May 30, 2010, the organization has players from around the world, across multiple games, including Call of Duty, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, FIFA, Valorant, Fortnite Battle Royale and Rocket League. In 2020, the organization expanded into the Asian market, acquiring a Thai PUBG Mobile and FIFA Online roster.

FaZe Sniping made its debut on YouTube on May 30, 2010. Originally, the group were a Call of Duty clan founded by three players, Eric "CLipZ" Rivera, Jeff "House Cat" Emann (now known as "Timid") and Ben "Resistance" Christensen. The trio garnered a reputation for innovating trickshotting in the game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Their YouTube content took off when Ted "Fakie" joined the clan. It was then when FaZe unveiled the most popular series on their channel, ILLCAMS. FaZe Clan's focus on trickshotting and a personality/social-media approach led to FaZe Clan becoming one of the first popular YouTube video game channels, compared to other Call of Duty channels which were focused on winning tournaments. In 2012, the channel had one million subscribers, and the clan began to branch out into esports competitions. Teams under the FaZe name began competing in competitions such as the Call of Duty Championship and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championships, who were separate from the clan's YouTube content creators, splitting members of FaZe Clan into two mostly autonomous camps. Originally, FaZe Clan did not have a corporate structure, however the original CEO was Brazilian Thomas "Temperrr" Oliveira, who had been a member of FaZe since he was 16 years old. Oliveira and COO Richard “Banks” Bengston created the first FaZe shared home in 2014 in Plainview, New York, where they could incorporate lifestyle content with their gaming content.

In 2015, former social media platform Hubrick, run by Norwegian entrepreneur Sebastian Guerts, decided to invest in FaZe Clan. Hubrick recruited former record executive Lee Trink to serve as CEO.

In January 2016, FaZe Clan acquired European esports team G2 Esports's Counter-Strike: Global Offensive international lineup, who competed as FaZe Clan in the 2016 MLG Major Championship: Columbus, The team won second place in ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018, losing to US-based Cloud9.

In 2017, Bengston moved to Los Angeles, starting a new shared home with YouTubers called the Clout House. FaZe Clan were the runners up in ESL Pro League Season 6 in 2017, and second runners up of ESL Pro League Season 7 and ESL One Cologne 2018. FaZe Clan were the champions of ELeague CS:GO Premier in 2017, winning $500,000 of prize money.

In 2018, Greg Selkoe, founder of streetware web retailer Karmaloop, became the president of FaZe Clan, with CEO Lee Trink stepping into the CEO role full-time.

In late 2018, FaZe Clan opened its series A funding round. Throughout 2019, musicians Ray J, DJ Paul, Offset, Swae Lee, Yo Gotti, Pitbull, and Disco Fries, basketball players Meyers Leonard, Josh Hart, Ben Simmons, Jamal Murray, footballer Gregory van der Wiel, skateboarder Nyjah Huston, radio host Big Boy, music executives Sylvia Rhone, Troy Carter and Guy Oseary and actor Chris O'Donnell invested in FaZe Clan.

In December 2019, FaZe closed its series A led by entrepreneur Jimmy Iovine and mobile e-commerce platform NTWRK.

In January 2020, FaZe Clan obtained a $22.7 million investment loan from Canaccord Genuity, a Canadian financial company.

On June 18, 2020, FaZe Clan announced its co-ownership of CTRL, a food supplement company.

In December 2020, FaZe Clan was worth $305 million. That same month the revenue of FaZe Clan was estimated $40 million.

On June 10, 2021, FaZe Clan became the first esports team to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

FaZe announced in October 2021 it was merging with special purpose acquisition investors B. Riley Principal as to become a public company to be listed on NASDAQ as FAZE, with an initial valuation of about $1 billion. As part of this merge, FaZe will receive $291 million from B. Riley, and will be renamed to Faze Holdings Inc and will refocus itself as a brand for "the voice of youth culture".

Red Reserve

On December 5, 2014, FaZe Clan announced the founding of Red Reserve as a subdivision to the organization. They would go on to upload content similar to FaZe's until June 2016, where they cut ties with FaZe to explore other opportunities under their own banner.

In April 2020, it was reported that FaZe Clan and Michael Sugar, film and television producer and founder of Sugar23, partnered to form FaZe Studios. The studio would focus on creating feature films and scripted television series. The plan was accelerated due to the lack of live content being produced by traditional networks during the pandemic. Their first film, Crimson, was released on October 29, 2020, and stars Brian "Rug" Awadis in a leading role.