Every year, e-sports becomes more and more popular, and a higher number of tournaments are held, which are watched by a large audience and where greater sums of prize money are possible to get. Besides, being aware of the popularity of this industry, a lot of universities all over the world have already started to offer interesting esports programs. There, young students get the opportunity to acquire more useful skills and later practice them. This, in turn, leads to the fact that more and more professional teams in this field appear, and their members train tirelessly to become champions at the tournament of their dream. However, not everything is so simple here: the competition in e-sports is so high that it is difficult not only to win but even to become a participant in a prestigious tournament. However, some esports teams manage to consistently show great results. These are the teams that will be discussed in the following material from the LoginCasino team.
How have been chosen the best esports teams?
Of course, choosing the teams in the esports industry is not an easy task but we have decided to do this. In order to select the most successful esports teams, we took into account their results in the most famous leagues and tournaments, namely:
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
- Dota 2
- League of Legends
- Fortnite
- Overwatch
- Call of Duty
- PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
- Rocket League
- and others.
Another important aspect that we also took into account is whether the esports team is among the most viewed ones.
Ninjas in Pyjamas (NiP)
At present, this well-known Swedish esports organization, which was founded in 2000, has teams in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, Rainbow Six, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and Paladins. In the past, Ninjas in Pyjamas also had teams in Overwatch, League of Legends, and Fortnite Battle Royal. In general, the greatest success of this famous esports organization is considered to be the first place at the 2001 Cyberathlete Professional League World Championships, which was preceded by an extremely close final against another successful team X3.
As for the recent results, the biggest success was achieved by the organization’s team in Dota the previous year: players managed to win at OGA Dota PIT Minor 2019, StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor Season 2, as well as at WePlay! Dota 2 Tug of War: Radiant. However, at The International, the annual tournament dedicated to Dota2, the team representing this Sweden organization, failed taking 17-18th place. This is the main reason why NiP is placed so low in our ranking of the best teams in esports.
Team Vitality (VIT)
Team Vitality is another successful organization in the esports industry, which was founded by Nicolas Maurer and Fabien Devide from France in 2013. Currently, Vitality has teams in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Rocket League, F1, League of Legends, Fortnite Battle Royale, FIFA, Street Fighter 5, Rainbow Six Siege, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and Hearthstone.
The previous year, for instance, Team Vitality was represented by quite a powerful Counter-Strike: Global Offensive roster: players managed to win at five tournaments, including EPICENTER 2019 taking place at the end of the year, and also had good results at a number of esports major tournaments. It should be also noted that Mathieu Erbo (“ZywOo”), who is the Team Vitality sniper, was recognized as the most valuable player of 2019 by the HLTV – the leading site dedicated to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Besides, Team Vitality joined the list of the most-watched esports organizations in the world, which is also a great proof of its popularity.
Virtus.pro (VP)
VP is a successful esports organization based in Russia, which was founded in 2003. At present, teams representing Virtus.pro compete in Counter-Strike: Dota 2, Global Offensive, Fortnite, Rainbow Six Siege, Hearthstone, Paladins, Apex Legends, Starcraft II, Heroes Of The Storm, and Quake Champions.
This esports organization was placed in our ranking mainly due to the positive results of its Dota 2 team. The team won several tournaments, took second place in DreamLeague Season 11 and third in EPICENTER Major 2019. However, The International turned out to be a complete failure for the representatives of Virtus.pro. The team took 9-12th place, and that became the worst result in recent years.
As for other divisions, including the CS: GO, they failed to achieve high results. This is the main reason why we didn’t put Virtus.pro in the top of the ranking.
Evil Geniuses (EG)
It is an esports organization that is based in the United States. Founded in 1999, this esports organization has teams in diverse games: Fortnite Battle Royale, Call of Duty, Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, League of Legends, Halo, StarCraft II, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, Rocket League, as well as World of Warcraft.
The EG’s most popular teams are those competing in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2. The latter took 5-6 places at The International, which is quite a good result, and managed to reach the Grand Final of the World Pro Invitational Singapore. As for the CS: GO team, it won the ESL One: New York and several other tournaments in 2019 but the end of the year wasn’t very successful for the team.
Astralis
It is the Danish esports organization that was founded only four years ago, in 2016. Astralis is quite a unique esports organization since it is mainly focused on the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive game. In spite of the fact Astalis doesn’t have many teams, it is regarded as one of the most popular and successful organizations in the esports industry.
This is due to the Australis’ impressive roster in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which can be called the most titled in the world. Thus, the previous year, the team won two majors, two tournaments of the BLAST Pro Series, IEM Beijing 2019, and the LAN finals of the 8th season of ECS. Four out of five team members entered the ranking of the top 20 best players of the year by HLTV.
Natus Vincere (Na’Vi)
Na’Vi is an esports organization, founded in 2009, that is based in Ukraine. Natus Vincere has teams competing in diverse games, such as Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, World of Tanks, FIFA, Paladins, Apex Legends, League of Legends, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and Rainbow Six Siege. And almost each of them has contributed to the 5th place in our ranking. At the beginning of the previous year, the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive managed to achieve great results, namely, semi-final at IEM Katowice Major and victory at StarSeries & i-League Season 7. By the way, at the end of the year, Oleksandr Kostyliev (s1mple), one of the team’s representatives, took the 2nd place in the ranking of the best players according to HLTV.
As for other teams, it should be noted that the previous year, the Dota 2 roster entered DreamLeague Season 11, and the Rainbow Six Siege won the Pro League Season 10 final.
T1
It is a South Korean esports organization founded in 2003. The organization became famous due to the League of Legends team, which became champions at World Championship in 2013, 2015, and 2016.
Thus, why is it put in the ranking? During the T1 match against G2 in the semifinal of the 2019 Worlds Championship, a historic e-sports record was set: almost four million people watched the event. It goes without saying that this number would have been much higher if this had been a grand finale. There are also other teams that represent T1 but they have not nearly achieved such popularity as the League of Legends team.
Fnatic
It is a professional esports organization headquartered in the United Kingdom, which was founded in 2004. Fanatic is represented by teams across a variety of divisions: Apex Legends, Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm, Rainbow Six Siege, and PUBG Mobile.
One of the most successful teams among them is the team competing in League of Legends. In 2018, it managed to reach the Grand Final of the World Championship. However, one year later, the team didn’t repeat the great result.
It should also be noted that Fnatic teams are based in different countries and even on different continents. It helps to gather the biggest audience around the world.
G2 Esports
G2 Esports, previously known as Gamers2, is a famous Spanish esports organization based in Germany, which was founded almost sixteen years ago, in 2004. Its players compete in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, League of Legends, Rocket League, Hearthstone, Rainbow Six Siege, as well as iRacing.
Like the previous esports organization, G2 Esports is best known for its team’s successes in League of Legends. In 2019, the League of Legends team took the LEC spring and summer Championships titles, won at the Mid-Season Invitational, and took second place at the 2019 Worlds Championship.
The Rainbow Six Siege team, which won the Six Invitational 2019, also showed great success. Besides, G2 Esports became the second most-viewed esports team in 2021, and also became the runner-up of our ranking.
Team Liquid
It is a multi-regional esports organization based in the Netherlands, which was founded in 2000. The professional organization is represented in a large number of divisions:
- Apex Legends
- Clash Royale
- Artifact
- Fortnite
- Dota 2
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
- Hearthstone
- Tekken 7
- Heroes of the Storm
- Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege
- League of Legends
- Super Smash Bros
- Street Fighter
- PUBG
- StarCraft II.
Liquid is certainly one of the greatest teams in the history of eSports. As for recent results at the biggest tournaments, the greatest success was achieved by the Dota 2 team, which reached the final of The International 2019, but later lost to OG, and the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team, which managed to win six consecutive tournaments, including Intel Grand Slam Season 2.
Other teams also didn’t fail to show good results. In addition, in 2019, Liquid became the most-watched esports team all over the world. As a result, this well-known professional esports organization became the leader of our ranking.
Frequently-asked questions regarding esports teams
What are esports teams?
Esports teams are those teams that participate in such a form of competitions where video games are utilized.
How many esports teams are there?
Overall, at present, there are approximately 500 professional esports teams.
How do esports teams make money?
First of all, teams earn through sponsorship. Here there are brands working in different directions, starting from, for example, fast food to clothing for athletics. The second source of income for various e-sports teams is advertising deals. Besides, do not forget about merchandising and ticket sales for various e-sports competitions. Of course, in this field, this does not bring very big earnings yet, but in the future, everything will possibly change.
How to invest in esports teams?
Currently, the most popular way to invest in esports teams is to purchase stocks that take care of investing. Well-known examples of such companies are ESL, ESEN eSports, and Dreamhack of MTG.
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