Co-Owner of the Golden State Warriors, Peter Guber and Washington Wizards majority owner Ted Leonsis, have announced that they have come together to purchase the eSports organization Team Liquid. They weren’t alone in the partnership, however, and the list the two made is filled to the brim with big names in sports and business.
Leonsis brought along Monumental Sports & Entertainment, the company that owns and operates the Wizards, Washington Capitals, Washington Mystics and AFL’s Washington Valor. He also added Steve Case, the co-founder of AOL and the current Chairman & CEO of Revolution.
The well-known Hall of Fame basketball player Magic Johnson, life and business strategist Tony Robbins, Los Angeles Dodgers CFO Tucker Cain, Warriors President/COO Rick Welts, Groupon co-founder Brad Keywell and former NFL linebacker Dhani Jones also join the two among many others.
“The key to our future success will be to bring the resources and resourcefulness of our ownership group to Victor [Goossens], Steve [Arhancet] and the team they built,” said Guber. “Ted, myself and the individuals that comprise our ownership group have an enormous wealth of experience and talents across virtually every major media and sports business category.” Goossens and Arhancet were the owners of Team Liquid and will remain co-CEOs as well as serving as Directors of the eSports team.
The two main people, Guber and Leonsis, now operate under the ownership group name of aXiomatic and plan to extend their reaches in eSports far beyond Team Liquid and build an entire eSports enterprise based around other professional eSports teams.
Liquid was a good place to start given the organization’s broad portfolio of acquired sponsorships, among which are big names like HTC, Quest Nutrition and the gaming laptop and computer giant Alienware. Liquid also sports teams in several eSports games including CS:GO and League of Legends.