| NRG Esports | |
| Founded: | November 2015 |
| Revenue: | $28 million[1] |
| Revenue Year: | 2021 |
| Equity: | $240 million |
| Equity Year: | 2022 |
| Subsid: | San Francisco Shock |
NRG Esports (or simply NRG) is an American esports organization based in Los Angeles, California. It has rosters in League of Legends, Overwatch, Rocket League, Valorant, Counter-Strike 2, Apex Legends and a number of streamers on the internet platform Twitch.
The team was founded by Sacramento Kings co-owners Mark Mastrov and Andy Miller in November 2015.[2]
In March 2016, NRG announced that Alex Rodriguez, Shaquille O'Neal and Jimmy Rollins were joining as investors.[3] On April 20, 2018, Tiesto was announced as an investor.[4]
In August 2017, the Canadian esports company Northern Gaming was acquired by NRG.[5] Northern Gaming's co-owners were rolled into NRG, making twitch streamer Sodapoppin a named advisor and co-owner.[6]
In September 2019, it was announced that Hector "H3CZ" Rodriguez had joined as co-CEO,[7] after another announcement the same day that Hector and the Immortals Gaming Club had parted ways.[8]
On August 24, 2020, Tubefilter announced that NRG partnered with Shots Studios, a Los Angeles-based production and management company, for content production, social strategy, and merchandising.[9]
In April 2023, NRG acquired Counter Logic Gaming and its League Championship Series (LCS) slot, returning to the league for the first time since 2016.[10]
On September 2023, NRG announced the dissolution of their Apex Legends team, citing lack of support from EA for competitive Apex as the reason. They would, however, return to Apex on May 30, 2024 by signing the former XSET roster.[11] [12]
On May 6, 2024, the Esports World Cup Foundation, funded by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund and organizers of the Esports World Cup tournament series, announced the 30 organizations (known in the ESWC as Clubs) who would make up the Club Support Program, with NRG being one of them. This program gives teams a one-time six-figure stipend if an organization is willing to enter new esports as well as additional funding each year if they drive viewership and fan engagement to the Esports World Cup.[13]
On February 11, 2019, NRG became one of the first organizations to sign a professional Apex Legends player with the signing of Coby "Dizzy" Meadows.[14] The team signed Brandon "Aceu" Winn and Marshall "Mohr" Mohr in March and May, respectively, to round out its three-player squad.[15] [16] Dizzy competed in the first-ever Apex Legends Pro-Am, securing 1st place, the tournament's MVP award, and a $23,000 charitable donation to the V Foundation.[17] Following the retirement of Dizzy in December 2019,[18] [19] [20] the team picked up their new talent Joseph "Frexs" Sanchez in the beginning of January, about a month later.[21] In July 23, 2022, after the ALGS 2022: Championship, Aidan "rocker" Grodin announced his departure from the team. On August 13, the team signed Dennis "Gilderson" Zachary as their third teammate.[22] On September 15, 2023 NRG announced their departure from Apex Legends.
On May 30, 2024, NRG announced the signing of the roster of ohNocturnal, FunFPS and reptar, once again reforming a roster under NRG.
NRG took over the League Championship Series slot and roster owned by Counter Logic Gaming in April 2023.[10] The team won the 2023 LCS Summer Finals after defeating Cloud9 in the finals by a score of 3–1.[23] At the 2023 League of Legends World Championship NRG qualified for the knockout stage after defeating the top seeded European team G2 Esports 2-0.[24]
See main article: San Francisco Shock. On August 3, 2016, NRG signed the members of the former Overwatch team from Luminosity Gaming.[25] NRG owned the Overwatch League team San Francisco Shock from the OWL's inagurial season to its final season in 2023. NRG owned an Overwatch Contenders team competing as the Shock's academy team up until May 8, 2019, when they withdrew their participation in the tournament.[26]
On May 31, 2024, after orgless team Students of the Game lost their first round matchup in the Overwatch Champions Series Dallas Major to Spacestation Gaming, it was announced that NRG had signed the roster, which would compete under the name NRG Shock, in reference to the former San Francisco Shock Overwatch League team.[27] It is important to note that the signing of this roster may have been funded thanks to the Esports World Cup Foundation Club Support Program, of which NRG is a member, and may have been influenced by a poll NRG did on their X account that allowed fans to select which esport NRG would reenter.[13]
NRG Esports signed the Kings of Urban roster after a strong finish in their region in the RLCS (Rocket League Championship Series) Season 1 in 2016.[28] RLCS Season 2 saw NRG bow out of the RLCS finals after a loss to Flipsid3 Tactics which resulted in NRG finishing 5-6th. In the off-season, GarrettG was picked up from his former team Orbit, replacing Sadjunior. This new roster achieved a 3rd-place finish in the RLCS Season 3 finals, losing out to the eventual champions in Northern Gaming.
After a disappointing last-place finish in the RLCS Season 4 Finals, NRG dropped mainstay and fan-favorite Jacob for rookie prodigy jstn. With jstn, NRG came one goal away from becoming the Rocket League world champions in Season 5. After going undefeated in both regular season and the first two days of the RLCS tournament, NRG met Dignitas in the Grand Finals. Dignitas reset the bracket with a 4–1 win in the first best-of-seven, which meant one final series would crown the champs. In Game 7, NRG trailed by one goal in the final moments, but jstn scored a last-second goal to send the game into overtime, where they ultimately lost.
NRG would continue to dominate RLCS regional play in seasons 6 and 7, only to fall short of expectations at both finals. Several days after the end of Season 7, NRG legend Fireburner announced he was stepping away from competitive Rocket League. Nearly a month later, it was announced that three-time RLCS champion Turbopolsa, a member of the same Dignitas team that defeated NRG for the world title in season 5, would replace Fireburner, becoming the first player to make a cross-region move from Europe to North America. Months after Turbopolsa's move to North America, NRG Esports would finally go on to win the Rocket League World Championship series on December 15, 2019, beating Renault Vitality in a seven-game Grand Finals with jstn scoring the winning goal in overtime. They would then drop Turbopolsa in order to sign SquishyMuffinz, a player coming from the recently disbanded team Cloud9. With this roster, they went on to win RLCS X North American Championship, and lose in the Grand Finals of Fall Major RLCS 11 to Team BDS.
NRG qualified for the Winter Major as the number 1 seed from NA, they went 1-2 in groups and were placed in the lower bracket against the eventual runner ups Team Queso, which they lost. NRG failed to qualify for the Spring Major, this was the first time NRG failed to qualify for an RLCS international LAN, but they qualified for the RLCS 2021-2022 Finals wildcard in Fort Worth. Although they failed to qualify for the Spring Major they still had enough points to qualify for the Main Event in Fort Worth. Following Version 1's loss against Moist Esports, NRG qualified for the Main Event in Fort Worth as the 3rd seed from North America.[29]
On October 8, 2020, NRG entered the Valorant scene, officially signing Damian "Daps" Steele, Sam "s0m" Oh, and coach Chet Singh.[30] NRG never found huge success within the Valorant scene, although consistently remaining as one of the top teams in North America. After being accepted into Riot Games' partnered leagues for 2023, NRG let go of their entire roster, deciding to build with only Sam "s0m" Oh from the old roster. Following the announcement, NRG signed the OpTic Gaming core of in-game leader Pujan "FNS" Mehta, Austin "crashies" Roberts, Victor "Victor" Wong, and Chet again as head coach, with the addition of Ardis "ardiis" Svarenieks, who previously had a highly successful 2022 run with FunPlus Phoenix.[31] They later signed Zander "thwifo" Kim as sixth man in December 2022, but parted ways in March 2023.[32] Later that month, NRG signed one of their content creators, Alan “ethos” Ruan, as their new sixth man. [33] NRG placed second in the Americas League and would qualify to 2023 Masters Tokyo, in which they placed fourth, and 2023 Valorant Champions, in which the team could not qualify to playoffs and were eliminated early.
On September 14, 2023, s0m announced his departure after his nearly three-year stint with NRG, opting to pursue streaming in the meantime. On September 19, 2023, FNS announced his departure, believing he was no longer a "correct fit" for the roster [34] and likewise pursuing streaming. On October 11, 2023, ardiis was signed to Natus Vincere, reuniting with his teammates from 2022. [35] On December 23, 2023, NRG announced the signing of 2023 Valorant Champions winners Max “Demon1” Mazanov and Ethan “Ethan” Arnold, as well as Jimmy "Marved" Nguyen who also competed under the OpTic Gaming core. [36] On July 16. 2024 Victor and Chet were let go by NRG management. They are currently trying to find a replacement for Chet. [37]
On November 27, 2023, NRG announced a return to competitive Counter-Strike with the announcement of a new North American roster, featuring former Team Liquid players Damian "daps" Steele and Josh "oSee" Ohm, former Complexity player Justin "FaNg" Coakley and former Evil Geniuses players Jadan "HexT" Postma and Vincent "Brehze" Cayonte.[38]
On January 23, 2016, NRG entered CS:GO with signing the ex-Method roster.[39] 11 months later on December 19, NRG completely changed their roster.[40] On July 27, 2017, Peter "ptr" Gurney, who was the only player remaining from the original roster, left the team, replaced by Bulgarian Cvetelin "CeRq" Dimitrov a month later.[41] [42] In March 2018, NRG won the iBUYPOWER Invitational Spring 2018, beating Team Liquid.[43] NRG's second victory came 5 months later in August 2018, after winning IEM Shangai 2018.[44] NRG defeated OpTic Gaming to win cs_summit 3 in November 2018.[45] On February 28, 2019, NRG signed former Cloud9 and MiBR member Tarık "tarik" Çelik to replace Jacob "FugLy" Medina.[46]
On September 26, 2019, the NRG roster was acquired by Evil Geniuses, ending the 4 year CS:GO campaign of the organization.[47]
NRG entered the Dragon Ball FighterZ scene in 2018 with the signing of Eduardo "HookGangGod" Deno.[48] His first win under the NRG banner was at Summit of Power 2018 where he took down SonicFox to take the title. Eduardo was also featured in his very own docuseries on Sony Crackle called "Hook'D". The 4-part series featured a cameo appearance from Shaquille O'Neal and debuted on July 27, 2018.[49] NRG released HookGangGod on January 13, 2020.[50]
On September 1, 2016, NRG acquired defending Smite World Champions team Panthera.[51] The team joined the organization following a hugely successful first 12 months; qualifying for Worlds as European runners up before dropping just 2 games on their way to the title. They followed this up by going 24–4 in the Spring split to qualify for the Dreamhack Masters in June, dominating the tournament and going undefeated 8–0 to be crowned Champions. The team has most recently won the 2016-2017 Smite World Champions. On December 13, 2018, NRG officially ended their Smite division.[52]
NRG signed New Jersey native Nairoby "Nairo" Quezada for their Super Smash Bros. division in August 2016.[53] On July 2, 2020, NRG cut ties with Nairo after allegations that he had been engaged in a sexual relationship with a minor in April 2017, effectively ending the team's Super Smash Bros. division.[54]
| Date | Game | Event | class=unsortable | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 12, 2016 | Rocket League | RLCS Season 2 NA Regionals | [55] | ||
| January 8, 2017 | Smite | Smite World Championship | [56] | ||
| May 6, 2017 | Rocket League | RLCS Season 3 NA Regionals | [57] | ||
| July 16, 2017 | Rocket League | FACEIT X Games | [58] | ||
| June 10, 2018 | Dragon Ball FighterZ | Summit of Power | [59] | ||
| July 29, 2018 | Smite | SMITE Summer Split 2018 | [60] | ||
| August 6, 2018 | Counter-Strike: Global Offensive | IEM Shanghai 2018 | [61] | ||
| October 13, 2018 | Rocket League | RLCS Season 6 NA Regionals | [62] | ||
| November 4, 2018 | Counter-Strike: Global Offensive | cs_summit 3 | [63] | ||
| May 11, 2019 | Rocket League | RLCS Season 7 NA Regionals | [64] | ||
| August 18, 2019 | Rocket League | Rocket League Summit 1 | [65] | ||
| September 9, 2019 | Super Smash Bros. Ultimate | Mainstage 2019 | [66] | ||
| September 29, 2019 | Overwatch | 2019 Overwatch League Grand Finals | [67] | ||
| December 15, 2019 | Rocket League | RLCS Season 8 | |||
| October 10, 2020 | Overwatch | 2020 Overwatch League Grand Finals | [68] | ||
| February 28, 2021 | Rocket League | RLCSX NA Winter Major | [69] |