Red Bull has gone a step further than team sponsorship, revealing the pickup of a team now to be called “Red Bulls”. The roster, previously going by the name “R.B.” had a successful run in the EU Summer Open CS Qualifiers and thus have secured their slot in the twelve team qualifier for the EU Challenger Series Summer Qualifier. The winner will secure a spot in the EU Challenger Series for the Summer Split.
The wait is over… proudly presenting @redbullslol ? Head over to https://t.co/jXsVJWfCwW for more information! pic.twitter.com/CxNR8par30
— Red Bull Gaming (@redbullgaming) May 19, 2017
The roster is comprised of Park “Thai” Kwon-hyuk, Kim “Moojin” Moo-jin, Felix “Magifelix” Bostrom, Tarik “Sedrion” Holz and Raymond “kaSing” Tsang, with British native Raymond Tsang the captain of the roster.
The team earned their spot in the CS qualifiers through beating the likes of inFerno eSports, Movistar Riders, Grossbill Esports and ValenciaCF eSports as the League of Legends scene becomes even more stacked with familiar non endemic brands. The qualifiers for the CS feature some established names in esports. Whether it’s Tricked eSport, Team LDLC or the likes of Millenium and Team Kinguin – there’s no shortage of familiar names for Red Bull to conquer should they wish to make it to the Challenger Series Summer Split.
The ultimate aim for any League of Legends player is to make it to the LCS – which can only be achieved through the CS. This is but the first step of many should a team wish to make it to the top of the League scene. That said, stauncher tasks will seriously await should a team wish to truly become the world’s best.
Over the weekend, League’s Mid Season Invitational came to a conclusion and the result was fairly predictable. Korean juggernaut SK Telecom T1 romped to victory by three games to one against G2 Esports in the grand final. The finals, held out in Brazil, saw a legend of the football game, Ronaldo, who has previously invested in esports, hand out medals to the winning five players. Whether or not the SK Telecom players truly appreciated just who was handing out the medals is debatable but the watching millions certainly did.
This is obviously not Red Bull’s first foray into esports. They’ve got a fairly lengthy history with individual player/team sponsorships and are still currently well connected with Dota 2 record-breakers OG. They run their own content portal and an event without either Red Bull or Monster present is obviously just not an esports event these days.
Esports Insider says: A team branded Red Bulls is a fairly surprising move given that normally the energy drink brand has tended to be more subtle with their esports advertising and/or branding. There’s a big qualifiers ahead, and it’ll be interesting to see if the roster can make it into the EU CS – the first of many steps to becoming the best.