Alliance (esports)

Lore & Background

Alliance was founded in April 2013, picking up the Dota 2 team No Tidehunter and StarCraft II player Naniwa. In December 2013, the organization expanded into League of Legends, competing in the European League of Legends Championship Series. They entered Super Smash Bros. in November 2014 with the signing of Armada, a Fox and Peach player. The organization left StarCraft II in July 2014 with the release of their last player, SortOf. In December 2016, GoodGame Agency spun Alliance into a player-owned organization, with some original members (though not all, such as the original No Tidehunter roster) and Armada receiving a percentage of the company. In April 2024, the team underwent rebranding, leaning into the color green and introducing a new stylized 'A' logo.

Reader's Guide

Alliance's significance lies primarily in its Dota 2 team's victory at The International 2013, where they finished the group stages with a perfect 14–0 record and only lost three games throughout the entire tournament, defeating former champions Natus Vincere 3–2 in the grand finals. This win represented the largest single prize money payout in esports history at the time. The organization also made history in League of Legends by winning the 2014 EU LCS Summer Split and qualifying for the 2014 World Championship. Alliance's transition to player ownership in December 2016, following its separation from parent organization GoodGame agency (owned by Amazon through Twitch), was a notable structural change in esports. The organization's legacy includes multiple roster changes across its Dota 2 and League of Legends teams, with the Dota 2 team failing to qualify for The International 2017 and the League of Legends team rebranding as Elements in January 2015 due to Riot Games sponsorship rules. Alliance's 2024 rebranding introduced a new visual identity and mascot.

Did You Know?

• Alliance's League of Legends team never won a season of the EU LCS—they finished 2nd in Spring 2014 and 4th in Summer 2014.
• Not all original members received equity in the 2016 player-owned transition; for example, the original No Tidehunter roster was excluded.

From a College Blog to a Franchise

The story of TSM begins not in a stadium but in a college-era blog. In September 2009, brothers Andy "Reginald" Dinh and Dan Dinh launched SoloMid.net, a site offering written strategy guides for League of Legends while the game was still in beta. Both were active members of a clan called All or Nothing, which later rebranded to SoloMid. A small circle of community players—SaintVicious, Chaox, TheOddOne, Locodoco, and Reginald himself—formed the nucleus of what would become a professional organization. Team SoloMid was officially established in January 2011, arriving just as Riot Games prepared to launch the first season of the League Championship Series. By that point, SaintVicious and Locodoco had already departed, and TheRainMan and Xpecial stepped in to complete the five-man roster. Jack Etienne assumed the role of general manager, and the groundwork for a lasting American esports brand was laid.

A Multi-Title Empire at Its Peak

By mid-2020, TSM had grown from a single League of Legends squad into a sprawling organization fielding rosters across ten different games, including Apex Legends, Counter-Strike 2, Fortnite, PUBG, Rocket League, and Valorant. In three of those titles—Fortnite, Apex Legends, and PUBG—the organization ran dual rosters: one competitive team aimed squarely at tournament victories and a second group of content creators who collaborated in a shared gaming house. The financial scale was remarkable; in December 2020, TSM was valued at $410 million with estimated annual revenue of $45 million. That momentum carried into 2021, when the organization inked a ten-year, $210 million naming-rights partnership with cryptocurrency exchange FTX, officially rebranding as Team SoloMid FTX. The same year, TSM entered the Dota 2 scene by acquiring Team Undying's roster, which had just defeated Evil Geniuses in the Dota Pro Circuit NA 2021/2022 Tour 1 Regional finals.

Trophies, Streaks, and Historic Firsts

TSM's competitive record is anchored by its League of Legends division, which claimed seven of the sixteen total LCS splits in North America—a dominance that defined the early era of the game's professional scene. Beyond LCS, the organization captured the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship in 2014, and its Counter-Strike: Global Offensive roster swept multiple international tournaments that same year before the division was dissolved by year's end. In the fighting game world, TSM's Super Smash Bros. roster produced one of the sport's most celebrated runs: ZeRo accumulated 56 consecutive tournament victories in Smash Bros. for Wii U, a streak that earned a Guinness World Record entry. Leffen, signed in 2015 as the organization's first fighting game player, capped his TSM tenure by defeating Armada 3-0 in the Evo 2018 grand finals. TSM also helped shape the competitive landscape by co-founding the Professional Esports Association in 2016 alongside six other North American organizations.

Scandal, Loss, and Reinvention

TSM's later years have been marked by both internal turmoil and external upheaval. In late 2021, multiple employees and players publicly accused CEO Reginald of workplace bullying and verbal abuse, with similar complaints reportedly surfacing as early as 2011. Riot Games conducted its own investigation and concluded that Dinh had engaged in a pattern of disparaging and bullying behavior, resulting in a $75,000 fine for TSM and a mandate for Dinh to complete sensitivity and executive training. TSM's internal review, by contrast, found no unlawful conduct. The organization's financial partnerships also unraveled: after FTX declared bankruptcy amid a major scandal in November 2022, TSM dropped the FTX branding and terminated the agreement early. Yet the organization has continued to evolve. In May 2024, TSM was selected for the Esports World Cup Foundation's Club Support Program, earning a one-time six-figure stipend for entering new titles and ongoing annual funding tied to viewership and fan engagement at the ESWC.