My take for maybe either these team get partnership
EMEA : team spirit, gaimin gladiators, sk gaming
APAC : FENNEL/reject, alter ego/bigetron, Dplus/HLE,
NA : pain gaming/red canids?, flyquest, shopify
CHINA : weibo, rare atom, LGD, RNG
And Team falcons idk which region they gonna be
Edit: G2 doing too good and im forget they are originally the guard
It is better to say that the boss of RA feels there is no profit to be made in League of Legends, and their manager once spoke extremely rudely on the competition stage with phrases like 'can fight Continue fight cannot fight quick game' Ultimately, the reason given by Tencent was 'buying back the slot,' leading to RA's exit from League of Legends.
In fact, both LGD and RNG are on the brink of bankruptcy, and RNG were salary scandals during the first review in 2024. WBG has formed teams twice in the past, but after the establishment of VCTCN, one of their managers once posted, "The game is great, but unfortunately, it was ruined by the domestic servers," and then Kangkang won the championship.
I think I'll pay more attention to this promotion tournament, as the enthusiasm of many teams is being drained. Regarding what kind of collaborators I think will emerge in the future, perhaps a vertical-screen live-streaming platform may invest in a team, as vertical video platforms (like TikTok) are very keen on acquiring the broadcasting rights for competitions. Although TikTok has not directly invested in any clubs, I believe it may be possible in the future. Additionally, some teams that show a friendly interest in China, like mouz, might be very interested in testing the waters in China. The only other team left might be KBG (Keep Best Gaming), which is backed by a Chinese real estate company, or RW (Rogue Warriors Esports Club), although they currently have no PC gaming projects, their backing capital is ROG. TES also has huge financial backing, but it's unclear how much interest they have in VALORANT.
EMEA : GX out, team spirit in (2031 if the war continue in 2026)
APAC : No change (Before playoffs I would have say RRQ out Boom in)
NA : EG out, G2 in. Leviatan out EXL in. Furia out Canids in.
CHINA : TEC out, AG out, Invictus gaming in, LGD in.
But to be fair they are a lot of chance they are no new partner team in 2027 if they reduce the number of partner team as it is considered by Faria
What is gaimin gladiators ?
Behind tec is a large traditional sports newspaper in China, and it is much wealthier than you might imagine. AG's current plan is to globalize, having established more branches. LGD is on the verge of bankruptcy and is now being kept afloat by the Hangzhou government, while the Hangzhou government's new favorite seems to be BLG. IG will only focus on LOL. If IG fails to qualify for the world championship, future investments will be reduced.
From a capital point of view, I don't think the current 12 VCTCN teams (including drg and xlg, especially xlg) will be removed from the VCT ranks, but I think some teams may be less interested in Valorant, such as AG. IG is one of the most popular clubs in China, but their new capitalists seem to be only interested in League of Legends, especially one of their management, and has made a lot of unbelievable statements.
8 partner team
AMER: FLY, G2, KRU, LEV, LOUD, MIBR, SEN, SR
CN: BLG, DRG, EDG, FPX, RA, WBO, WOL, XLG
EMEA: FLCN, FNC, FUT, KC, TH, MOUZ, NAVI, VP
PAC: BME, DFM, GEN, PRX, RRQ, T1, TLN, ZETA
but to be honest i think riot will create more regions, like dividing America into South and North with 8 teams, 2 of which are coming from Ascension
Going to 16 team with 2 groups was one of the idea I have in the past (Same idea for APAC with East and South conferences), but now I totally changed my mind, you can't split NA and SA, it's not possible, the market are not big enough, more team will just make the pie smaller, 4 team for NA is enough to cover all the market, 2 team for BR is already enough, 1 for LAS is good, and LAN need at least 1 team.
NA is the fastest shrinking market (The problem with NA is that they are trash to find new talent, and T2 is now in shamble), if another league is created that would be because Eurasian market is continue to grow (Korea and India grow fast, VN and OCE doesnt have a spot, Russia will be back after war, MENA doesnt have a team), so probably a split between East Asia and South Asia where South asia could steal some EMEA part (MENA or Russia for exemple)
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