Report says B Site signs six franchise teams for March start

An ESPN report says that six teams have signed contracts to compete in the “B Site” league, according to unnamed sources.

Set to begin in March of 2020 and conflict with the ESL Pro League, the new team-owned league operating under the codename “B Site” welcomed six teams to the league’s franchise slots and a partial ownership stake in the league, according to the report. Those teams reportedly include the following:

• Cloud9
• MIBR
• Gen.G
• Dignitas
• MAD Lions
• c0ntact Gaming

ESPN’s report has c0ntact Gaming listed under the moniker CR4ZY. c0ntact gaming announced its buyout of CR4ZY’s Counter-Strike roster last week. There have also been no filings from c0ntact since the organization filed the trademarks and logos for the Paris Legion Call of Duty League team in October 2019.

Six teams agree to terms with B Site, league lacks top-ten team talent

If accurate, the report means that those teams have paid, or have agreed to pay, B Site’s $2 million buy-in that allows them access to the league’s revenue-sharing program and a partial ownership stake in the league.

Cloud9 President Dan Fiden and Duncan “Thorin” Shields have been the public face of B Site over the past week, despite the fact the league itself hasn’t officially been announced. Both were involved in an interesting weekend for CSGO that saw the conflict between ESL and B Site over control of CSGO’s tournament circuit boil over.

Tournament organizer FACEIT will produce B Site and began operating in that capacity last week when the official ECS Twitter account posted a list of talent that is confirmed to be a part of the league earlier last week. 

After eight seasons, FACEIT shelved the Esports Championship Series to produce North America’s new tournament circuit, possibly due to growing concerns that ECS would be unable to compete with the ESL Pro Tour, Blast Premier, and B Site.

After a weekend of turbulence in the Counter-Strike community, the list of teams contradicts comments by league representative Thorin that B Site has already won the “talent wars.”

While teams like Cloud9 and MIBR have worldwide brand recognition, the only other team that brings something substantial to the table is Dignitas. The organization recently reentered CSGO by reuniting the original Ninjas in Pyjamas core, including Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg, Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund, Adam “friberg” Friberg, and Richard “Xizt” Landström. Former NiP player and in-game leader Robin “fifflaren” Johansson returns to his teammates as Dignitas’ head coach.

Regardless of brand and player appeal, B Site currently lacks a member team ranked in the top ten of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. MIBR is currently the highest-ranked team set to attend B Site. They are ranked number 14 in the world.

A great league must have great talent to draw viewers to it. Without the views from fans that want to watch teams ranked in the top ten of Counter-Strike play against one another, B Site might struggle. 

In what is becoming an interesting trend around B Site news, most announcements and developments concerning the league have come from sourced reports rather than official press releases from the organization. When those involved with B Site talk about the league, they treat the reports as fact and often reinforce information contained in them.

The league is set to start some time in March and will directly conflict with ESL’s premier circuit tournament, Pro League. Pro League announced the relegation of 24 four teams from Pro League but failed to notify the teams before the announcement, eliciting outrage from the community and some players.