After weeks of controversy and backlash, T1 has decided to close its Twitter account and Discord server.
T1 League of Legends is shutting downs its main channels of communication without explanations. T1 is receiving criticism from all sides, and instead of dealing with the issue, the organization decided to go silent. It is a PR disaster for the organization that recently was announced as part of the franchised LCK.
Trouble started on November 2 when T1 support Lee “Effort” Sang-ho accidentally leaked the alleged hiring of Nick “LS” De Cesare as the team’s new coach. T1 and Korean fans immediately reacted to the news by questioning the team’s decision.
LS is not a popular character among Korean fans because of a series of statements made by the caster back in 2019. The unforgiving fans proceeded to send funeral arrangements to the T1 headquarters in Seoul and placed a truck in front of the building with a message for the team’s leadership. The harassment didn’t stop there, fans went after LS’ grandmother, forcing the caster to shut down his own social media accounts.
While all of this took place, T1 failed to release any kind of statement asking the fans to stop. Then, things got worse.
On November 13, T1 announced its new coaching staff that included returning Lee “Zefa” Jae-min and Yang “Daeny” Dae-in. Signing a World Champion coaching staff seemed to appease the Korean fans, but this time, it’ was the western fans who turned against T1.
Fans and personalities in the industry reacted to the situation, calling out T1 on its cowardice and for seeming to allow fans to affect its internal decisions. Casters and pro players alike expressed their discontent with the situation.
All things said and done, if T1 @LSXYZ9 wasn’t supposed to happen, he’d have talked about in spades by now.
Seems like something went VERY wrong given the fact that he hasn’t come out to talk about it.
— Bwipo (@Bwipo) November 13, 2020
On Discord, T1’s moderators took a stand and deleted all messages that contained any type of hate speech. T1 reacted by removing those moderators, only generating more controversy around the team.
Later on, the organization took to Twitter to explain its decision to shut down the Discord server altogether. The plan was to educate those individuals acting as moderators and to work towards things getting better. In a matter of hours, however, things got even worse.
On November 16, T1 shut down its League of Legends Twitter account out of the blue. It happened just hours before the start of the free agency period, arguably the most important day of the pro League of Legends offseason. At the time of this report, the account remained down.
T1’s main account published for the last time on November 15 about a PUBG tournament.
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