#ESports #TeamLiquid #BBCNews Team Liquid is one of the world’s most successful professional competitive gaming teams.
Reporting for BBC Tech Now, Andrew Rogers has a tour of the training facilities in Utrecht and finds out how players prepare for this summer’s massive multi-game tournament: the Esports World Cup.
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00:00This city is home to its big university, its stunning winding canals and its ancient architecture.
00:16But it's also home to something just a little bit more modern.
00:21Yes, tucked away in the Netherlands' fourth biggest city is one of the world's most successful e-sports teams,
00:29Team Liquid, one of the top names in professional competitive gaming.
00:35We're here to catch up with some of its players, like Yanya, getting ready for this summer's massive multi-game tournament, the e-sports World Cup.
00:42We get a lot of excitement, a lot of adrenaline, like the best feeling ever.
00:50He plays a three-a-side action shooter called Apex.
00:54Everybody wants to be here because this is literally the best quality of everything.
00:58And as part of Team Liquid, competes in front of crowds of thousands.
01:02I think we have a really, really good chance to win this time.
01:04Yeah?
01:05Yeah.
01:06I don't know, we have been practicing a lot.
01:08Of course, everything can happen, right?
01:10Competitive gaming is big around the world.
01:13It draws passionate crowds of fans into arenas and thousands more watch online.
01:17This team is one of the top contenders at this year's e-sports World Cup.
01:22And you can see why.
01:23I mean, look at all these trophies that they've won over the years.
01:26Chicago, Malta.
01:28This one here is actually from last year's e-sports World Cup.
01:31It's for the Dota 2 competition.
01:34Back for its second year, the e-sports World Cup boasts the biggest prize pot ever in professional gaming.
01:41Over seven weeks of competition, $70 million will be won.
01:45That's cash that pays for places like this.
01:47This is one of the best equipped e-sports facilities in the world with everything you need to be a professional e-sports player.
01:59Meals are provided in the kitchen here.
02:01A lot of the players actually live upstairs.
02:04There's rooms for training in.
02:06There's actually one just round the corner where you can go live on Twitch.
02:11But there's so much equipment in here and all of that costs a lot of money.
02:15And one of the people responsible for making those numbers add up is Victor Hussen, who founded Team Liquid all the way back in 2000.
02:22I started Team Liquid just as a hobby.
02:24I was a StarCraft player myself and we formed what was back then called a clan.
02:28A few friends basically playing together.
02:30And this was all meant to be a hobby just for passion.
02:35And it stayed that way for the first 10 or so years of Team Liquid until eventually e-sports started getting bigger and bigger.
02:43And I realized that I could actually do this as a full time job.
02:48This office must have cost quite a lot of money.
02:50It's a huge business.
02:51Can you just kind of give us a sense of how big?
02:53E-sports has evolved to have an audience of about 500 million people nowadays.
02:57And the commercial side is a full fledged sport with investors and partners, sponsors, merchandise sales, media rights.
03:04Yeah, Team Liquid is riding that wave.
03:06And that also makes it really important that we do invest into these physical locations where our staff can work out of, our players can practice out of.
03:14And we can basically be the best version of ourselves.
03:16Not everyone in e-sports has cheered on this World Cup, though, because of it being based in and largely funded by Saudi Arabia.
03:23Some individual players have said they don't want to play there because of the kingdom's human rights record.
03:28The boss of the e-sports World Cup, though, has told the BBC that everyone is welcome there.
03:33It has been a sensitive and a tricky topic to navigate for Team Liquid.
03:37We've been very outspoken that we believe in e-sports for all.
03:41And that means in particular for almost the last 15 years we've really done our best to empower the LGBTQ community within e-sports as well.
03:49And of course there's a contradiction there and between the historic human rights track record of Saudi Arabia.
03:56And so that's been difficult to navigate.
03:59At the same time, we believe that if we want to be around five years from now, ten years from now, we need to be playing in the e-sports World Cup.
04:06We need to be playing in the biggest events.
04:08As part of their plans to win big at this year's e-sports World Cup, Team Liquid have been signing up new players too.
04:15Like Leifi, who plays football simulator EAFC, which you might know by its old name FIFA.
04:20In our team, we are all friends.
04:22So obviously you want yourself to perform best.
04:25But if you don't have the chance because you got knocked out, you want some other guys from the team to perform at their highest level.
04:32I think training and preparation is everything.
04:34We have performance coaches and mental coaches, which are helping us a lot in our head, which I think it's one of the most mental sports there is.
04:43Obviously sitting in your chair behind your console isn't that tough physically, but mentally it's really draining.
04:50So I think you need to be ready for that.
04:52A lot of famous football players have their own celebrations.
04:55I have my own celebrations.
04:56Can we see it?
04:57It's this one.
04:58He's hoping for some big wins.
05:00So too will the e-sports giants like Team Liquid.
