c0ntact Gaming Looking To Sell Their Roster

The team which was built around CR4ZY’s core roster is now in the midst of a transfer sign off. Not only is c0ntact Gaming a million-dollar organisation but they’ve also been on a huge decline within the past couple of months, a drop so big that not even a million-dollar roster could patch things up. Founder and CEO Drew McCourt has a lot of people depending on him to produce a profitable roster. He’s done it twice in Call of Duty and Overwatch, all he needs is a good lineup of entry fraggers and one talented AWPer. The team finally found their first official earnings at Dreamhack Masters Winter, an S-Tier event full of talented teams. C0ntact Gaming had a terrible finish where they would’ve earned some cash either way. It looks like c0ntact Gaming is the one million dollar roster that can’t scrape up some victories. 

THE START OF C0NTACT GAMING 

While Drew McCourt has had an insane amount of success in the industry of esports, c0ntact Gaming isn’t one of his best projects. The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) lineup entered the scene in January of this year after acquiring the core roster from CR4ZY. Nothing about the team seemed to work which led to a year-long season of disappointing placements. Lotan “Spinx” Giladi and Rigon “rigoN” Gashi joined the team in October along with a plan to generate a stream of profit.

Based on their tournament results, it’s easy to say that didn’t exactly work out. They had a chance to turn things around at Flashpoint Season 1 and 2 due to their founder status. C0ntact Gaming had terrible turnouts in both events despite coming off of a successful qualifier for DreamHack Winter. The worst part was that c0ntact Gaming couldn’t even beat independent teams with little funding. Anytime they went up against a Tier 1 roster it was instantly game over.

The only time c0ntact Gaming was ever mentioned in the media was when they spent money on new players. Besides that, there wasn’t much to discuss up until rumours spread of a potential transfer list. It’s clear that the European organisation isn’t profiting from their CS:GO division. Not only do they always tend to lose, but nobody is rooting for them. Ever since they began to limit their postings on social media, fans have stopped tuning into their matches on Twitch. 

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HOW GOOD WAS CR4ZY?

Before signing with c0ntact Gaming, CR4ZY had a pretty good run in 2019. Was it worth over a million dollars, though? That year alone, they earned roughly two hundred thousand dollars, around seventy-percent of their lifetime earnings. The c0ntact Gaming deal was worth an estimated 1.5 million dollars, reported by multiple sources.

Alongside CR4ZY, each player was worth nearly sixty thousand dollars. C0ntact Gaming was willing to sign them for an extra forty grand each, and based on Nestor "LETN1" Tanić’s contract that was for nearly seven months. The contracts were obviously inflated, but c0ntact Gaming was confident in their acquisition. Based on their results from 2020, maybe they were a little too comfortable with the signings. 

DOWNHILL FINISH 

The roster changes within the past couple of months haven’t done the org justice. C0ntact Gaming has become a custom to losing event after event. They’ve become flustered while playing and it’s starting to show. Most recently they faced off against FaZe at the DreamHack Winter Masters which didn’t turn out too well. They choked shots in overtime and earned another last-place finish. Their debut year was a major upset for McCourt and his lineup of investors. It was far from perfect, and they clearly have a lot of work ahead of them. Trying to sell a roster is hard enough as it is, but during a pandemic is a different story.

Multiple players have become inactive since joining the org which hasn’t helped out with their resumes. C0ntact Gaming’s lineup is great when they spread apart and put themselves in the spotlight. This team just doesn’t bond well compared to others; it’s almost like the one team that can’t play together. Too much focus was put towards the players as individuals rather than as a team. Connections are what lead to winning, and winning is what makes an org profitable. McCourt clearly knows a lot about finishing first, but this time he’s getting a taste of last place.     

After playing for nearly twelve months, the org has earned only a thousand dollars from participation. These players have earned much more than that in the past but couldn’t put numbers on the board for c0ntact Gaming. Both the org and its lineup have bright futures ahead of them, it all depends on how they play their cards. McCourt might second guess his career in CS:GO and move onto a different game. Profiting from the roster is almost out of the picture considering the players have been paid for zero achievements.  
 

Images via c0ntact Gaming