KSV of KSV eSports stands for Korea Silicon Valley, the merging of two ideologies and cultures into a single organization entering the esports world. KSV spawned after Kevin Chou's Kabam was sold for over $700 million dollars. Kevin along with other senior executives from Kabam came together and formed KSV eSports. They were present and right in the middle of Facebook and smartphone gaming revolutions and so they did not want to miss out on the explosion waiting to happen, which is esports. Korea and esports are no strangers to each other as you could say that they were the ones who started it all with their history with Starcraft, esports stadiums, and live broadcasts on television. In more recent years, Korea can be connected with producing the highest caliber of players for popular games such as League of Legends and Overwatch. Silicon Valley, on the other hand, is known for their tech start-ups, incubators, and venture capitalists who look to invest millions of dollars in the next big idea. Investors are continuously looking to invest into people and their ideas that could see their investment grow exponentially. The merger of these two ideologies and cultures is an exciting time in esports as more and more money is being invested into an already successful and growing industry.
KSV eSports leaped onto the esports scene after purchasing the rights for the Seoul franchise for the Overwatch League for a reported $20 million in the summer of 2017. To fill their roster, they picked up the player roster from the two-time APEX Champions, Lunatic-Hai, and named their team Seoul Dynasty. One stipulation of the Overwatch League was that teams were not allowed to use previous branding that existed prior to the Overwatch League (i.e. Lunatic-Hai or Immortals); they had to come up with a totally new team name and branding for their Overwatch League team. They didn't stop there as KSV eSports expanded into Blizzard's other game, Heroes of the Storm. And to wrap up 2017 with a bang, they acquired recently crowned League of Legends World Champions Samsung Galaxy. KSV had the money of Silicon Valley and the talent of Korea at their disposal and they wanted to be taken seriously.
With the franchising of League of Legends and Overwatch League, there has been a trend with how organisations support their players. In addition to the obvious in-game support, organisations are starting to build larger support networks around their players to help them with all aspects of their lives including mentally, physically, and financially. It is known in the industry that a player's career can be short lived and their well being after they retire from playing is as much on the organisations as many of these players are still very young. KSV eSports partnered with Mirae Asset, one of Asia's largest independent financial services firms, to provide all their athletes with important financial planning services. In addition, KSV were able to land other partnerships with Razer and NETGEAR's Nighthawk Pro Gaming. Razer is no stranger to the esports scene and has been sponsoring teams for more than a decade and their deal with KSV spans 2 years across all of the organisation's teams, becoming the exclusive provider of gaming peripherals. NETGEAR became a jersey sponsor for the Overwatch League's Seoul Dynasty with their brand Nighthawk Pro Gaming appearing on Seoul's jersey. Nighthawk Pro Gaming has been a leader in high-performance networking hardware.
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