Vainglory Welcomes Five of the World’s Top Esports Organizations To Its Professional Gaming Lineup

Fnatic, Echo Fox, NRG, Rogue and Immortals Debut Dedicated Teams
Ahead of Vainglory’s Spring Season Launch in March

Vainglory’s
Full 2017 Esports Calendar Revealed

SAN MATEO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Super Evil Megacorp, creators of Vainglory, the world’s leading mobile
esport, today welcomes five of the world’s largest esports franchises —
Fnatic, Echo Fox, NRG, Rogue and Immortals — to its professional gaming
lineup. Each team will compete in Vainglory’s Spring Season, which kicks
off in March, marking the start of Vainglory’s second full seasonal
esports year. These teams join the likes of TSM, Cloud9, G2 Esports, SK
Gaming, Team Secret, mousesports and DetonatioN Gaming in high-stakes
competition that will culminate in December at the second annual
Vainglory World Championship Event. To celebrate the arrival of these
new professional organizations, Super Evil will be hosting all five
teams at the company’s “Super Evil Lair” in San Mateo for a “Run the
Gauntlet” Preseason Invitational on February 26th, which will be
broadcast live on twitch.tv/vainglory.

Headquartered in London, since 2004, Fnatic is a leading and global
esports organization with professional teams in popular games including
League of Legends, CounterStrike, Dota 2, Overwatch, Heroes of the
Storm, and now, as its first mobile esport, Vainglory. One of the
fastest-growing esports franchises, Echo Fox is already having a
promising 2017, having just acquired nine new fighting game players, now
boasting one of the strongest and most accomplished fighting game
community rosters in the world. The team, which is also currently
competing in the North American League of Legends Champion Series Spring
Split, is making its foray into mobile esports with its Vainglory team.
Los Angeles-based NRG, which currently ranks first in North America in
Rocket League and first in the world for Smite, debuts a Vainglory team
full of veterans with a great deal of Championship experience. The
relatively new Rogue, best known for playing Overwatch, Counter-strike:
Global Offensive and Call of Duty, and recently, H1Z1, took home the
largest prize pool tournament ever for Overwatch in the APAC Premier in
China, and welcomes its Vainglory roster as its fifth team in the
franchise. Immortals enters Vainglory esports with the signing of all
three players formerly of Hammers Velocity, North America’s Spring
Champions and Worlds semifinalists. The full team rosters for the five
incoming pro organizations are posted on Vainglory’s
official website.

“These are some of the most diverse and high-profile teams in all of
esports,” said Kristian Segerstrale, CEO of Super Evil Megacorp. “To
have them not only recognize Vainglory’s growth over the past year, but
also create their first-ever teams dedicated to a mobile game, means the
competition in the 2017 season is going to be more fierce than ever
before. These teams are owned and operated by some of the most respected
names in sports and entertainment, and there’s tremendous opportunity
for everyone involved to usher in the next defining moments of esports.”

Amongst some of the high-profile names across sports and entertainment
behind these teams are former NBA champion and Echo Fox owner Rick Fox,
NBA Hall of Famer and co-owner of NRG Shaquille O’Neal, MLB World Series
champions and NRG co-owners Alex Rodriguez and Jimmy Rollins, Sacramento
Kings co-owners Andy Miller and Mark Mastrov, who also co-own NRG, famed
music producer, DJ and co-owner of Rogue, Steve Aoki, and Lionsgate’s
President of Interactive Ventures and Games, Peter Levin, who heads a
team of Immortals investors that includes Memphis Grizzlies co-owner
Steve Kaplan.

“For Fnatic, to join the game and pro-circuit of Vainglory can be best
expressed as ‘one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind,’”
Said Patrik Sättermon, Chief Gaming Officer for Fnatic. “Since the
launch of Vainglory, we’ve been closely following its development into a
great and mature esports title. We believe there’s a bright future for
mobile based esports which signals a shift from the PC-dominated titles
until now. Fnatic and its very talented Vainglory roster are looking
forward to excite our fans straight out of our main base in London.”

The first to become a part of Vainglory’s recently announced Home City
Program, Fnatic will be claiming London as its home. There, the team
will help build the Vainglory community by arranging local tournaments,
meetups and more. The Home City Program enables teams to connect with
the local fan community and players through events and local pride,
including hosting LAN parties and attending viewing events.

“Echo Fox prides itself on being on the leading edge of esports,” said
team owner Rick Fox. “Vainglory caught our attention due to its
explosive growth and Super Evil Megacorp’s dedication to building a
thriving competitive ecosystem. The players that we’ve signed have
already shown their talents and we are proud to be leading the charge in
mobile esports. I’m glad to welcome FooJee, MICSHE, CullTheMeek, and
LoneDelphi to our organization.”

Vainglory generated incredible growth in 2016 in terms of active
players, esports views and overall community engagement. Vainglory
tripled its active player community on Android, generated more than 450
million minutes of competition watched on streaming platforms and
celebrated its first-ever World Championship tournament at the legendary
TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, which garnered more than 25,000
concurrent viewers from fans watching at home. Vainglory is forging the
path for mobile games as they shift from short-session, standalone
gaming toward deep, shared experiences.

Vainglory’s full 2017 esports calendar has also been revealed today.
Spring Season will kick off in March, Summer season in June and Autumn
season in September, culminating with a World Championship in December,
followed by the winter offseason. More details can be found at vainglorygame.com.

Vainglory can be downloaded for free from the App
Store, Google
Play and the Amazon
Appstore.

About Super Evil Megacorp

Super Evil Megacorp is a team of masters-at-their-craft game developers.
The company’s flagship title, Vainglory, is the world’s #1 mobile
esport, boasting more than 3,000 teams, 1 billion matches played, and
leagues in North America, Europe, Japan, China, Korea and Southeast
Asia. Vainglory experienced a monumental first year in esports in
2016, awarding the largest prize pool ever for a mobile esport event at
$120,000, generating 25,000+ concurrent views for its inaugural World
Championship, and welcoming some of the largest esports franchises in
the world to the Vainglory lineup including TSM, Cloud9, G2 Esports, SK
Gaming, Team Secret, mousesports and DetonatioN Gaming. Five more
diverse and high profile esports franchises – Fnatic, Echo Fox, NRG,
Rogue and Immortals – have now joined the competition, making Vainglory
poised for an even more eventful 2017. Super Evil Megacorp is currently
45 people strong and is hiring. The company has raised $41M in funding
from backers including General Catalyst, Index Ventures, Signia Venture
Partners, Korea Investment Partners, CrossCut Ventures, Initial Capital,
The Raine Group, ZhenFund, Yuri Milner, and Jim Breyer of Breyer
Capital. Super Evil Megacorp is based in San Mateo, CA. For more
information, visit http://www.superevilmegacorp.com/
and http://www.vainglorygame.com/.

Contacts

fortyseven on behalf of Super Evil Megacorp
Chrissy Kelleher,
212-391-4707
evil@fortyseven.com