Pattrick’s Thoughts - A look into PUBG Esports Global Partner Team Program
The last few weeks on the PUBG Esports scene have been fruitful as we’ve seen both the final matches of the 2022 PUBG Global Championship and the announcements regarding the next year’s esports ecosystem. While a lot of the details are still yet to be published, especially considering the specific tournaments in each of the regions, the biggest topic coming out of it is the announcement about the Global Partner Team Program.
Let’s start with a positive — thank god Krafton is finally moving forward with team skins and a global partner program, which is surpassing the smaller regional programs we’ve seen in last two years. The former has been on the mind of players, orgs and PUBG Esports community at least since they were last-minute cancelled ahead of the 2019 PGC, while the move from a regional partner system into a single Global program makes things more consistent and allows orgs to work more closely with Krafton around the long-term plans and financial stability of the esport.
Having Partner teams and program however brings its own challenges, mostly due to the format it brings to the ecosystem and having to pick a select number of orgs as your partners — this has been something that every TO moving to this system, from OWL and Riot with their franchise leagues, ESL and their Louvre Agreement, to HCS and Rainbow Six with their partner programs. In the end, everyone has to find a balance between having just the right number of strong partners that they believe are most deserving of a spot in the program and are most likely to invest long-term into esport while minimizing the effect of closing at least some of slots or opportunities to the open circuit and potentially having some teams leave the scene due to not being selected to the partnership.
With that in mind, I believe that those are one of, if not the main, reasons why Krafton decided to go with only a 1-year-long partnership with the teams. This will put pressure on the partner teams to make sure that they will put the significant investment and will strive to do as best as possible to keep their slot for 2024, and at the same time, it’ll keep the door open to the non-selected teams to stay in the ecosystem or join the PUBG Esports in case of orgs that aren’t currently taking part, and try to work their way in 2023 to get their place in the Partner Program in next application process.
As for the number of Partner teams, I think that the decided number at around 8 is a decent starting number, which should allow Krafton to pick the strongest partners while making the program small enough that they’ll be internally able to quickly note any potential feedbacks or issues and take care of them before any potential future expansion. This number also ensures that a huge number of spots in the PUBG Global Series and Global Championship should remain open to the rest of the esports circuit without making the regional qualifiers too much of a bloodbath, especially in the big regions of Europe, China and South Korea.
And that leaves us with big guessing who will be selected as the Partner Team for 2023. As we learned recently, in the application process Krafton will check any of the potential teams based on 3 categories:
Governance — overall status of the team such as stability, future commitment plans, and legal structure of the organization
Fandom — depending on the team’s value and presence to PUBG Esports’ audience
History — team’s overall history in PUBG Esports such as previous participation records in PUBG Esports events and the general health of the players & coaching staff
Based on that, here’s who I think has the biggest shot at making it to the Global Partner Team Program for 2023:
EMEA
FaZe Clan - a pretty easy choice as they have been on the PUBG Esports scene for five years, being one of if not the best team in Europe in each of those years, they’re one of the biggest esports organisations in the world period, there’s great internal support within the team and they have a known name across the entire PUBG landscape.
Natus Vincere - another near-lock as they joined PUBG Esports in the spring of 2018, and have been consistently amongst the best in the region while providing a significant investment into their roster — no matter if it was the original ex-Grubie roster, the PEL super team, or the current squad of Tornado Energy core + Ubah. Oh, and they have won PGC 2022, that helps as well.
Twisted Minds - the more I think about the partner program, the harder my call on NLT guys is… There’s probably no team that was as consistent on both the EU and global level as them in the last 2+ years, but TM just recently joined PUBG Esports and they’re a fairly new organisation (they were formed only in 2021). If they have good enough backing and a long-term plan to satisfy Krafton though, I think that they will become a partner team.
Outside contenders:
Entropiq - a pretty well-run organisation that has already confirmed they’ll support their current roster, and they have good results in 2022. They however don’t have the brand recognition and history of FaZe and NAVI.
BBL Esports - they’re not having the history or recent results of other teams, but they can be an interesting pick to Krafton just on sheer Turkish audience alone.
ENCE and Heroic - two Scandinavian orgs that have great brand recognition and history in PUBG Esports, even though their results were mediocre recently.
North America
Soniqs - FIVE PCS titles, a PGI.S championship, strongly supported through and after COVID, build their name through PUBG, has one of the biggest players on the Western scene in TGLTN. Easy pick for a partner.
Contenders if NA gets a second slot:
eUnited - they have been in-and-out PUBG Esports since 2017, but they’ve built a strong case for themselves in my opinion by staying after a disappointing 2021 and building their way to be the only team on Soniqs level in 2022 + finish 4th in PGC.
Luminosity - technically could be considered as the first PUBG global champion org (Gamescom 2017 Squad), and STK core has a huge history in the scene, but are they going to invest in PUBG long-term?
Asia
South Korea
Gen.G - one of the biggest orgs in Korea, has been in PUBG since day 1, is a two-time Global Champion, and has a ton of regional titles across the last five years. There’s a bit of uncertainty around them because of the last few months not being good for the PUBG team, but as long as they put their name into the application form, they’re in.
Freecs - another big name in the KR scene, with a huge brand name and a ton of success on the regional stage and the advantage of AfreecaTV being THE partner of Krafton in Korea since the start of PUBG Esports. The number of partner teams puts them a bit on the edge in my opinion, but they have a good chance to make it through.
Contender:
Danawa Esports - They’ve been the only org to stay on Gen.G and Freecs level across the last years, especially after Ghibli’s roster moved to Gen.G, and they’ve been providing great team support, but they fall below them when it comes to the financial and branding aspect of things.
China
(this one will be a headache to Krafton)
17Gaming - Runners-up of PCS Asia AND PGC 2022, four straight 2nd or 3rd place finishes in PCL, one of the biggest and most fan-beloved orgs in China across its history, supported heavily because of Shou and Douyu’s paychecks.
Petrichor Road - owned and led by one of the game’s biggest names in Aixleft, backed by his multi-million Yuan contract with Douyu, 3-time champions of PCS Asia and doing well on PCL circuit as well.
Four Angry Men - GodV’s team does not have the top results they did in previous years, and it’s unclear if they’ll remain a traffic powerhouse they were now that GodV and potentially Forever are to retire from PUBG Esports, but with a big fanbase and Huya’s backing, they’re a strong candidate.
NewHappy - triple PCL champions, PCS Asia and PGC21 Champions, but the question is whether they’ll keep their roster together for 2023 and whether their new financial backing and fanbase can challenge 17, 4AM and PeRo’s.
Thailand
Daytrade Gaming - the only Thai team to finish Top 10 in the PGC Finals in the SUPER era, two-time champions of Thai Series and PCS APAC. They will probably be challenged by other teams when it comes to the fanbase and financial support they can provide.
Buriram United Esports - a pretty good fanbase, great financial backing due to being literally an esports division of a football club, have been consistently around the top of APAC since 2020.
Made in Thailand - they don’t have the results that can be compared to Daytrade and Buriram, but they’re a MASSIVE name on the regional scene thanks to their history on the scene and their link to FPSThailand and Cuteboy (two of the biggest names in Thai FPS Esports)
