Hi there. It has come to my attention from the HLTV.org Counter-Strike - Global Offensive (CS:GO) website that the Danish organization North has announced that they will end operations.
The news link from HLTV is here. Screenshots that are here are from the HLTV website.
In a joint statement, Parken Sport & Entertainment - the company that operates F.C. Copenhagen - and Nordisk Film cited the coronavirus pandemic's effects on the esports industry in their explanation for ceasing their investment in the organisation.
"We are of course sorry that we now have to close the Danish-based esports company North, which has left a nice mark on international esports," Lars Bo Jeppesen, chairman of North and director of Parken Sport & Entertainment, said.
"We have searched the market to get one or more co-investors on board, but have unfortunately not found the right match. It would require significant continued investment to create a sustainable business in the future and therefore we believe that the sole responsibility for our overall business is to focus all our focus on our core business in FC Copenhagen, Parken and Lalandia, just as Nordisk Film will focus on its large core and growth businesses."
Counter Strike right now has online only games now as Local Area Network (LAN) tournaments and travel are not happening right now under lockdown rules. In the first part of the quote above, the citing of the coronavirus pandemic effect is an okay reason but I think there is more. In 2020 and 2021, the North CS:GO team has not been seen really playing online Counter Strike against top 30 teams and at a big online tournaments. This team has not been competitive in the last 2 of their 4 years in operations. North's last biggest tournament win was at the Dreamhack Masters Stockholm 2018 Tournament with an upset final win against the Danish team Astralis. (See Ranking Chart and achievements below)
The last part of the quote above mentions about trying to get one or more investors on board. I think it is good that they tried to get more funds. However it is a bit of a hard sell to entice investors to put in money on a team that has not been performing well during the online period of Counter Strike. There is also the factor of the existance of the Valorant First Person Shooter game (from Riot Games) that was released in June 2020.
Since the Dreamhack Masters Stockholm 2018 LAN tournament win, North has been performing poorly in their games. Many roster changes were made but the new players into the team did not make great impact into their performance. A handful of outside analysts and critics have been speculating bad management, poor scouting of players for North's sub-par results. You can find comments from the main HLTV article and from the reddit thread.
The North team had a mix of Danish and Swedish players. Their newest player grux who is Swedish was recruited back in January 19, 2021. According to the HLTV website, the North team has not played at all in the year 2021 and their last match was back in Dec 3, 2020. It is kinda of crazy in retrospect to sign a player and then not play an official match with the new team. A waste of time and money it seems. I do hope that the players will find other teams to play in with the hopes of being competitive.
