Evil Geniuses exit Louvre Agreement

ESL have announced today that they have reached an agreement for Evil Geniuses to exit the Louvre Agreement, the semi-franchise system that underpins ESL's circuit, effective January 1st. The announcement follows a flurry of news around Evil Geniuses' wind down of operations in Counter-Strike and reportedly esports at large, which includes the recent sale of their BLAST partner slot to Cloud9 for a reported $900,000.

Evil Geniuses joined the Louvre Agreement in February 2020 as one of the original thirteen partners in the revenue sharing and preferential treatment system for ESL's circuit. During Evil Geniuses' time in the Louvre Agreement, and especially post-COVID-19 when the ecosystem returned to offline play, the Seattle-based organization were a subject of frequent criticism for their performance in the circuit. In particular, EG were subject to ridicule and even possible dismissal as a partner for coming dead last in four seasons while failing to make playoffs a single time.

These poor results along with a culture of mismanagement and the general "esports winter" have undoubtedly played in a role in Evil Geniuses' decision to pull out of Counter-Strike alongside a number of other titles. Recently, the organization has parted ways with a number of players, while the remainder reportedly have plans in place for the future post-EG.

As such this move can hardly be seen as unexpected, although it may have been expected for Evil Geniuses to try and sell the asset, something that has not come to pass. As a result of the spot not being sold, ESL have announced it will become another World Ranking invite. Based on the current standings in the ESL World Ranking, the spot would likely go to Eternal Fire when invites are sent out on January 8t.