UK esports organisation Team Endpoint are close to selling their 17-year-old CSGO player Owen “smooya” Butterfield to Epsilon Esports for a cut price.
Owen was contracted to Endpoint with a salary, and apparently had a £15,000 buyout clause on his contract, meaning any org who wanted to sign him would have to meet this amount.
Esports News UK understands that Epsilon initially approached smooya, not Endpoint management, to tap him up.
We’ve learnt that Epsilon made an initial offer much lower than the buyout fee, which was rejected by Endpoint.
At this point it’s understood that smooya benched himself as a substitute and removed the Endpoint logo from his Twitter page, which left the team unsettled.
Already bored on de_bench pic.twitter.com/ZKX2LqcyRk
— Owen Butterfield (@smooyacs) June 5, 2017
Esports News UK understands that Epsilon have made another offer which looks like Endpoint may have accepted, but still lower than the £15,000 buyout fee.
smooya recently retweeted streamer Onscreen after he shared a Slingshot article about smooya’s move to Epsilon.
RWS King @smooyacs bought for $10K from Endpoint by Epsilon.
in 2 weeks time.
Smooya sold for £4.99.https://t.co/q5PJySI4gw— onscreen (@onscreenlol) June 8, 2017
Epsilon are also said to be looking to sell Fredrik “REZ” Sterner for $200,000, according to Slingshot, while Endpoint were hoping to acquire Joe ‘Luzuh’ Loose from fellow UK org exceL Esports.
Epsilon have not yet responded to ENUK’s requests for comment. We’ve also reached out to smooya.
Team Endpoint owner Adam Jessop told Esports News UK he wasn’t sure where Slingshot got the information for its news story, but declined to comment further on the matter.
Slingshot reports that Epsilon were ‘extremely difficult’ in negotiations.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
