The final ten esports teams for the third season of the Gfinity Elite Series have been confirmed, and there’s been some changes.
Since the initial season 1 teams announcement last May, Reason Gaming, Prophecy, Team Infused and Team Endpoint have left the franchise league, replaced by the likes of Hashtag United, Unilad, Ares and Nordavind.
The number of teams has increased to ten, with Fnatic and Team Vitality also stepping in. Four of eight teams from the original season 1 line-up remain: Epsilon, exceL, Method and Team EnVyUs.
Some of the recent changes made sense – Gfinity dropped CSGO and added FIFA into the mix for Season 3 (retaining Rocket League and Street Fighter). The likes of Hashtag, Unilad, Ares and Nordavind all specialise in FIFA, fitting Gfinity’s plan to now include the football title in the Elite Series.
“We know that some fans will be upset that previous tournament favourites are no longer in the Elite Series and we will be working with our franchises to find their talent new homes wherever possible.”
Gfinity
Some members of the UK esports community were sad to see some of the well-known UK orgs like Reason, EndPoint and Infused depart.
Sad to see this ?. Thanks for everything during season 1 and 2, I’ll never forget it ❤
— Rix_Ronday (@Rix_Ronday) February 13, 2018
Very disappointing news. Reason were the life and soul of GFinity Street Fighter and this is their reward?
— Tom Potter (@Tom_J_Potter) February 13, 2018
Fuckin uni lad…. ? Thought this was the UKs best esports teams? Now it’s basically who has the most followers so Gfin can cash grab as hard as possible before binning this shambles of a project.
— Jacob The Bear (@_JacobTheBear_) February 13, 2018
EndPoint founder Adam Jessop shared a quote from Gfinity CEO Neville Upton from the Season 1 announcement:
— AdamJessop (@AdamJessop) February 13, 2018
A Gfinity spokesperson told Esports News UK: “There have been a lot of exciting changes to the Elite Series in the run-up to Season 3, including the signing of new teams which bring with them some of the best players in the world and huge passionate global fanbases.
“Despite increasing the overall number of teams competing to 10, to accommodate them, inevitably, we’ve lost some of our previous Elite Series franchises.
“We know that some fans will be upset that previous tournament favourites are no longer in the Elite Series and we will be working with our franchises to find their talent new homes wherever possible.”
Despite the criticism, several of the new orgs are UK-based, and although not all of them are currently grassroots orgs, half of Season 3’s orgs are technically based in the UK.
They are as follows: Hashtag, Unilad, exceL, Method and Fnatic (yes they are a global org but Fnatic’s offices and company are based in London).
You can see some of the recent team announcements on Gfinity’s website.
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.
