Top Blokes, a leading UK Rocket League team in the European RLCS, have secured an investor.
This means they will continue playing under the Top Blokes banner going into the RLCS X Spring Split, now with financial backing, rather than signing to an esports organisation.
The investor group backing the team has not yet been revealed. Top Blokes UK coach Reece ‘RamS’ Mullins said he could not legally name who’s behind Top Blokes, and that the entity supporting them “won’t be announced for a little while”. (update – April 2021: The investment has come from Semper Fortis)
He likened the setup of Top Blokes to Astralis, an organisation founded and partially owned by their CSGO team. Rumors had previously been circulating last week that Astralis were to sign the roster themselves.
“This is the first time that this has happened in Rocket League Esports and I think that’s a really exciting prospect,” RamS said on the Top Blokes Twitch channel.
“There’s a lot of room to grow, the Top Blokes branding is going to keep growing and keep growing. Top Blokes is a name you’re going to hear, and if you’ve been supporting us [when] we were just Top Blokes as an interim, you should be supporting us now as Top Blokes the brand”.
Expanding on the plans in a Reddit post, RamS said: “The plan is to grow the branding of Top Blokes, with the help of the organisation backing us.
“If the question is, ‘are you planning to expand into other titles in the future?’ my answer would be, ‘sure, why not?’”
He said that the Covid-19 pandemic has complicated media plans, including player pictures and a team website. But he revealed that team jerseys, merch and in-game esports decals are all coming soon.
The news comes after months of rumors that the roster had an org lined up, with numerous household names being floated as the potential signers of the squad.
In response to accusations of baiting, RamS said in another Reddit post: “The few tweets I did make were back when I thought things would be getting announced – [I thought] it wasn’t going to drag on for as long as it has, so it looks a lot worse.”
Rams joked on Twitter after the news was finally announced.
The Top Blokes roster, which consists of UK players Jack ‘FlamE’ Pearton and Archie ‘archie’ Pickthall, alongside French teammate Andy ‘Kassio’ Landais and English sub Danny ‘Tehda’ Squibb, have been together since June last year.
The team have had a successful RLCS X season so far, quickly ascending into the top echelon of European talent. Top Blokes secured two wins in RLCS The Grid and the team has seen persistent top 4 finishes across the season, culminating in their victory in the Winter EU Regional Event 2.
Ranked third in Europe by RLCS points, Top Blokes most recently managed a 5-6th place finish in the 2021 RLCS X Winter European Major late last month.
Prior to the investment news, the current line-up had been org-less since their formation. After UK organisation Veloce parted ways with the scene and the team in June 2020, FlamE and Kassio dropped FreaKii from the roster and picked up their second Englishman: archie.
The new chapter for Top Blokes comes before the start of Europe’s Spring Regional Event 1, where the team will be looking to cement their top three position ahead of the World Championship later this year.
