The newly founded esports organisation Rule One – from well-known Rocket League content creator SunlessKhan and co-founder Incivik – will sponsor grassroots leagues for 2023.
Rule One will support both the Rocket Soccar Confederation EU (RSC EU) and Euro Rocket Series (ERS) for their upcoming season in Rocket League in 2023.
The financial terms of the sponsorship were not disclosed.
“We are incredibly excited about Rule One choosing to sponsor our leagues,” said Adam Binns, Head Admin & Manager of RSC EU & ERS. “Getting support from a top RLCS team just shows how special of a place RSC EU and ERS are. We hope this helps our leagues to continue to grow and provide for the Rocket League community.”
SunlessKhan, Co-Owner of Rule One, added: “Grassroots organisations are an important part of the Rocket League community, and Rule One is a proud sponsor of RSC and ERS!”
What is RSC EU?
The Rocket Soccar Confederation EU (RSC EU) was formed in 2019 based on the NA counterpart after permission to develop an EU league under the RSC umbrella and, like ERS, it’s a competitive 3v3 league for Rocket League.
Organisers say the first four seasons were ‘pretty quiet and the community involved less than 100 people with little growth in signup numbers’.
In Season 5, Adam Binns joined the admin team and a new website was added, with a greater focus on social media, trailers and databases.
In Season 6, a First Touch-esque weekly talk show was founded where active community members run through developments in the league.
RSC was also set up in the UK by Frizzlemyshizzle, who has now stepped down. It caters for the whole of Europe and also has signups from North America, Asia and Africa.
Organisers say signups rose by over 800% from Season 4 to Season 11, with RSC11 having record signups. The skill level ranges from roughly Champion 1 to Supersonic Legend including several notable bubble players who have played in RLCS.
Due to the decline in players playing ranked, RSC EU started using their own ranking system which combines peak ranked MMR along with manual adjustments and performance bonuses.
RSC also has a new £200 monthly tournament.
For more information visit the RSC EU Discord server.
ERS and differences between RSC EU
The Euro Rocket Series (ERS) is a community league founded in 2018. It was set up in the UK by its initial founder Tutan, who lives in Newcastle, and Adam Binns now helps to manage it since the merge with RSC in 2022.
Over 100 players joined the league in its first season, when organisers say it was the only one of its kind in the EU region.
The main difference between RSC EU and ERS (despite sharing several franchises, players and since the merger in 2022, admins, backend staff and sheets), is the league structure.
RSC EU is a draft league, whereas ERS is a league for pre-made teams. If you are signing up as a new player in RSC EU you will get randomly selected in the draft by a Franchise Manager and meet your new teammates afterwards, if you didn’t already meet them prior in tryouts or combines.
In ERS, organisers say players have ‘full freedom in picking your teammates as long as you fit in the given MMR boundaries for each tier’.
Over time with the help of Mutschuk, ERS developed advanced bots which could handle most tasks of processing signups, scheduling or reporting games automatically which set them apart from the competition.
Organisers say this was ‘the first and biggest grassroots community 3s league for a long time in the EU and ERS was the first community league to reach 1,000+ signups’.
Many players joined ERS from RSC EU and vice versa, so the merger and uniting its powers was a logical step for both leagues, organisers in a press release.
For more information visit the ERS Discord. https://twitter.com/EURocketSeries
About Rule One and why they’re supporting the leagues
“This deal was extremely important to conclude for both grassroots leagues due to the uncertain times we currently see within esports, the economic downturn and cost of living crisis, with many businesses and organisations stopping sponsorship and investment, which is the core of how esports are currently funded,” read a press release.
“True to Rule One’s mission statement, their first mission is very simple: to entertain and serve the Rocket League community, and this does exactly that. It allows both leagues to continue with funded prize pools for yet another season, strengthening its bond with the Rocket League community, encouraging new friendships whilst bringing further new players in to play and the chance to earn prizes along the way.”
“Grassroots organisations are an important part of the Rocket League community, and Rule One is a proud sponsor of RSC and ERS!”
SunlessKhan, Rule One
SunlessKhan made a name for himself in the Rocket League community with his YouTube channel, which currently has over two million subscribers, making him the second person to achieve this within Rocket League.
He was a content creator in the past for organisations Allegiance and Spacestation Gaming, and dreamt about having his own team in the future, but the right opportunity initially never arose to pursue that goal – until he met Incivik and formed Rule One.
Rule One is Incivik’s second esports organisation. His first, Sandrock Gaming, disbanded in March 2022. This left a mark in the community due to how far he had pushed the MENA region into the pro scene. SunlessKhan then reached out to Incivik about establishing a new organisation.
Rule One was founded in October 2022 and, shortly after, added the unsigned MENA team KRN to their portfolio consisting of identical twins Rw9 and Kiilleerrz, with M7sN joining from Twisted Minds.
KRN had just won the first regional of the new RLCS 2022-2023 season before the acquisition, while beating the former Sandrock Gaming team in the final.
For more information visit the Rule One 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.
