It’s true, for better or worse; analysts that have been spending every day for the past few years analyzing and breaking down matches are starting to shift over towards esport management, and the move frankly makes sense if you consider it momentarily.
These are public-facing individuals that have been following the metaphorical beat of Counter-Strike for the past couple of years; they know the latent, strengths and weaknesses, and commonly played strategies. On the back of Moses shifting over to Coach for Team Liquid, a move that Jake Yip said allowed him to not be the ‘bad-guy’ while focusing on the task of IGL, comes Cloud9 picking up Henry Greer as General Manager for their CS:GO team.
Think of an acting liaison between the organization and the team, allowing for handpicked talent. If the coach is the Captain, the GM is the ship itself.
In the first move for Cloud9 by way of Greer comes an unprecedented move that will hopefully pick up steam within the CS:GO industry in terms of transparency and understanding worth.
Before we get too ahead of ourselves, however, ALEX from Vitality tweeted yesterday that he is leaving the French team for greener pastures; a tweet that was responded to by applause by none other than Henry Greer. So it frankly wasn’t much surprise what happened today; in fact, it was pretty expected in what was a boldly public move.
All is well and good, Alex leaves Vitality in a surprising move and seems keen to be picked up by C9, which was confirmed today.
The boisterous (or at the very least surprising) aspect of this is that Henry opted to publically announce precisely how much the deal was worth for C9 and Alex; 1.65 million dollars for a three-year contract that does not include the necessity to stream; an important aspect for many organizations, and the players within the orgs.
The IGL coming from Vitality to head up a brand new roster is an ambitious move in the current climate of CS:GO and speaks volumes about the faith that the C9 organization has in the future of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and also Alex McMeekin himself; a hefty mantle for the young IGL to shoulder moving forward.
This is arguably unprecedented within the scene, out-right statements about player salary and contract length that would otherwise be the domain of forum speculation and info-diving through vague and obscure tweets throughout the years, along with a supplemental interview or three.
Cloud9 is looking at building up a new CS:GO roster and it will all surround the IGL Alex moving forward; could this be the return of Cloud9 to the top 10?
