Guild Esports PLC (previously The Lords Esports) is a

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

-based professional

esports Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...

company founded in 2019. The company is co-owned by former professional football player

David Beckham David Robert Joseph Beckham (; born 2 May 1975) is an English former professional footballer, the current president and co-owner of Inter Miami CF and co-owner of Salford City. Known for his range of passing, crossing ability and bending fr ...

and launched globally in June 2020. Guild Esports was the first esports firm to be publicly traded in the United Kingdom. The organisation has competitive teams in '' Apex Legends'', ''

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

'', '' Fortnite'', '' Rocket League'', and ''

Valorant ''Valorant'' is a free-to-play first-person tactical hero shooter developed and published by Riot Games, for Windows. Teased under the codename ''Project A'' in October 2019, the game began a closed beta period with limited access on April 7 ...

''.

History

The Guild Esports was founded in September 2019 under the name The Lords Esports. Later that year, the company sold 11.7% of its shares to investment firm Blue Star Capital for (). In June 2020, The Lords Esports raised an additional million (M) in private funding, with former professional football player

acquiring a "significant minority stake" in the company, and rebranded to Guild Esports. The company made its shares available through its

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

(IPO) on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

(LSE) in September 2020, making Guild Esports the first publicly traded esports organization on the LSE, and raised million (M) through the IPO. In September 2021, it was announced that Guild had become main shirt sponsors of

League of Ireland Premier Division The League of Ireland Premier Division ( ga, Príomhroinn Sraith na hÉireann), also known as the SSE Airtricity League Premier Division for sponsorship reasons, is the top level division in both the League of Ireland and the Republic of Ireland f ...

club

Finn Harps Finn Harps Football Club ( ga, Cumann Peile Chláirsigh na Finne) are an Irish football club that play in the First Division of the League of Ireland, as of 2023. The club was founded in 1954 and elected to the league in 1969. However, it was te ...

, meaning the brand would also feature in

FIFA 22 ''FIFA 22'' is a football simulation video game published by Electronic Arts. It is the 29th installment in the ''FIFA series'', and was released worldwide on 1 October 2021 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Stadia, Windows, Xb ...

on the club's shirts. In January 2022, Guild Esports signed a 10-year lease for a facility in London. The facility will act as the organization's headquarters and training facility and is expected to open in Q2.

Esports

In November 2020, Guild Esports created their '' Fortnite'' division. In March 2021, the team won the ''Fortnite'' Champion Series European Grand Finals. The next month, the organisation's '' Rocket League'' team won the

Rocket League Championship Series The Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) is an annual ''Rocket League'' esports tournament series produced by Psyonix, the game's developer. It consists of three online qualification splits in several regions, with teams earning points towar ...

EU Spring Regional.

Rosters

References

{{Reflist Esports teams based in the United Kingdom 2019 establishments in the United Kingdom Esports teams established in 2019 Apex Legends teams FIFA (video game series) teams Fortnite teams Rocket League teams Valorant teams