After a full year without a Call of Duty team, 100 Thieves founder and CEO, Matt ‘Nadeshot’ Haag, has provided some insight as to why they chose to eventually invest in the CDL with their brand new franchise, the LA Thieves.
Despite being one of the most successful teams in CoD during the Black Ops 4 season, winning two tournaments and placing second at the CWL World Championship, 100 Thieves declined to buy a spot in CDL for its inaugural season.
The reason being was that they just couldn’t justify the $25M price tag for a franchise spot. Now, however, everything has changed after CDL’s first season, with the team acquiring the spot formerly owned by OpTic Gaming LA.
In a new video, Nadeshot and 100 Thieves’ President and COO John Robinson broke down why this was the right time for the team to join.
“When we were first talking to Activision a year ago, both LA franchises were spoken for. So we were going to be like Milwaukee or Memphis or Phoenix,” Robinson said. “We weren’t sure what the name of the team was going to be, we weren’t going to be in LA, that was really unappealing for us.”
“Basically, it wasn’t LA,” Nadeshot stressed, further indicating that staying in Los Angeles was a key component for them.
However, once they say how OpTic Gaming LA and Atlanta FaZe were working, they figured they could pull off Thieves and incorporate it into their brand. Then, once LA became available, they hopped on it.
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Robinson and Nadeshot said that Activision’s willingness to work with players and team owners to make changes going forward and improve the product that helped get them further on board.
“The other aspect that we haven’t gotten to yet that made this so appealing was the fact that we have Kenny and SlasheR,” Nadeshot happily remarked. “Two players that built out the 100 Thieves namesake and won us two championships in their time with our organization just felt like it was the perfect storm for us to bring these players home.
“The fact that we declined after a year and we had an opportunity to come to LA and bring these players home, if someone told me 365 days ago that this would be possible, I would laugh. I truly would have.”
There are still some question marks surrounding LA Thieves in their current form; for one, they still need to sign a fourth started after designating Drazah as their substitute, despite the player being previously slated to start for the now-defunct OpTic Gaming LA
They also have to fill in their head coaching vacancy, which will fall on the shoulders of Eric ‘Muddawg’ Sanders, 100T CoD’s former General Manager who now takes up the same role for LA Thieves.
Either way, once all the dust settles, there’s no doubt that it’ll be an exciting moment with the team makes its Call of Duty League debut. Hate them or love them, 100T’s presence in CoD esports is better for all parties involved.
