Footballer Jesse Lingard has acquired the Rainbow Six Siege esports team, Audacity Esports, and renamed it JLINGZ Esports. With this new acquisition, he has launched his new esports team.
The team
Audacity Esports had been competing in the Rainbow Six Siege UK and Ireland Nationals hosted by the developer of the game, Ubisoft. They aren’t the best in the league, but they have a solid record for the time they have been competing. They took part in the second season of the UKIN First Division this year and they finished joint fifth in the playoffs. They went on to regular season and finished in joint fourth. So, they have had a decent career so far.
Recently, however, they have been slipping. During the handover period of the acquisition by Jesse Lingard, they were rebranded to Team JLE. While they were operating under that name, they slid down the rankings. In season 3 of the First Division, they finished dead last. They ended the season with only three points to their name and no chance of making the play-offs.
Now that the acquisition has been finalised, we could see an increase in investment. The stated goals of the new team are to compete in the next season of the UK and Ireland Nationals as well as earn a place at the 2022 European Challenger League. It’s not like they have their sights set at becoming World Champions any time soon, but they are aiming to improve.
Can they do it?
We hope that they achieve their aims. It has been an upsetting trend in the past year or so for the esports vanity projects of professional sports stars to crash and burn.
The most recent case of burnout in the esports scene by a sports professional was Casemiro and his organisation, Case Esports. They had a terrible time competing in CS:GO and couldn’t keep up with any of the top tier Brazilian teams. He even dropped his entire roster and started looking for a new one.
We hope that this team isn’t just a vanity project or an attempt to make some quick cash. According to the release from Ubisoft, Lingard is serious about the new team: “My JLINGZ brand has been growing for a number of years but to finally dive into esports and add my own teams to JLINGZ is incredible. Esports has everything for me it's fast-paced and competitive, the community is amazing, and it's been great to have Ubisoft's support on this journey too. Watch this space, JLINGZ esports is going all the way!”
Siege is a growing esport and hasn’t yet established a historical hierarchy of teams. There is always a chance that a new hungry team with some financial backing could improve themselves and shoot up the ranks.
With some training and maybe some well placed changes to the roster funded by Lingard, we could have a new competitor in the British esports scene.
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