Milwaukee Bucks owner in talks to buy NA LCS slot

Co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks NBA team, Wes Edens, is in the final stages of buying a slot in the NA LCS from Cloud9, who owns two spots in the league.

According to ESPN the deal is only pending approval from Riot, with the total figure for the sale hitting $2.5 million. $1.8 million of that is for the spot in the LCS, while the remaining $700,000 is for buying out the contracts of An “BalIs” Van Le, Hai “Hai” Lam, Johnny “Altec” Ru, and support Daerek “LemonNation” Hart who won the Challenger Series last year to secure the spot in the LCS. Juan Arturo “Contractz” Garcia, the final member of the team that won the spot earlier in the year, will reportedly stay with the Cloud9 organisation and play on its current LCS team.

Cloud9 were forced to sell the spot after they won qualification to the LCS through the challenger series. No team owner can own two LCS teams, and with C9’s main squad keeping its place in the LCS the Challenger Series winners had to be sold off. This will no longer be possible, with new rules that state sister teams of orgs in the LCS will not be able to play in the promotion tournament, even if they win the Challenger Series as C9 did last split.

The deal is expected to be announced soon, although there is no word on what the new organisation will be called.