Esports organization Team Liquid announced the addition of the legendary grandmaster Magnus Carlsen a day after revealing another chess player Fabiano Caruana. This is the first time in history that such a decorated athlete signed with a digital sports entity. Team Liquid unveiled Carlson on social networks.
This partnership is part of the preparation for the Esports World Cup 2025, where Magnus plays the role of the official ambassador of chess. The event will feature many games, such as CS2, Dota 2, fighting games, Valorant, and more. Organizations also compete for most titles across these disciplines, similar to the Olympic medal score but with a prize pool.
Team Liquid looks like the best fit for Carlsen and Caruana as one of the oldest and most successful organizations in esports. Only a few others would match their calibre. It's also a natural move for the club that pretty much always covered the most disciplines, having rosters in all sorts of games.
Esports World Cup 2025 starts on July 31 in Saudi Arabia. The prize pool for the chess tournament will be $1.5 million. A total of 16 grandmasters will participate in the event. Liquid is the third esports organization that signed known chess players ahead of the tournament. Earlier, Team Vitality signed Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Ding Liren joined LGD. There are also rumors that Eastern European orgs Team Spirit and Virtus.pro would sign chess players Ian Nepomnyashchy and Daniil Dubov.
Carlsen has been the best chess player of the last decade. He was the world champion from 2013 to 2022, and in 2023 he refused to defend his title due to lack of competition and burnout. He still ranks first in the FIDE (International Chess Federation) rating. Magnus no stranger to esports. For example, in January he watched the HLTV Awards, a show mostly designed for CS2 fans, which can be hard to understand for an outsider.
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