The best South African team, Bravado might be returning back to South Africa. The team has seen immense success over the course of 2018. At the beginning of the year, Bravado moved to North America as they started their ‘Project Destiny’. Project Destiny came on the back of sponsorship by DELL (Alienware) & Intel META region ambassador sponsorship. You can read more about the Project here.
Over the course of the past year, Bravado went from success to success. They were able to climb the ladder in North America counter Strike. The latter half of the year saw Bravado increase its performance. They started receiving invites to LAN events, a rare feat for the team. They reached the semifinals at Dreamhack Winter 2018 despite the event having some quality opposition. Topping their Group after wins over teams such as G2 Esports and Optic Gaming; Bravado moved into the playoffs. They were undefeated in the event until the Grand finals where they faced off against ENCE. The Finnish team proved to be too strong for Bravado. But a Grand final appearance at the event definitely put them on the world map as a strong team.
The team ended the year with the victory at Dreamhack Mumbai 2018. It was the first Dreamhack event in India as well as Asia. The team found new fans in the city and definitely came out on top of the entire event.
A successful team, but lack of funds.
However, the constant travelling and the cost of immediate travel plans for the players meant that the organisation saw an increase in expenses. They were not equipped to handle such an increase in their expenses. They had to increase their debt in order to fund the team’s travels and accommodation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmNKLfApJ-A
Project Destiny may come to an end.
Throughout our highs and lows and our recent achievements, we’ve been working so hard (behind closed doors) the entire year to ensure that the success of the team goes unnoticed to potential corporates, investors and brands. During this time we’ve been in chats and negotiations with multiple companies (endemic and non-endemic) in order to secure additional funding to ensure that there is no risk of ending this story anytime soon as having to pay for Travel, Rent, Utilities, Allowances, Food, Vehicle, VISA’s (and more) has been super costly. In addition, we’ve been working on acquiring O1/P1 Sporting VISA’s for the players, however, we haven’t been able to achieve this goal (as we cannot establish a sponsorship in the USA) which gives threat to our players each and every-time they enter the USA.
The team has a few options available to them.
- Bring back the team to South Africa for a period of 2-3 months until we can re-balance our books, organize proper VISA’s and potentially work towards finding additional investment, where thereafter if all successful the players return back to the USA or move to Europe to play competitively for a long-term period. The problem with this option is that the guys will lose out on leagues, placements, practice, ranking and a variety of qualifiers and seems to be an option that the players are not willing to take.
- Find additional funding for a 3 month period (February, March & April) in which this time we can re-balance our books, continue working towards finding additional sponsors in South Africa / USA and work towards obtaining O1/P1 VISA’s and then extending their stay past those 3 months to play for a long-term period in the USA. The problem with this option is that we don’t know how we would find the additional funding during the quarter and if we do, within those 3 months we have to find additional partners or sponsors to make sure the guys can become sustained in the USA and obtain their O1/P1 VISA’s.
- Find additional funding and sponsorship between now and January, working towards obtaining O1/P1 VISA’s while in the USA and continue the project. The problem with this option is that finding an additional partner/sponsor (especially in the USA, which will make obtaining our O1/P1 VISA’s easier) is that we’re already at the end of December.
Let's make it happen pic.twitter.com/UAN6IjvM1C
— tarik (@tarik) December 27, 2018
If you want to donate money to help Bravado Gaming, please do so on their funding page here.
Sources: Bravado Gaming.