Korean insurance company Hanwha Life has acquired the League of Legends team ROX Tigers, aptly rebranding it as Hanwha Life Esports. The team will continue competing in the League of Legends Champions Korea.
The other teams under the newly-named ROX Gaming organisation will retain their names, namely the Tekken team ROX Dragons and the Vainglory team ROX Armada. From the 2018 LCK Summer Split and onwards, the League of Legends team will represent Hanwha Life.
Prior to the acquisition, Hanwha Life had been the official sponsor of the ROX Tigers since the beginning of the 2018 LCK Spring Split in January. In the announcement made on Facebook, ROX Gaming explained that “we have also felt lacking whenever the management was unable to give more support because of the limitation of being a small club,” which led to Hanwha Life buying its LCK roster.
The ROX Tigers were founded in 2014 and originally known as the Huya Tigers. From there, the team has undergone a number of name changes due to different sponsorships – this includes names such as GE Tigers, Koo Tigers, and most recently, ROX Tigers.
ROX Tigers are the third team that competes in the LCK to undergo a rebrand in 2018, following on from KSV Esports’ acquisiton of Samsung Galaxy and Kingzone’s acquisition of Longzhu Gaming.
Esports Insider says: We find it refreshing that both an owner and sponsor believed the team could be in better hands, so they decided to do what’s best for them. Even with ROX Tigers almost achieving a playoff spot in the most recent Split, ROX prioritised its players’ management and that’s commendable.
