The English gaming team Four Kings has officially opened four new divisions today, adding a Pro Evolution Soccer player, and squads for Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty 4 and Enemy Territory: QuakeWars. Their aim is to introduce new players into professional gaming and support new games.
This idea is relatively new in esports, but it was actually Fnatic that came up with the concept. An academy is basically a farm team of players in games that are relatively new but have not become major professional gaming platforms yet. In other words, they are gamers that receive hardware and support towards traveling to events, but do not get salary. Fnatic’s CS: Source team, once in the Fnatic Academy, are now their professional team.
Farm teams are a very good way to make sure that an organization like Four Kings of Fnatic is ahead of the competition when a new game gets support from tournament organizers, without having to spend great amounts of money. The supported players will probably not be the ones to complain about it either.
