League of Legends Superstar Faker Turns Down Multi-Million Dollar Offers from LCS Teams

According to a source, veteran T1 mid-laner and League of Legends star Lee ‘Faker’ Sang-hook declined multi-million dollar offers from LCS teams. Faker, the all-time best League of Legends player, has only ever played for one team. The South Korean mid-laner joined T1 in 2013 and has been a group member for over ten years.

Three League of Legends World Championship medals, two Mid-Season Invitational crowns, and multiple League of Legends Champions Korea league victories have all been won by T1 with T1. The mid laner has probably received a sizable salary for working for the company and has even become a shareholder.

Two LCS teams made multimillion-dollar offers to Faker, but he declined them

After apparently considering other offers from clubs in China and the LCS of North America, Faker signed a new contract in late 2022 during the League of Legends offseason for the 2022–23 season. According to a blix.gg report, one of the offers from an LCS team was in the $3,000,000–$5,000,000 area annually.

FlyQuest and Team Liquid were the two LCS teams vying to sign Faker, while Weibo Gaming and LNG Esports represented China, according to Blix. FlyQuest offered Faker a yearly wage in the million-dollar level, while Team Liquid supposedly paid even more.

According to the Blix story, Faker genuinely wanted to join Team Liquid as they assembled a Korean-speaking squad. Three South Korean players made up the Liquid squad after the offseason, including Park ‘Summit’ Woo-tae, Jo ‘CoreJJ’ Yong-in, and Hong ‘Pyosik’ Chang-Hyeon, one of the 2022 world winners. The report states that T1 looked into replacing Faker during the offseason but ultimately decided to re-sign him for a cost comparable to what Team Liquid was willing to pay. T1 lost to the Chinese team BLG in the lower bracket final in 2023, but they still placed second in the LCK Spring Playoffs and third at MSI.