Danish League of Legends star Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg has officially committed to Team SoloMid. The 23-year-old mid-laner has not only renewed his contract with the organization, but has also become part-owner. The contract extension secures his spot on their League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) roster for the next two years.
Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg first joined Team SoloMid in 2013, taking over the mid lane from TSM owner Andy "Reginald" Dinh. With Bjergsen on the roster, TSM won the NA LCS 2014 Summer, 2015 Spring, 2016 Summer, 2017 Spring, and 2017 Summer seasons. TSM is one of the most successful North American League of Legends teams, with most of that success coming during Bjergsen's time on the roster. Playing under the TSM banner for nearly six years now, he is one of very few who have stayed with a single organization for that long. With his two-year contract extension, he becomes the longest-standing player in TSM's history.
Alongside his contract renewal comes an unprecedented move in League of Legends esports. Bjergsen will become a part-owner of the Team SoloMid organization. Team SoloMid was founded in 2009 by Andy "Reginald" Dinh. Bjergsen said it was Dinh who originally approached him in regards to taking on part ownership. The mid-laner also states that they worked closely with League of Legends publisher Riot Games to establish proper rules and guidelines, as a player taking on part ownership of an existing organization is without precedent. There are plenty of player-owned organizations within esports, though they are typically only owned by the players who founded them.
This development was announced by Team SoloMid with a video, where Bjergsen states that he is "excited to see what these next two years have in store." He goes on to explain that his relationship with TSM CEO Reginald has motivated him to stay with the organization. Prior to this announcement, there was a lot of speculation on where Bjergsen's future would take him. Many predicted that he would be leaving TSM after their failure to qualify for the 2019 League of Legends World Championship. In TSM's announcement video, the mid-laner states that he and Reginald "had a talk about what went wrong" after this season, and that they had "similar feelings" on the issues within the team. Bjergsen says that this raised his confidence in their ability to fix those issues going forward.
Though there is plenty of speculation on what changes will be made, any further updates to the TSM LCS roster are yet to be announced.