On the 25th (KST), Riot Korea announced the 21 teams that applied for the upcoming franchising in the LCK. While there were familiar names on the list of teams that applied, such as T1, Gen.G, and DRX, there were some unfamiliar names as well, one of which being Gamer Republic Inc.

What separates this particular organization from the others that applied is that they are raising funds through Kickstarter. According to their Kickstarter page, they are a startup company based in California, and they hope to create a professional League of Legends team where the fans have full control of the operation of the team. They hope to raise $20,000,000 USD total, as half of it will cover the application fee (also their pledge goal), with the other half covering their operation costs.

Gamer Republic takes fan interaction to the next level. If a person donates during their pledge period, they will gain operation rights to the team, depending on the amount. They’ve created a tier list in how much money it’ll cost for fans to gain a certain amount of operation rights, and are attempting to create a professional League of Legends team unlike anyone has seen before.

While this method of creating a professional esports team is unlike anything anyone has seen before, the response from the community has not been well received so far. However, it seems that 13 people believe the project can work and funded $22,498 USD to their campaign. With just 35 days left to go and $9,977,502 USD left, it seems that there’s a long road ahead for this ambitious startup.