Faker is the brand and image of T1
In the League of Legends industry in particular and Esports in general, the Faker brand can be said to have the highest value. After more than 11 years since his first debut in the League of Legends industry, Faker has become the most famous Esports player in the world today. In 2020, Korean media ranked Faker as one of the “four great national treasures”, placed next to many famous names. Foreign newspapers and magazines have many times compared Faker to the “Messi of football” or “Michael Jordan of basketball”.
Faker's influence and brand in League of Legends and Esports is no less than Messi's in football
By being the first player to be brought into the Hall of Legends by Riot, as well as having just firmly established the title “The greatest League of Legends player of all time” after winning the 2024 World Championship, Faker's image and brand value the bigger. Faker himself also showed his attachment to T1, as he holds shares in this team. Faker's social network accounts are also managed by the T1 crew. In particular, Faker's Instagram account has more than 1.8 million followers – the League of Legends player with the highest number of followers in the world.
Faker is also the League of Legends player with the highest number of Instagram followers in the world
Some of the brands Faker cooperates with are Nike, Samsung, Razer, Red Bull and Creative Artists Agency. These sponsorship contracts bring Faker more than 3 million USD per year (until 2023) and mean large sums of money for T1.
Faker also earned millions of dollars in advertising contracts for himself and T1
Actions that infringe upon Faker's image are strictly prohibited
In May 2020, according to information from Bizhankook, on April 13, T1 officially filed a copyright registration application for the Faker/페이커 trademark for player Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok, of League of Legends T1 team went to the Korean Intellectual Property Office. This means: as long as Faker is under contract with T1, or is still a member of T1, this team owns all elements related to the Faker brand, from images, clips… of “GOAT”.
T1 registered the Faker brand copyright for him in 2020
Therefore, any action to exploit Faker will have to go through T1. This is also a way for this team to control Faker's negative images (if any). Like the Summer 2024 period, when Faker took negative actions after losing to Gen.G. At that moment, T1 issued a notice requesting to stop spreading this clip. If any similar actions occur later, T1 can absolutely sue, regardless of the individual or group involved.
For players like Faker, image issues are very important. The T1 side certainly does not want anything to happen that will affect their “national treasure”.
