Esports has moved from niche subculture to global entertainment infrastructure, with worldwide esports revenue projected at approximately US$5.1 billion in 2026 and the broader games market exceeding US$200 billion in annual consumer spending in 2025. Team Liquid sits near the centre of that shift. Formed in 2015 via a merger of different pro esports teams, the organisation now competes across 26 games and has built a global brand around championships, prize earnings, and audience reach in titles including Dota, League of Legends, and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB).
iTNews Asia spoke with Steve Arhancet, co-founder of Team Liquid, about how the organisation uses analytics, AI, and partnerships with companies such as SAP and Alienware to find players, train teams, and stay ahead of the constantly shifting esports “meta.”
iTNews Asia: How do you source partners to help you?
Arhancet: We want to become the largest, most successful global esports company for generations. This long-term vision guides all business decisions.
In that respect, we look at forging strategic partnerships over pay cheques. What that means is that unlike competitors who chase the biggest sponsorship cheques, Team Liquid prioritises partners that add strategic value to the mission of winning. Partners are chosen for their ability to provide the “best racquet”, that is, tools and technology that give players a competitive edge.
For instance, we partnered Alienware for hardware superiority. The same can be said about our partnership with SAP, which powers our team’s data analytics for preparation, scouting, and training.
iTNews Asia: How do data and analytics influence the way you scout players?
Arhancet: We adopt a dual-pronged scouting approach for our esports teams, meaning we scout from two pools: established pros with proven records and undiscovered talent. For established players, we analyse history, pay significant transfer fees, and assess whether a player’s best years lie ahead. For new talent, we mine public match data to identify promising individuals and invite them for tryouts.
Player potential is evaluated across three categories:
- Public in-game performance data published by developers;
- Behavioural assessments to gauge maturity, coachability, and interpersonal skills. These areas are where gamers often have limited experience; and
- Biometric data collected during tryouts, including eye-tracking, cognitive tests, and visual screening scores to measure game-state analysis under pressure. These scores are combined into a final confidence score for recruitment decisions.
Given our global training infrastructure, including dedicated training facilities in São Paulo (Brazil), Utrecht (Netherlands), Jakarta (Indonesia), Manila (Philippines), and Los Angeles (California), we can provide testing grounds and housing, enabling comprehensive player assessments and combines for new talent.
In high-stakes competitions, coaches and analysts must process past matches, opponent gameplay, pick and ban phases, and individual player analytics, which for Team Liquid can amount to 1.6 terabytes and six million matches.
To do that, we centralise operational data in a public cloud, integrate large public datasets into SAP HANA Cloud, and provide coaches and players with a custom interface that turns complex information into actionable insight.
iTNews Asia: Where does AI start to matter in competition?
Arhancet: AI is a transformational technology essential to maintaining a winning edge. An SAP “Joule agent” interfaces with a massive data warehouse to deliver crucial insights to coaches and players, saving thousands of hours of manual analysis and enabling data-driven strategies over gut instinct.
At the same time, we are building a “digital twin” for each player using extensive performance and biometric data. This AI agent understands a player’s unique style and can act as a real-time coach or mentor during gameplay, providing a significant developmental advantage.
We use AI to transcribe, identify speakers, and analyse headset communications so the team can distinguish commands from information, refine communication patterns, and turn subjective “gut feelings” into data-backed facts.
- Steve Arhancet, co-founder, Team Liquid.
For instance, data analytics delivered a decisive edge in a championship. Using an AI-powered draft bot, we detected an opponent secretly practicing an unusual champion, “Urgot,” two weeks before a major League of Legends final. Instead of treating that as an outlier, we prepared a counter-strategy, and won the series when the pick appeared.
AI helps identify hidden correlations and automate time-consuming preparation, while final strategic decisions, especially under pressure, remain with coaches and players.
Internally, to build AI fluency across our 390-employee company, I identify self-curious, high-performing individuals in each department to form a core group. Their show-and-tell sessions on AI applications spark a level of curiosity and adoption that spreads organically. Marketing and athletics show high adoption, while finance is slower due to audit-related concerns.
iTNews Asia: What should business leaders learn from esports?
Arhancet: Team Liquid’s success rests on a clear, long-term strategy: become a generational, global esports leader by prioritising winning above all else. This mission drives a philosophy of forming strategic partnerships with best-in-class companies like Alienware and SAP to deliver superior hardware and data analytics.
Take player scouting. It is a sophisticated, data-driven process combining public data analysis, behavioral assessments, and biometric testing. AI is deeply integrated as a core advantage, from saving my coaches’ time to developing “digital twin” mentors for players. While winning is paramount, the brand cultivates deep fan loyalty through powerful storytelling, an essential yet complex effort to engage its massive global audience.
The broader lesson for business is clear: use data to recognise the changing “meta,” resolve strategic debates with evidence, and embed AI where it can improve preparation without replacing human judgment.
