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One of the best-known names in Chinese esports has a new ownership structure and a new sister club. On Sunday, March 15, 2026, World Sports Group and Shanghai iG Sports Culture Development, the entity that operates Invictus Gaming, announced the creation of WSIG Electronic Sports Club in a statement published on Weibo, the Chinese social network. Sheep Esports reported the announcement the same day.
The statement puts the combined investment at nearly 80 million CNY, a sum Sheep Esports converts to around US$11.6 million. Through a company created for the deal, the two partners acquired 80% of Invictus Gaming, the outlet writes.
The new club is expected to play mainly in Valorant, Riot Games' tactical shooter. It does not take over the team that made the Invictus Gaming name: the League of Legends roster stays where it is.
Sheep Esports, March 15, 2026, reporting the statement published on Weibo.
What was announced on Weibo
Two parties signed the statement. The first is World Sports Group, known as WSG, a sports investment company. The second is Shanghai iG Sports Culture Development, the company behind Invictus Gaming, which the scene shortens to iG.
Together they launch a club with its own name and its own field of play. Sheep Esports reports that WSIG is expected to compete mainly in Valorant Tier 2, the label the scene gives to the level of competition below a game's top leagues. Invictus Gaming was already active at that level in 2025. Those operations now pass to WSIG.
The statement gives the new club a wider aim than one game. According to the press release quoted by Sheep Esports, WSIG will expand into the digitalization of traditional sports and wants to become an esports group that combines two things: competitions built on existing sports, and competitions built on video games created as such. The outlet notes that this is unusual, because simulations of real sports are rare in esports outside EA Sports FC, the soccer game once known as FIFA.
Related readSavvy Games Group agrees to buy Mobile Legends maker MoontonNo calendar came with the announcement. The statement names no roster for WSIG, no league entry date and no further game.
Where the money goes
Two figures carry the announcement, and they describe two different things.
The first is the 80% stake. Sheep Esports writes that World Sports Group and Shanghai iG Sports Culture, through a company created for the deal, acquired 80% of Invictus Gaming. A stake of that size is a controlling one: the buyer holds four fifths of the company, and one fifth stays in other hands.
The second is the investment, nearly 80 million CNY in all. Half of it is allocated to the League of Legends roster alone, according to the same report. The other half is not broken down.
| Point | What is public | What is not |
|---|---|---|
| Stake | 80% of Invictus Gaming, acquired through a company created for the deal | The name of that company and the split between its two backers |
| Investment | Nearly 80 million CNY, combined | How much each partner puts in, and over what period |
| League of Legends | Half of the investment goes to the roster; the team is not absorbed by WSIG | How the money is spent |
| Valorant | WSIG takes over the operations Invictus Gaming ran in 2025 | Roster, staff and first competition |
| Other sports | An expansion into the digitalization of traditional sports | Which sports, which games, which dates |
Sheep Esports, March 15, 2026.
The price paid for the 80% is not the same thing as the investment, and the report does not say how the two relate. It gives one total, described as a combined investment, and one use for half of it.
Two clubs under one name
The result is a structure with two parts. Invictus Gaming keeps its League of Legends team, in China's top league. WSIG, the new club, starts in Valorant and carries the Invictus Gaming initials inside its own name.
Sheep Esports is explicit on the point that matters most to fans of the older team: WSIG will not absorb the League of Legends roster. The two exist side by side.
A third company has a part in the new club. HUYA, a Chinese streaming platform, arrived at Invictus Gaming in late 2024. According to the press release, HUYA's leading position in its market will support WSIG in three areas: building the brand, distributing content and earning revenue from it.
Related readSuper League closes its purchase of the Misfits Ads DivisionWorld Sports Group says it brings the methods of traditional sport. The statement promises WSIG a professional sports system that covers sports science, physical training, psychological support and the management of a performance complex, a training center in other words. Sheep Esports adds that no further detail has been given on any of these.
The club behind the name
Invictus Gaming matters to League of Legends because of one season. The team won Worlds, the game's world championship, in 2018. Its line-up that year included JackeyLove, Rookie and TheShy, the names Sheep Esports singles out from that era.
The years that followed were harder. Sheep Esports describes a decline in the early 2020s, then a return to prominence in late 2024. That return followed an internal restructuring and the arrival of two partners. One was HUYA. The other was Young Sports, which the outlet describes as one of China's largest esports player agencies, a company that represents players in their dealings with clubs. Young Sports represents some of the 2018 world champions.
The announcement of March 15 is therefore the second change in the club's ownership and partners in less than eighteen months. The first brought a streaming platform and a player agency. The second brings a sports investment group and a company, created for the deal, that holds 80% of the club.
The League of Legends team this season
The roster that receives half of the investment plays in the LPL, the League of Legends Pro League, the circuit in which China's professional teams play all year.
Sheep Esports listed the team on January 7, 2026, in its review of the league's line-ups. Rookie, the mid laner of the 2018 title, is still there. Around him the list gives Soboro in the top lane, Wei in the jungle and Photic as the bot laner, the player who deals most of the team's sustained damage. The support position is shared between Jwei and Meiko. Soboro, Photic and Jwei were new signings. The head coach is Mafa, with KaKAO as a new assistant coach.
Related readSuper League agrees to hand Metaplanet 95.7% months after Misfits dealThe league itself is smaller than a year ago. It plays with 14 teams, down from 16, The Esports Advocate reported on January 7. FunPlus Phoenix and Royal Never Give Up are no longer in the line-up, and Sheep Esports wrote that 12 teams will remain by the third split of the year.
The first split began on January 14, Sheep Esports wrote on January 3, and Riot Games set its final for March 7. The 14 teams were divided into three groups of six, four and four, and Invictus Gaming was placed in the first, named Ascend, with Anyone's Legend, Bilibili Gaming, JD Gaming, Top Esports and Weibo Gaming. Each group played a double round-robin, in which every team meets every other team of its group twice, in best-of-three matches. The top four of the Ascend group went straight to the playoff bracket, an eight-team, double-elimination stage played in best-of-five matches.
The first split decides who goes to the First Stand
The winner and the runner-up of the LPL's first split represent China at the First Stand, the opening international tournament of the League of Legends year. Riot Games has set it for March 16 to 22 in São Paulo, with eight teams.
That is the setting in which the money arrives: after the date set for the final of the first split. The report does not say whether it changes the roster, the staff or the contracts.
Who World Sports Group is
The new partner is less familiar to esports readers than the club it is buying into.
World Sports Group says it was founded in Los Angeles and has offices in Beijing, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Hong Kong and Singapore, according to Sheep Esports. Its investments and operations cover table tennis, esports, cycling, pickleball, gymnastics and basketball, along with the management of sports venues, content production and the management of celebrities.
Related readWhat a going-concern warning means for an esports companyTable tennis is its best-known field. The outlet writes that the group brings expertise from traditional sports notably through its investment in World Table Tennis, the commercial circuit of that sport. According to Sheep Esports' reading of Chinese media reports, a Hong Kong company, World Sports Industry Holdings Limited, acquired 15% of World Table Tennis in 2022 alongside the International Table Tennis Federation, the sport's governing body.
The statement draws on that background. Sports science, physical training and psychological support are the items it lists as what the investor adds to an esports club, next to the reach of a streaming platform. Esports is one of six sports in the group's own description of its activities.
What the statement does not settle
The announcement is a statement of two partners on a social network, relayed by one specialist outlet. It fixes a name, a stake and a total. Several points a reader would look for are absent from the report.
The first is the identity of the sellers. The report says that 80% of Invictus Gaming was acquired, without saying whose shares were bought or who holds the other 20%.
The second is the place of HUYA and Young Sports in the new structure. Both arrived in late 2024. The statement gives HUYA a supporting role toward WSIG and, in the report, says nothing about Young Sports after the deal.
The third is the timetable. No date is given for WSIG's first Valorant match, for the first project in a traditional sport, or for the moment the money reaches the League of Legends team.
A fourth is the link between the two clubs. WSIG carries the Invictus Gaming initials and inherits its Valorant operations, and the League of Legends team keeps the Invictus Gaming name. Whether the two share staff, facilities or sponsors is not described.
The name this team could hold, in the standings and everywhere else.
An example of the format. It does not mean the name is registered, used or endorsed by anyone named in this article.
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