MOUZ and Razer renew their partnership for two more years

MOUZ will keep playing on Razer equipment. The German esports organization has announced that it extended its partnership with the gaming hardware brand for another two years, a renewal Esports Insider reported on February 27, 2026. According to Esports Insider, the two companies first signed in 2019, and the club calls Razer the longest-standing partner in its history.

The announcement, published on the club's own site and its official account, gives the length of the extension and what Razer provides. It gives no figure. Esports Insider reports none either, and the club's page states no amount, no end date and no detail of what each side commits beyond the supply of equipment and support.

MOUZ announcement and Esports Insider, February 27, 2026.

What the renewal covers

The club describes the agreement as a strategic partnership, and its announcement sets out three parts.

The first is equipment. Razer supplies hardware to the MOUZ players, along with tools and expertise, according to the club. The announcement names Counter-Strike and Dota 2, the club's two leading divisions, as the games in which Razer has supported its players.

The second is presence at events. Razer provides on-location support at major tournaments, which the club says lets its players concentrate on the game. The announcement does not say which tournaments, how many staff travel or what the support consists of in practice.

The third is a shared aim, which the club frames in general terms: support for the long-term development of competitive gaming in the region. Esports Insider links to the club's announcement on its official account. No individual is named as speaking for either company, and no person from Razer is quoted.

Two companies with a base in Hamburg

The announcement gives one reason of its own for the fit between the two partners: geography. The MOUZ headquarters and Razer's European office are both in Hamburg, the northern German city where the club is based. The club calls Hamburg one of Europe's key esports hubs and says the shared base will help both companies widen their community and development initiatives in the region. Esports Insider reports the organization's view that being headquartered in the same city will let the two work together more seamlessly toward their goals, and that the collaboration aims to expand the local engagement of both brands.

Neither text lists the local initiatives. The announcement does not name an event, a venue, a school program or a date for anything planned in the city, and none is reported here beyond what the club describes as an intention.

A partnership since 2019

The two companies have worked together since 2019, so the renewal extends a relationship that has already run for around seven years.

What the partnership is worth to either side is not public. The club's announcement does not say whether the renewal changes the scope of the earlier agreement or whether other teams or games are added, and Esports Insider reports no change of that kind. What both texts give is the same partner and the same kind of support, for two more years.

Where MOUZ stands in early 2026

MOUZ was founded in 2002, and Esports Insider describes it as most active today in Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2. Both divisions came into the new year with recent titles behind them.

The Counter-Strike team arrived at PGL Cluj-Napoca 2026 as the defending champion, having won the 2025 edition. HLTV, the Counter-Strike news site, lists MOUZ fourth in its world ranking of February 16 in its report of the final, with Team Vitality first. The two teams met in the group stage on Monday, February 16, and Vitality won the series 2-0, according to HLTV's report of the final. The group stage ran from February 14 to 16 and the playoffs from February 20 to 22, when Vitality beat PARIVISION 3-0 in a best-of-five final, a series won by the first team to take three maps.

The Dota 2 team won PGL Wallachia Season 6 in 2025 after an overhaul of its roster, Esports Insider recalls. It then reached the top five at BLAST Slam V before missing the playoffs at BLAST Slam VI, and its next fight for a playoff place is DreamLeague Season 28.

Which sponsors a Counter-Strike team may carry

The renewal arrives at a time when the sponsor list of a Counter-Strike team is more tightly framed than before. Valve, which owns the game and licenses the tournaments played in it, tightened two documents: its Tournament Operating Requirements and its Limited Game Tournament License. Dot Esports set out the change in an article last updated on February 6, 2026, and said the restrictions applied at once at the StarLadder Budapest Major, one of the Majors, the top tier of Counter-Strike tournaments.

Section 2.4(e) of the license, headed IP Protection, bars the organizer from showing content that breaks Valve's intellectual property or the Steam Subscriber Agreement, and names case-opening sites and skin trading sites as examples. Skins are cosmetic items held in a player's game inventory. The section also bars organizers from accepting sponsors whose revenue relies on Valve's game economies, key resellers included. Dot Esports lists what organizers must therefore keep off their events: jersey logos, broadcast overlays, venue advertising and on-site activations.

Dot Esports added that Valve had signaled fines, for which it gave no amount, and listed forfeited matches, prize money taken back and the shutdown of an event among the possible outcomes of a breach, with repeat offenders at risk of being shut out of the circuit. Those consequences are the outlet's account; the license itself provides for its termination.

The rule reached MOUZ directly. According to Dot Esports, the logo of 4S, a MOUZ sponsor, was removed from the team's jerseys at the Budapest Major, as were sponsor logos of Team Vitality and The MongolZ.

Peripheral brands at team and event level

The same week brought a second renewal from the same part of the market, signed this time by an organizer. On February 26, 2026, the day before it reported the MOUZ renewal, Esports Insider reported that ESL FACEIT Group had renewed its partnership with ZOWIE, a maker of gaming peripherals.

The terms set out in that report show how a hardware deal works at the level of a tournament rather than a team. ZOWIE becomes the exclusive official monitor supplier of the group's main Counter-Strike 2 tournaments in 2026 and 2027. Its XL2586X+ monitors are to be used at every Intel Extreme Masters event over the two years, the IEM Cologne Major in June included, and over the next four seasons of ESL Pro League, starting with Season 23 on March 1. The brand also appears in the broadcasts and runs activities for fans at the venues. Esports Insider dates the start of the collaboration to IEM Krakow 2026, the group's first top-level event of the year, where ZOWIE provided the monitors.

The same report places the renewal among other ZOWIE agreements in the game. It recalls similar peripheral deals with StarLadder, another tournament organizer, and an agreement announced in February 2026 with apEX, the in-game leader of Team Vitality, the player who calls the team's tactics, and a four-time Major winner. He is to help with product development and take part in sports science testing. The same brand thus works with the organizers of events and with an individual player in the same game.

The two deals cover different ground. The ESL FACEIT Group agreement decides what equipment stands on the stage of a tournament, whichever teams play. The MOUZ agreement, as the club describes it, equips one organization's players and supports them at the events they attend.

What comes next for the two rosters

The Counter-Strike team's next tournament is BLAST Open Rotterdam, which Esports Insider calls BLAST Open Spring 2026. The organizer's second top-level event of the year runs from March 18 to 29 with 16 teams and a prize pool of US$400,000, according to Esports Insider's preview of February 19.

The group stage, from March 18 to 23, splits the field into two groups of eight played in the GSL format, a double-elimination group where a team is out after two series lost. The top three of each group go through: the group winners straight to the semifinals, the runners-up and the third-placed teams to the quarterfinals. The playoffs are single elimination in best-of-three series, with a best-of-five final, and they are played at the Ahoy Arena in Rotterdam from March 27 to 29. The preview lists MOUZ against The MongolZ on Thursday, March 19, as the match that heads the opening round, and notes that G2 Esports, the defending champions, are not attending.

The Dota 2 team is in DreamLeague Season 28, where Esports Insider describes it as fighting for a playoff place.

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