TSM return to Rocket League by signing the Project Delacruz roster

Two days before the first Major of the Rocket League season, the Asia-Pacific representative changed its name. TSM announced on February 17, 2026, on its X account, that it had signed the roster known until then as Project Delacruz, Esports Insider reported on February 18. The three players, Catalysm, Kevin and Sphinx, had already qualified for the RLCS Boston Major, which runs from February 19 to 22.

For TSM, the signing is a way back into a game it had left. Esports Insider describes it as the organization's return to Rocket League esports, after its previous roster departed in November 2025 at the end of the 2025 season. No fee, no contract length and no coach are given in the report.

What TSM bought, and when

The timing is the first thing to note. TSM did not sign a group of players to build toward a later tournament. It signed a team whose results were already in the books, and whose place at an international event was already secured. In its preview of the Major, published on February 19, Esports Insider writes that TSM entered the event by acquiring a roster that had already qualified, and lists TSM as the Asia-Pacific representative.

The roster is unchanged by the deal. Rocket League is played three against three in the Rocket League Championship Series, or RLCS, the official circuit of the game, and the same three players who won the place will play it. What changes is the name on the jersey and the organization behind them.

Before the signing, Project Delacruz was the name under which the three players had entered and won their regional tournaments. Esports Insider writes that the trio dominated its region throughout the season.

A region with a single place

An Open, in the vocabulary of the RLCS, is an online tournament that any eligible team of a region may enter. The 2026 season is built on them. According to the season announcement published by Rocket League on September 15, 2025, the year is divided into two splits, each made of three online Opens per region and each leading to a Major, the name given to the international tournaments played in an arena.

Seven regions take part: North America, Europe, South America, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and North Africa, Oceania and Sub-Saharan Africa. The first Asia-Pacific Open of the season began on November 15, 2025, the same announcement shows.

The regions do not send the same number of teams. Esports Insider's list of qualified teams, published on February 10, gives Asia-Pacific one place in Boston. Winning all three Opens was therefore not a luxury: only the top team of the region's ranking travels.

The field includes the two finalists of the last World Championship. NRG won the 2025 title, and Team Falcons, runner-up that year, also won the 2025 Raleigh Major, Esports Insider recalls. The RLCS itself returns to Boston for the first time since the Spring Split Major of the 2022-23 season.

Fourteen of the sixteen teams qualified through their regional ranking, earned in the Opens, Esports Insider explains. Karmine Corp qualified directly by winning the Kick-Off Weekend, which the outlet calls the first offline event of the 2026 season and which the season announcement had placed in a studio in Copenhagen from December 5 to 7, 2025. Geekay Esports took the last European place through a tiebreaker, beating Man City Esports 4-2 after the two finished level on the European leaderboard.

TSM is not the only late arrival

The same week brought a second deal of the same kind. Virtus.pro announced on February 18, also on X, that it had signed the North American roster that had played the season as REDACTED, Esports Insider reported on February 19. That team had competed through the Kick-Off Weekend and the online Opens without an organization behind it, and held the third seed of the North American ranking. Like TSM, Virtus.pro is described as returning to Rocket League: it had signed a line-up in May 2025 and did not get past the group stage of the Raleigh Major that year.

Two of the sixteen teams in Boston therefore play under a name they did not carry a week before the event. In both cases the organization took over a complete roster of three rather than assembling one.

The rules of the circuit leave room for this as far as nationality is concerned. The 2026 season announcement requires only that a majority of a roster's players be residents or citizens of the region the team competes in: at least two of three on a standard roster, three of four when a substitute is registered. An organization based in one part of the world can therefore field a team in another, as long as the players themselves belong to the region.

Esports Insider places both signings against a period of growth for the game. Rocket League reached a peak of more than one million players across all platforms on February 16, the outlet writes, and the third European Open peaked at 201,637 viewers during the match between Karmine Corp and Gentle Mates, according to Esports Charts.

What TSM had done in the game before

TSM is not new to Rocket League. Esports Insider recalls that the organization has fielded rosters in the game since 2019. Its best result at a high-profile event, by the same account, was sixth place in RLCS Season 7, and the outlet writes that it has otherwise struggled to find success at that level.

Its last roster left in November 2025, after the 2025 season ended. The first Asia-Pacific Open of the 2026 season began on November 15, and the return was announced on February 17, two days before the first Major.

The roster it signed arrives from a region in which, this split, nobody else won an Open. Boston is the first event the three players enter under the TSM name.

Group D and the format in Boston

The Major is played at Agganis Arena in Boston and produced by BLAST, the organizer that runs the circuit under a multi-year partnership with Epic Games signed in 2024. Esports Insider's preview gives the format in full.

The sixteen teams are split into four groups of four. Each group is a single round robin, meaning every team plays the three others once. Matches are best-of-five: the first team to win three games takes the match. The top two of each group go through to the playoffs and the other two are eliminated.

TSM is in Group D with Gentle Mates, Shopify Rebellion and MIBR. Gentle Mates is one of the European teams; Shopify Rebellion and MIBR qualified through the North American and South American rankings. Virtus.pro is in Group B, with Team Falcons, Geekay Esports and FURIA.

The playoffs are best-of-seven and use what the organizer calls the AFL Final Eight system. The four group winners enter with a second chance if they lose their first playoff match. The four runners-up have none: one defeat ends their tournament. The group stage is played on February 19 and 20 behind closed doors, and the playoffs on February 21 and 22 in front of an audience, with the grand final on the last day. All matches are streamed live on the official Rocket League Esports channels, the preview adds.

The prize money and the points

The Boston Major pays US$354,000 in total, the highest prize pool of the 2026 season so far, according to Esports Insider. Every team that makes the trip is paid, and every team earns RLCS points, the season-long tally that decides who goes to the World Championship.

The winner's US$102,000 is twice the runner-up's US$51,000, and the lowest places still pay US$4,500 and three points each.

What comes after the Major

The season does not stop in Boston. According to the Rocket League announcement, the second split runs from March to May 2026, again with three online Opens per region, and leads to the second Major, planned at La Défense Arena in Paris from May 20 to 24. Esports Insider confirms that teams go back to regional Opens after Boston to qualify for Paris.

The World Championship follows in September. Sixteen teams qualify for it automatically, on the RLCS points collected across the season, and four more through regional Last Chance Qualifiers planned for July and August, the announcement says.

TSM's roster will therefore have to do in the second split what it did in the first: finish on top of a region that sends one team. The first measure of the signing comes sooner, with three group matches in Boston starting on February 19.

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