Faker is a brand, image of T1
In League of Legends in particular and Esports in general, Faker brand can be said to be the highest value. After more than 11 years since the first launch of League of Legends village, Faker has become the most famous Esports player in the world today. In 2020, Korean media ranked Faker into one of the “four great countries”, placed next to many famous names. Foreign newspapers and magazines also many times Faker wallet such as “Messi of football” or “Michael Jordan of basketball”.
Faker's influence and brand in League of Legends and Esports are not inferior to Messi in football
By being the first player, Riot was put into the legendary hall, as well as building the title of “the greatest League of Legends player of all time” after the World Championship Championship 2024, the greater the image and brand value of Faker. Faker himself also showed the attachment to T1, when he held the shares of this team. Faker's social networking accounts are also managed by the T1 crew. In particular, Faker's Instagram account is over 1.8 million followers – the League of Legends player with the highest follower number in the world.
Faker is also the highest number of LoL players in the world
Some Faker brands cooperated are Nike, Samsung, Razer, Red Bull and Creative Artists Agency. These sponsors bring Faker more than $ 3 million per year (as of 2023) and synonymous with large sums of money for T1.
Faker also made millions of dollars of advertising contracts for himself and T1
Faker's image infringement are strictly prohibited
In May 2020, according to information from Bizhankook, on April 13, T1 officially applied for Faker/페이커 brand copyright registration to Lee “Faker” Sang-Hyeok, belonging to the League of Legends T1 to the Korean Intellectual Property Office. This means: When Faker still contracts with T1, or still a person of T1, this team possesses all factors related to Faker brand, from images, clips … of “Goat”.
T1 has registered to own Faker brand copyright for England in 2020
Therefore, all acts of exploiting Faker will have to go through T1. This is also the way for this team to control the negative images of Faker (if any). Like the summer period 2024, when Faker took negative actions after the defeat of Gen.G. At that moment, T1 announced the request to stop the spread of this clip. If all the same actions occur after that, the T1 side can completely sue, regardless of who the individual or collective is related.
For players like Faker, the image problem is very important. The T1 side certainly does not want to happen anything that affects its “national treasure”.