Esports organization Gamers First (G1) announced Friday that it has acquired the female professional Rocket League Women’s Car Ball League (WCB) from Kansas City Pioneers. The company said that it will “immediately inject the capital” into WCB to pay down prior debts and prepare to relaunch the next season on March 18.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
G1 is led by former Tennessee Titans and New Orleans Saints defensive back Kenny Vaccaro, who retired from the NFL in 2021 to start his esports-focused venture—he’s a co-founder and CEO.
Kansas City Pioneers acquired WCB in late-2021 and helped grow it into a viable league for women to compete in a professional Rocket League circuit safely. While KCP managed to help grow WCB, it also struggled to pay for it near the end of 2022, and in January it announced that it would be forced to pause Season 5 gameplay to find a buyer or secure some other type of funding.
G1 has tentative plans to officially launch Season 5 March 18-19, with a North American closed qualifier and a WCB main event, followed by an “additional 23 NA and EU events until the WCB Championship in the fall,” according to a release.
Starting with Season 5, the schedule for WCB events include OPEN events on Fridays, which allows anyone in the league’s official Discord channel to organize a team and compete in one of 16 spots through an open bracket format; QUALIFIER every Saturday, where the top eight teams from the OPEN compete against the top eight teams from the previous week’s MAIN; and MAIN every Sunday, where the top eight teams from QUALIFIER face off in the weekend’s MAIN event.Following Sunday’s event, scores are tallied and rankings are issued for the next event.
But beyond the start of the new season, G1 has plans for the league to remain sustainable going forward, and to grow. The company claims it will do this through a series of new initiatives and actions including the launch of a female player development program, securing top sponsors and partners, in-person LAN events (with ticket sales), a player profiles-focused content series, and more.