International esports organization Team Liquid found itself embroiled in controversy Monday following a player aiming a social media post at a Japanese team that involved an image of a nuclear bomb blast. The social media post ultimately led to the team making a public apology and one of its biggest sponsors—Honda—ending its deal after more than six years of working together.
It all started on May 13, when Team Liquid Rainbow Six Siege professional player Lucas Dias posted a message aimed at Japan-based esports organization CAG Osaka, who knocked his team out of the recent R6 RE:LO:AD tournament:
“We won against Faze and lost against the powerful CAG, but let’s move forward and see you at the next camp.” That post on X was accompanied by a GIF of a nuclear bomb explosion, commonly referred to as a mushroom cloud. That post was subsequently deleted.
Dias ultimately apologized in another post:
Hey everyone. I want to sincerely apologize for the post I made after our last loss. I made a big mistake using that GIF, and I understand that it may have caused discomfort to many people. From the bottom of my heart It was never my intention to make any offensive reference, but…
— Liquid Dias (@DiasLucasR6) May 15, 2025
There’s no indication that Diaz knew what he had posted was offensive, but the context of it was deemed that way by Honda executives; for context, during the end of World War II, the U.S. military dropped two atomic bombs—one on Hiroshima, and another one on Nagasaki.
Regardless of the nature or intention of the Dias post, Tokyo-based car maker and longtime Team Liquid sponsor Honda announced an immediate termination of its partnership with the team.
The U.S. division of the company, American Honda Motor Co., Inc. (AHM), issued the following statement:
Team Liquid also issued a statement on Monday, noting that (it believes) Dias didn’t post his message with any intentional malice. Nevertheless, he has been fined four months of pay, and the company says it will use this incident to train its players, with “mandatory re-training for all Team Liquid players and coaches across every game title,” to “prevent similar issues in the future.”
The company apologized to fans in Japan, its sponsors, and the CAG Osaka players, who it claims “listened and accepted the apology with grace and understanding and expressed that they saw it as a mistake and not a deliberate insult.”
Regardless of that, Honda has distanced itself from the team. On that front, Team Liquid noted Honda’s decision not to renew its deal, going forward:
“However, due to the controversy generated by this incident, our automotive partner Honda Motors has made the decision not to renew our partnership. Although we regret this outcome, we understand and respect the decision, and extend our thanks to Honda Motors for having been good partners for 6 years. We remain grateful to our community, to our partners, and to those who have engaged with us constructively through this. Thank you for holding us to a high standard. We intend to meet it.”
It is unclear how big a financial blow this is to Team Liquid.
Team Liquid and Honda fist partnered in 2019. Over the years, that partnership was expanded with a naming rights deal for its League of Legends and LoL academy teams. The company was front-and-center in all of Team Liquid’s activities on social media, in its content, and during competitions, and frequently engaged in numerous activations and fan focused events.
While Honda will no longer be a sponsor for the organization, Team Liquid still has existing partnerships with Monster Energy, Alienware, SAP, IMC, Coinbase, and Sui, among others.