On the 16th of September 2024, K10 announced on X that they would close their doors and were open to takeover offers. A shock to many, K10’s sudden demise raised questions over the sustainability of UK CS, leaving others wondering what went wrong.
Having emerged seemingly from nowhere, K10 went from being home to an ESEA Intermediate level team to the champions of UKIC season 0 in just a few short years. Held up as the example of the ‘right way to do things’, K10 put player development, content creation and professionalism at their core in order to build a lasting brand.
Despite that groundwork, K10 succumbed just as many organisations in the UK scene recently have. Less than two months after announcing their more recent CS roster, general manager Ethan “fl0wz” Rogerson announced his departure from the organisation, followed closely by word from CEO and Co-Owner Oliver “Taz” Holloway that the organisation would cease operations.
K10 were an organisation with a meteoric rise but an equally astounding demise. UKCSGO spoke to those at the heart of the organisation to explore how they achieved their success, and why they came crashing back down to Earth.
After two years we officially close our doors, so for one last time #GOK10. pic.twitter.com/gwEkY08e7M
— K10 (@K10_GG) September 16, 2024
Humble beginnings.
K10 was originally established as an esports brand by Fin Dudley, who bought the K10 brand for a modest sum in the early stages of 2022. In the summer of that year, K10 announced its first Counter-Strike roster.
Headed by AWP/IGL Shea “pieface” Reilly, the roster consisted of Harry “moshi” Raines, Ryan “pr0xje” Skene, William “Wiiam” O’Shea, and Ethan “Carterlad10” Carter. Initially competing at ESEA Intermediate level, the roster quickly gained promotion to ESEA Main.
With the organisation in motion, Fin began to involve a duo that would go on to shape K10 as we know it – Taz and fl0wZ. The pair quickly found common ground in frustrations they had found while working for other organisations.
Their experiences had shown them UK organisations that did not take an active interest in their rosters, who did nothing but the bare minimum in branding and social media posts, and who had not competently pursued growing revenue streams. This is something they wanted to change.
Initially brought in to help with advice, video-editing and graphics, the pair became increasingly involved in the day-to-day running of K10 over the following months. Taz was offered a managerial position within the sapling organisation, which then became an opportunity to invest. Ultimately that increased involvement culminated in an offer for the duo to take over the organisation in August of 2022.
“Finn felt the ownership/running of the organisation wasn’t for him. I think that came from financial stability and a few other elements. It was up to Ethan and I to correct course and make improvements, and that’s what we decided to do.” – Oliver “Taz” Holloway
Under new leadership.
Now in control of the business, Taz and fl0wZ set about building the organisation they had always wanted to. For the Counter-Strike roster, that meant wholesale changes.
Taz and I identified very early on when we started to get more influence in the brand that we didn’t want to work with that roster. It was a roster we didn’t see improving over time. There weren’t any particular stand-out players that could go further. I wanted to go with something that fit my ideals of talent development, something that was going to be with us long term and be stable. – Ethan “fl0wz” Rogerson
After honouring their commitment to take the pieface-led roster to LAN, K10 released the roster and began to look for new opportunities. In October of 2022, K10 signed their first VALORANT roster in the hope of penetrating the tier 2 French VALORANT scene, a lucrative opportunity in the early days of VALORANT’s esports scene.
With the organisation’s primary focus on that roster, K10’s Counter-Strike team needed to fit certain qualities – namely, it needed leadership and internal stability to survive when the organisation’s attention was elsewhere.
Initial talks with the then XRAVEL roster, featuring Rasmus “zodi” Frølich and coach Daniel “papp” Hart, were promising but just 12 hours before signing for K10 the roster received a salaried offer from Arctic Raptors. Earl “Earl” Stephenson’s core, which would later become Vitalize, was also considered but again negotiations fell through.
Searching for a stable roster who would build what they wanted, K10 targeted a leader first and foremost.
Taz and I had both worked with Adam [AdamJC] before so we knew what we were getting in terms of his captaincy, in terms of the team he wanted to build, in terms of how he was going to communicate with us, and in terms of his expectations for an organisation etc. – Ethan “fl0wz” Rogerson
Within Adam “AdamJC” Colwell, K10 had found an IGL who was aligned with the philosophy of the organisation, seeking to elevate young talent while maintaining a professional, non-toxic environment. After initial discussions, the organisation were happy for AdamJC to move forward with the roster he was planning.
It had a bunch of players I considered to be unproblematic people who I knew wanted to be good, and would put the effort in to be good. They were players who hadn’t maybe been given the chance under a good organisation and a captain like Adam to try to prove themselves, obviously one of those players was Jamie [Tree60]… The moment Adam said he was building a team I was like ‘Are you going to trial tree? This kid is going to be really big.’ – Ethan “fl0wZ” Rogerson
Marketed as ‘Project Nua’, K10’s new roster consisted of AdamJC, Wiiam, Nino “NiNo” Roos, Rik “ve1nzo” Zwegers and Jamie “Tree60” Callan. The roster, assembled while the focus was elsewhere, would go on to become the longest-lasting iteration of K10, featuring players who remain fan favourites to this day.
Building a business.
K10 was a very different org (compared to other bedroom orgs) from the outset when it was acquired by Taz and Fl0wz. I believe they were more passionate than other owners and really strived to get sponsors and were definitely on the ball in that sense. – Adam “AdamJC” Colwell
With stable rosters secured in both Counter-Strike and VALORANT, the organisation could now focus on building revenue streams around their teams. While global esports organisations are often a plaything for wealthy enthusiasts who can afford to throw money away, K10’s relatively modest financial backing resulted in a necessity to quickly grow revenue streams, particularly sponsorship.
We wanted to create a self-sustaining business model, where we wouldn’t have to put in our own money, and we managed to achieve that fairly quickly, but we wanted that to be truly sustainable in a true sense of the word. Something that would live a long-term on its own feet without the need for constant large outside investment. We’d be generating money from player sales, from branding sponsors on media and from building alternative businesses. – Ethan “fl0wZ” Rogerson
Key to differentiating K10 from the competition, and attracting sponsorship, was an emphasis on content creation – to market both the team and their players as assets.
When you’re growing a fanbase, building stories and narratives is going to be one of your key priorities… You’ve got to give people a reason to be invested in you. You can’t just be like ‘Here’s our name, here’s our logo, we have these teams’ because the moment those players go the fans go with them. There are examples of that in the UK scene. – Ethan “fl0wZ” Rogerson
“A period of exponential growth in all areas.”
As 2023 dawned, K10’s business strategy was producing unprecedented success for the organisation. Seed funding from TCG World had allowed K10 to invest in ways that would expand K10 beyond the normal remit of a ‘bedroom org’. LAN and bootcamp funding was secured, as well as professional media and graphics by Liam Kew and Ege “FOEW” Demirtas respectively.
However, as the year progressed all was not well on the server. Despite winning multiple cash cups in 2023, K10’s VALORANT roster had narrowly failed to qualify for Challenger League France 2024. Without another chance to qualify for a big event, the roster was let go in the summer of 2023. That swung the organisation’s primary focus definitively towards Counter-Strike, where it would remain until its closure.
Despite the setback in VALORANT, K10 found that the community had become greatly invested in their Counter-Strike roster, with superior engagement and return on investment coming from the CS roster. That popularity would become the basis for its future sponsorship.
in 2023 K10 invested near double into VAL what it did CS, yet we saw infinite more return from CS both financially and socially, despite having a significantly worse team relative to VAL and allocating VAL the majority of our marketing budget
RN its just not worth it
— fl0wZ (@EthanFl0wZ) October 19, 2024
But K10’s business acumen became a double-edged sword for its CS roster as business needs necessitated that K10 reach ESEA Advanced. The team consistently performed strongly in the regular season, boasting an impressive 11-3 regular season record in Season 45, but fell early in the playoffs, narrowly missing promotion.
We sat down with Adam and said ‘Adam, look. I love you. You’re one of my favourite players I’ve ever had in my org but we really need you to make advanced. Otherwise, we would lose a lot of conditional sponsorships, for example, the Tradeit deal. We’ve been speaking to this team and we need you guys to make [ESEA] Advanced or we’re going to pick them up. – Ethan “fl0wZ” Rogerson
At the time of its maximum stress, the roster lost its star player as Tree60’s departed to Ex-Coalesce, but K10 found a solid replacement in Connor “Bigun” Suddons. Shortly after NiNo retired with James “Flicky” Errington stepping in. In the end, the changes made little difference to the outcome as ESEA Main Season 46 followed the familiar formula, with an early playoff exit once again.
For whatever reason once they get to Main playoffs, they hit this weird glass ceiling that they can’t get through. That team was good enough for advanced… every time they got the opportunity it just fell apart and it’s hard to say why. – Ethan “fl0wZ” Rogerson
On the 16th of November 2023, after 304 days together, K10’s roster was released. The EPIC run was documented in “The Last Dance”, a YouTube video about their EPIC.LAN 40 run where they finished runners-up. True to form, K10 used the roster’s departure as an opportunity for content.
The peak of the mountain.
On the 5th of December 2023, K10 announced their new roster. The roster would be, by far, the most competitive that K10 would ever assemble, representing a step-up in K10’s professional ambitions.
The roster consisted of the Ex-Coalesce core of Ryan ”dox” Young, Tobias “shyyne” Seather, Jacob “Rezst” Hemming, returning prodigal son Tree60 and ex-7AM rifler Zy “yz0” Esponilla. The orgless core was in a good position to grow, having delivered strong results in UKIC and ESEA, but without an organisation to represent them, they had struggled to get invites to events that their results justified.
𝐁𝐈𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐑. 𝐁𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐑. 𝐊𝟏𝟎
Introducing our new CS2 Roster:
@doxcsgo
@yz0aja
@Tree__cs
@shyyneCS
@rezstcsgo
It’s time to take over.
Powered by @tradeit_GG #GOK10 pic.twitter.com/lq2QMCVf9m
— K10 (@K10_GG) December 5, 2023
The announcement came extraordinarily close to the UKIC Season 0 finals. Although the organisation had been in contact with the roster since November, the final terms of the deal were not agreed until the eleventh hour as K10’s first salaried roster ever required guarantees of the financial backing to match its ambition.
In the space of five days, we agreed the final terms of the contract with Tradeit, got that signed, got money in the account, agreed the final terms of the contract with the CS team, got that signed then flew them all out to a bootcamp at the Endpoint facility then played the UKIC LAN finals. – Ethan “fl0wZ” Rogerson
As they say, the rest is history. K10’s bootcamp would not only be great content for their brand but the backdrop to their most significant victory to date. Having fallen to Verdant in the upper bracket final 0-2, K10 would go on to defeat Verdant in a barnstormer Grand Final, off the back of an extraordinary performance from their young talent, yz0. K10, which had started as a brand bought for a few hundred pounds, had now reached the pinnacle of UK CS.
To win your debut event as a competitor feels amazing. It felt amazing for us because it was our first LAN event with an FPS team. It was great. It should have been the start of something great, but it wasn’t… – Ethan “fl0wZ” Rogerson
The beginning of the descent.
Unfortunately, K10’s year started with the bitter blow of losing to KOI in the PGL CS2 Copenhagen RMR Open Qualifier losing in overtime after having match point. The win would have put them one win away from the RMR, but outside of that painful result all signs were good for K10’s UKIC Champions. By the beginning of 2024, K10’s roster was getting the European experience it needed to progress in the form of United21 and European Pro League invites.
Additionally, K10 was investing yet more into the UK scene and their commitment to developing new talent, in the form of their K10 FWRD roster, an academy team scouted by fl0wZ and headed by Earl who they had narrowly missed out on for their main team just over a year before. Their return to VALORANT in the same month was indicative of an organisation stretching its legs now that it had the finances to put its ambitions to the test.
Introducing the FWRD Project, a new initiative aimed at grassroots talent development in UKCS;
@EarliGE – Captain
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐒:
@1Rhyza
@M1n1maLcs
@geckeos
@meltycs
Read more about the project, as well as our goals and aspirations below #K10FWRD pic.twitter.com/pP87bPTR62
— K10 (@K10_GG) January 16, 2024
The sunny picture didn’t last long, however, as dox decided to retire in February with Rezst taking up the IGL role. His sudden departure was the start of what would be a trend in K10’s 2024: Roster instability.
With the British IGL out of the picture, K10 replaced him with another Norwegian talent in the form of SLY, marking the organisation’s official move to an international roster. K10 were able to continue their involvement in UKIC by rotating in academy players and substitutes such as Geckeos, Rhyza and Rory “cryths” Ursell.
Today we’re sad to announce the departure of @doxcsgo from our CS2 Roster
Read more below pic.twitter.com/BywtyMaLpG
— K10 (@K10_GG) February 1, 2024
Shortly after, K10’s results began to get frustrating. They found little progress in European competition, and domestically they suffered successive devastating Grand Final defeats. First, they were defeated at EPIC.LAN 41 by The Neighbours, who were bolstered by Owen “smooya” Butterfield and Matas “Extinct” Strumilla. At the UKIC Season 1 LAN finals, they suffered the same result to the same opposition – runners-up yet again.
I think EPIC 41 created another one of these glass ceilings and then it happened again at the UKIC finals, and it had happened against KOI in the [major] qualifiers. This kind of created a glass ceiling where they, not for lack of being a good team, struggled to win against some of the better tier 2 teams. Not because they were good enough and eventually that led to them plateauing. – Ethan “fl0wZ” Rogerson
As well as disappointing results, the team was beginning to internally fracture due to both in-game and out-of-game disagreements. Multiple K10 players had become destabilised under increased interest from other European and domestic organisations.
Tragically for K10, the roster’s most delicate moment came at a time when the organisation was at its lowest capacity to deal with volatility. Rogerson had taken April away from work due to personal and health reasons and, little known to the public, Holloway had fallen seriously ill in the same month.
It was only in July that the public learned the level of hardship that K10’s CEO was experiencing. In a video entitled “We fell off, here’s why”, it was revealed that a large mass had been found in Holloway’s brain in April of 2024, leading to extensive and debilitating treatment. At the time, his wife was 6 months pregnant with their first child. The video explained that Taz had later recovered with treatment and outlined the unfortunate damage that his illness had caused K10.
It just came at a really unfortunate time. K10 has always operated with a really small staff team… A lot of people doing a lot of the individual jobs, creating a tight-knit team that was able to be a well-oiled and cohesive unit… We started to go downhill as soon as illness and other things came up, and I would say the glue that was keeping most things together, being me and Ethan, when 50% of that isn’t maintaining to a higher standard it’s very, very difficult. – Oliver “Taz” Holloway
With fl0wZ and Taz absent, the roster was incapable of taking a step forward with in-game or interpersonal issues. By May the roster was dead, and disbandment was official. With the roster’s collapse happening when they were otherwise indisposed, Taz and fl0wZ were left wondering what they could have done if they had been able to contribute at that time.
I definitely think if me and Taz were there to be hands-on with things then things could have been different, or if we had a coach to deal with some of the interpersonal issues then it could have been avoided, and we could have been the same roster today. – Ethan “fl0wZ” Rogerson
A nine-day debacle.
The line-up departing turned out to be a bitter blow for K10 who had built its revenue streams off of the roster. Although the organisation’s existence did not depend on a single team’s revenue, fl0wZ explained, “the moment it died it significantly reduced our ability to re-enter CS at the same level.” Sponsors expressed reluctance to provide the level of financial support for a new roster that would potentially not be competing at the same level K10 had just weeks before.
It was that backdrop that led to K10’s disastrous final nine-day roster.
We didn’t want to take a step back. We should have, and we should have known we should have. I’ve been very critical of other organisations not being willing to take a step back. And I should have swallowed my own medicine here and taken a step back, but I didn’t. I wanted to stay at the top of the UK scene because I’d work for so many years to get there and, unfortunately, that over-eagerness is what cost us in the end. – Ethan “fl0wZ” Rogerson
On the 16th of July 2024, K10 announced what would be their last Counter-Strike roster.
The roster, headed by UK CS veterans James “bevve” Slinn and Marco “MMS” Salomone, represented a unique opportunity for K10. It would allow the organisation to continue at the top of UK Counter-Strike in UKIC Division 1, as well as ESEA Advanced, therefore furnishing the needs of its sponsors. In the meantime, the roster would demand no wages while remaining free to pursue other opportunities.
Despite concerns that the roster did not fit the developmental philosophy of the organisation, the deal was considered by K10 as too good to refuse. Its ownership decided to quell their misgivings and take the deal – a decision fl0wZ would later regret.
Fuck it, we’re back
K10 Returns to the topflight of UKCS with;
@bevvexyz
@MMS__CS
@shushanCS
@AllanSpeedy
@NickCarbs (C)#GOK10 pic.twitter.com/23XkeUqVtd
— K10 (@K10_GG) July 16, 2024
K10’s understanding of the deal would see them stay for the remainder of the ESEA season, which had two months remaining at the time – giving the organisation time to regrow revenue streams while raising the profile of the roster so they could find another salaried offer. In reality, the ex-EXO team was not united in their commitment to remaining as a team or in their understanding of the deal with K10.
UKCSGO understands that an active player on the roster had agreed to field K10 FWRD rising star, Liam “m1n1mal” Reynolds, for UKIC games, having been given a list of positions on maps in which to integrate the player. While streaming, MMS asserted that no such agreement existed.
In the end, that disagreement hardly mattered but it was representative of a roster fatally misaligned both within itself and with its organisation.
Eight days after the initial announcement for K10, the roster had disbanded with Reason signing bevve and Allan “Speedy” Sørensen, while Shiran “shushan” Shushan returned to NOM and MMS committed to streaming.
When asked what damage the short-lived roster had done to K10, fl0wZ responded:
Quite a bit, if I’m honest. Reputationally especially. There were European teams that didn’t want to come near us. Sponsors would say to us ‘Well you only had this team for a week, what happened there?’
Reason Gaming unveil new roster 24 hours after parting ways with former team
All good things…
K10’s stature may have fallen, but there were no external signs of crisis. Their recently announced fe project, K10 Ashes, competed in ESL Impact qualifiers and cash cups, while K10 FWRD competed in ESEA Inters.
UKCSGO understands that the organisation was still pursuing rosters in multiple games after bevve and Co. departed. Yet, as July became August became September, nothing materialised and the writing was on the wall that something wasn’t right at K10. An announcement followed.
On 10th September, General Manager Ethan “flowZ” Rogerson announced his departure from the organisation, citing a desire to “push further up the ladder.” He explained the decision to UKCSGO:
I’m on the clock now, I’ll be 21 next year. The truth is I can’t continue to work for free. I’m under pressure to start earning, and with the prospect of K10 not being able to generate significant revenue until Q2 next year, I was put into a position where I had to make a very difficult choice. It was really tough. I felt like I was betraying a lot of people. – Ethan “fl0wZ” Rogerson
After a tumultuous year, the economic reality of K10 had shifted. The business itself remained viable, with individual elements of the business insulated against lowered sponsorship, but the personal circumstances of those at the top of its business meant that K10 couldn’t financially take a step back and persist with the same personnel.
We weren’t haemorrhaging money or anything like that, people weren’t starving on the streets begging for food rations. The company could have gone forward. It would have been in a lesser state than it would have been before… I’m confident that we could have built up to where we were before. It would have taken a couple of months, maybe a year, but it wasn’t viable. – Ethan “fl0wZ” Rogerson
After 2 years filled with ups and downs, I’ve taken the difficult decision to leave @K10_GG. I’ve lived & breathed this brand since I joined in August ’22, had the opportunity to work with some fantastic people and made some incredible memories but now feel the need for change
— fl0wZ (@EthanFl0wZ) September 10, 2024
A few short days after fl0wZ’s departure, Taz confirmed that the organisation was ceasing operations in a post on X. Initially it was unclear if the decision was a direct result of Rogerson’s departure.
If I’m completely honest, the reason for closing the org down – a loss of momentum. We were burning so quickly, and doing so well for such a long period of time. It just got to the point where I was not able to commit 1% of my time to the organisation with new responsibilities in having my firstborn. It just led to the situation where the conversations we had as a company leading up to the birth of my son, then getting ill, it kind of just came to fruition. – Oliver “Taz” Holloway
Between illness and the birth of his first child, Holloway’s ability to dedicate himself to K10 had drastically shifted, and the thought of grinding out success again with a K10 without his right-hand man lacked appeal.
It got to the stage where I had loved creating K10 with Fin, Ethan, and all the other people we had along the way. If that wasn’t then going to be the case in future it left me with a taste of ‘Well, I wouldn’t want to share this with anyone else.’ – Oliver “Taz” Holloway
K10 ceased operations on the 16th of September 2024.
Just want to address all the messages, its true after a long and hard 2 years of trying we will be closing the doors at K10 and my official leave of esports.
Its been amazing working with so many talented people but for now its time to say goodbye.
Sorry. #GOK10
— Taz (@TazBO6) September 14, 2024
An organisation that defied expectations, K10’s closure was typically uncharacteristic of the scene. A reminder of the complex variables of esports, K10 did not fall into the typical pitfalls of small organisations. They did not overleverage themselves in the hope of a breakout performance that would elevate the team’s sponsorship, they did not pay overinflated wages which could not be sustained.
Yet they arrived at the same endpoint that many before them in the UK scene had. K10’s business was sustainable from a fiscal perspective, but not sustainable from a personal perspective for the people at the heart of the operation. It had suffered from tragic timing regarding Taz‘s personal illness which took its momentum away. It had come tragically close to reaching a level that would have allowed the continuation of fl0wZ as General Manager.
While larger organisations may be robust to specific people becoming ill, having a child or departing, small organisations heavily rely on the passion and determination of a team of few individuals whose dedication is required no matter their circumstances or their financial realities.
A fire requires fuel, oxygen and heat to sustain itself – removal of any of these conditions proves fatal. For two years the ideal conditions converged and K10 burned bright through a combination of business model, roster management, and leadership. Over the course of 2024, the circumstances of K10’s leadership changed, and its internal fuel ran dry, ultimately leading to K10’s fire being extinguished.
For now, K10 remains in Taz’s hands. He remains open to the idea of selling the brand or restarting K10 at a later date. Will K10 rise from the ashes? Only time will tell.
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