EG Director Of Athletics Andrew Barton To Leave Organisation
EG Director Of Athletics Andrew Barton To Leave Organisation
Having joined the organisation in late 2019 as a general manager, Barton becomes the latest high profile departure from the North American organisation
Sources familiar with the Evil Geniuses management structure have informed this publication that their current Director of Athletics will leave the organisation. After a series of news stories critical of EG Barton has decided to hand in resignation with his last day being the 20th September. He will be the latest in a line of departures that include CEO Nicole Lapointe Jameson who announced to the community she would be leaving on August 31st via a post on X.com and an accompanying interview in Digiday.
Barton was hired in November 2019 as a general manager for the League of Legends team after a period with the Dignitas organisation. After a while though his role changed to encompass presiding over the League of Legends, Valorant and Dota 2 teams at the North American organisation. In that time the LoL team won an LCS split and the Valorant team were recently crowned world champions.
While we don’t know the motivations for Barton’s departure a source from the organisation made it clear that this was his choice and he had not been fired. They cited “a disappointment with the direction they [Evil Geniuses] have headed in” as the primary reason for his resignation. We reached out to Mr. Barton regarding this matter and he declined to comment.
It is not too difficult to imagine his frustrations. During his tenure the title winning League of Legends team was torn apart by the mishandling of a prodigy player having a mental health crisis. The Dota 2 team made significant cutbacks after a disappointing 9th-12th finish at 2022’s The International tournament and now has a team that failed to get out of groups at the most recent Major. The Valorant reserve roster and coach were cut as a cost cutting exercise after four of the reserve players didn’t play a single match in 2023. Even the Valorant world championship win, heralded by the organisation as proof that their unorthodox methods can bring success, has been spoiled by an ongoing dispute about salaries that may very well see the team break up. In addition to all this rumours of a likely sale of the organisation’s LCS franchise slot have gathered steam after Nicole Lapointe Jameson answered a question about such a move by saying “everything’s for sale, for the right price.”
It won’t take long for Barton to get back into action as we understand that he has accepted a role to become the General Manager at FlyQuest ahead of the Spring split in LCS. That role will come its own set of challenges as the League of Legends team managed only a 9th place finish in the most recent Summer split.