NRG Esports is officially under new ownership.
On December 1, the Las-Vegas-based esports company DarkZero closed a deal to acquire the competitive gaming side of NRG, with Full Squad Gaming, NRG’s casual gaming arm, remaining under the umbrella of NRG founder and former CEO Andy Miller and his ownership group.
Moving forward, Miller will be stepping into an advisory role with the new NRG and handing the CEO reins over to Don Kim, who previously served as the CEO of both DarkZero and the investment firm Grey Matter Capital. The deal took the form of an undisclosed cash deal, according to Kim, who discussed the acquisition with GamesBeat but declined to share specific financial terms, including how the deal valued NRG, which has raised roughly $40 million in funding since 2016.
“We’ve actually been talking to many of the owners in the space for a couple years now, and we’ve been considering various investments and acquisitions,” Kim said. “[NRG Chief Gaming Officer] Jaime [Cohenca] reached out to us a couple months ago, and brought us into the loop about Andy’s desire to potentially sell the company.”
Amid the transition, both DarkZero and NRG stressed that operations would remain relatively stable at the newly combined org, with the company maintaining “most of the staff and all of the players,” according to Kim, who said that the acquisition had prompted cuts of “three or four” staffers whose roles overlapped with DarkZero staff.
“The sponsors are all perfectly fine and happy with this arrangement, because the activation team that they’ve worked with has been maintained — so they’re all the same faces,” Kim said.
To outside observers, the DarkZero–NRG deal might appear to be taking place at an unusual time. After all, NRG has performed well as a competitive gaming team over the past year, winning world championships in both “Valorant” and “Rocket League” in 2025. The company has continued to sign brand deals in 2025, most recently announcing a partnership with Thrustmaster in September. But to observers of the industry, the move makes sense. Esports has been in a state of consolidation for years — with NRG itself acquiring the once-prominent org CLG in 2023 — and Miller told GamesBeat that the decision to hunt for an acquisition partner predated NRG’s recent run of competitive success.
“Winning just helped juice interest in NRG from potential suitors,” Miller said in a statement emailed to GamesBeat. “Our back-to-back championships pushed NRG even further onto the world stage, but you can’t count on winning it all every year.”
DarkZero might not be counting on winning championships every year, but the company certainly plans to double down on NRG’s competitive DNA, particularly now that the brand has been separated from the more casually-focused property Full Squad Gaming. Although NRG will continue to work with creators, Kim said the company will take a more selective approach moving forward, prioritizing influencers with deep roots in competitive gaming and putting forward players as influencers and creators. DarkZero, which maintains its own tier-two esports teams, will remain a separate brand, but will take a backseat to NRG moving forward.
“We view esports as a long-term project; we’re really passionate about the space,” Kim said. “It’s something that we care about a lot, as an ownership group. We want to be here in 20 to 30 years — not two to three years.”
Esports remains an uncertain business, with few companies in the space — and even fewer competitive teams — managing to strike a path to profitability in recent years. Going into 2026, industry observers believe DarkZero’s acquisition of NRG could be a sign that M&A is ramping up in the space.
“We’re likely to see more consolidation in the industry, given the challenges that it has faced in the last two or three years since COVID,” said David Hoppe, the managing director of Gamma Law, a legal firm whose practice includes gaming and esports.
Ultimately, NRG’s decision to sell after a year marked by championships and brand deals shows that the esports industry is still trying to find its footing amid struggles with profitability and a shift in advertiser interest from esports over to other areas of gaming. With a long road ahead to true stability, more esports organizations are likely to search for acquisition partners like DarkZero in 2026.
“We still haven’t addressed the core issues of esports, which is that you have defined expenses going out, but the incoming revenue is always uncertain. Even if you’re always inking deals, there’s a constant pressure to do that, and it’s really hard to keep that going,” said Jason Chung, a lawyer practicing in gaming and esports for the law firm Zuber Lawler LLP. “So, obviously, a lot of teams will go for stability in a sale, at some point.”