*By Jimmy Mondal*
Will “wiill” Sims, in-game leader of the NobleGG team that recently qualified for the NPL preseason, started gaming as a League of Legends player in 2012. But his League of Legends skills didn’t foreshadow his later esports success.
“I was never personally that good,” he told Cheddar Sports with a laugh, “so I ended up just trying the coaching route.”
Sims continued to coach and manage League of Legends, he says, until Riot Games started to franchise out and he realized his chances of getting in without the connections or accolades that some of his peers possessed were slim.
At this point, he was looking for a game that was “accessible and something that you could get into early.” He realized that getting to a game late makes it harder to gain access to its inner circle and advance.
That’s when he discovered PUBG, right as it was first announced.
Sims jumped into the competitive scene in February, eventually playing in amateur 2v2 tournaments with some semi-professionals who happened to be missing team members for a full-on four-player squad.
After gaining experience through the amateur circuit and proving himself to the semi-professional community, he started to make connections to members of the NobleGG squad. However, Sims didn’t have the experience of some of the other players.
Although PUBG was his first first-person shooter game, Sims was able to prove his value by using the analytical and leadership skills he picked up while coaching League of Legends ー like “how to apply strategies, how to make a team work together, how to make people mesh.”
When coming to PUBG, he said he asked himself: “What other avenue can I approach to make myself valuable to the team? What can I offer?
“And it came down to the intellectual side of the game ーbeing able to use strategies, being able to adapt and think on the fly and being able to adjust to the situation,” he said adding, “which is what battle royale’s all about.”
Sims qualified with his team for the upcoming National PUBG League. Preseason starts in mid-January.
Canada was one of the only developed countries in the world that did not have a premier league for soccer. Until now. The Canada Premier League will kick off its inaugural season next year in the hopes of creating a soccer revolution ahead of the 2026 World Cup, co-hosted in the country, says CPL commissioner David Clanachan.
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Most World Cup fans may have their money on the usual contenders: Brazil, France, and Germany. But there are a few teams and players that have the potential to upend the game and surpass expectations, says Jeffrey Marcus, publisher of The Banter.
The battle between Microsoft and Amazon is heating up. According to a Reuters report, Microsoft is working to develop cashierless technology to compete with Amazon, which recently introduced its first check-out free grocery store in Seattle.
The Boring Company has won the bid to build Chicago's Hyperloop. Elon Musk's company was one of four competing for the project. The Hyperloop will connect commuters between the city and O'Hare International Airport.
The president of the Staten Island Yankees joins us to talk about his team's temporary rebranding. For all five of its Saturday night home games this season, the team will play as the Staten Island Pizza Rats. The team's president Will Smith tells us the story behind this campaign.
The minor league baseball team is temporarily rebranding itself this season to incorporate the famous rodent that dragged a pizza slice down New York City's subway steps. "It's an aggressive name, I think it's probably a little edgy, a little different," said Staten Island Yankees president Will Smith.
The U.S., Canada, and Mexico will jointly host the World Cup in 2026, bringing the sporting event back to U.S. soil after a 30-plus-year hiatus. "I think it offers an aspirational platform for young players today," says Dan Flynn, U.S. Soccer CEO.
The driving range-slash-entertainment venue includes bars and restaurants, turning golf into a fun activity for all demographics, says Topgolf executive chairman Erik Anderson.
The 2018 World Cup starts on Thursday, and Jason Gurwin, co-founder and CEO of FOMOPOP, discusses the best ways to watch all of the soccer games from Russia.
The Philadelphia rapper and die-hard 76ers fan Freeway wants LeBron James to forsake Cleveland and Los Angeles, and take his talents to the City of Brotherly Love.
The vote this week for host of the 2026 World Cup will be a test of FIFA's efforts to clean up its act after a corruption scandal rocked world soccer's governing body three years ago, said Ken Bensinger, author of "Red Card: How the U.S. Blew the Whistle on the World's Biggest Sports Scandal."
