Sheep Esports: German LEC team SK plans to move its operations center from Berlin to Cologne next year

According to Sheep Esports on Saturday, SK Gaming (hereinafter referred to as SK), a veteran team in the German LEC region, will move its operations center from Berlin back to Cologne next year.

With the relocation, all SK's daily LEC-related operations will be centralized in Cologne. They have also arranged for their players to live and train in Cologne, traveling to Berlin only on matchdays.

With this move, SK becomes the only team in the LEC region that does not have a training base in Berlin in 2026. However, similar operations have precedents: from 2021 to 2023, the veteran Danish team Astralis stationed its players in their home country and regularly traveled to Berlin to compete.

When Sheep Esports reached out to SK Gaming for comment, they responded: "When SK moved into the brand new Magenta facility in Cologne, our goal was clear: to bring all the teams home. Berlin was an incredible chapter, full of memories - but at a certain point we realized it was time to return to our roots."

"Cologne isn't just our headquarters, it's our true home. It's the home of Gamescom, it's our community, and it's the heart of SK. With our 2,000 square meter flagship facility, we've created an ideal training environment for our players and provided them with all the resources they need to succeed. Every professional team needs to travel, and we're ready to do so – starting with the city that defines us. As we always say in Cologne: 'Love your city.'"

SK is one of the oldest esports clubs in the world, originally founded by four brothers and three partners in Oberhausen around Quake in 1997. They later formed a League of Legends division and became one of the more successful League of Legends teams in Europe.

SK briefly disbanded its League of Legends team in 2016. They returned to the LEC in 2019 by purchasing a franchise spot, and their best finish to date is a fourth-place finish in the 2023 Winter Split.