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Counter-Strike Source: Eximius Sports Back in Action

By: Justin Chichester - Published June 17, 2009 at 9:40 PM EDT - Writer Archive
Brad Dick sits down with GotFrag to discuss Eximius Sports.
GotFrag.com - After a very long break and a recent comeback to the scene, Brad Dick and Eximius Sports are back on the prowl.

A little background of what happened:

Eximius Sports closed its doors when Brad Dick went to pursue the Assistant General Manager position with the Chicago Chimera, a CGS branded team, and was given the opportunity to pursue the General Manager position while the active GM, Brian Flander, was looking to pursue his old job. When the Championship Gaming Series closed its doors, many were left with disappointment -- including Brad, who was next in line to becoming a GM for a CGS franchise. When Brad found out about the CGS shutting down, he lost hope and was ready to step away from the eSports scene. Brad Dick, however, decided to continue his run with eSports under a newly established name. The organization was to be called Culmination. For those of you who missed the many posts and ustream videos by Brad, this was his quote during his promotion of Culmination:

"If Eximius made a dent in e-sports then Culmination is going to make a crater."

Culmination was going to be geared mostly towards console gaming, with the exception of WoW and DOTA. With fresh sponsors, plenty of hype, and a new website underway, things looked promising for Brad and his new organization. It has been an interesting turn of events, however, as the man behind it has been kind enough to participate in an interview detailing the rise and fall of Culmination, his decision to bring back Eximius Sports, and what we can expect from the team in the future.

Now for the interview:

To start this off, I would like to say thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to sit down with us for this interview. When the CGS closed its doors, you were about to step away from E-Sports as a whole. Instead you decided to create a new organization, Culmination. What happened with the Culmination idea that made you decide to re-open Eximius Sports?

Well first off, I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to do this interview with GotFrag. It is always a pleasure to give back to our fans and sites that help try to push North American eSports. In terms of eSports, I was looking to walk away completely; then Mark Dolven asked me to help him and Dave Geffon with QPAD.USA. I agreed and decided to help get the brand going. Ever since then I have been working hand in hand with Mark trying to market our products and come up with new ideas for QPAD.USA. Mark and I have some exciting things coming up in the near future, so stay tuned!

Now, about Eximius Sports instead of Culmination eSports; it was odd. I had a talk with the owner of Pandemic, Chris Lemley. I told him that I was opening a new brand with a new name. Chris asked me, “Brad why?! You have already established the Eximius Sports name.” I began to ponder that for a month or so, and I again had a sit down conversation, but this time with my brother Mike. Mike was starting to work on the new Culmination site, and he says to me, “Brad why are you really making this new name? You have ten years of history in Eximius Sports with numerous achievements in various games.” So, again it got me pondering why I am doing it. The icing on the cake was when I came across a sponsor that asked me the same thing that my brother did, and I came to the conclusion that I needed to stay with Eximius name. I have had many of the Eximius Sports fans come out and say they are happier that I kept the name as well too. Thank you for that guys!

With Culmination out of the picture and your focus back on Eximius Sports, we at GotFrag are curious -- what new sponsors can we expect to see behind Eximius Sports?

Well, I have to save that question for a later date. I have picked up quite a few sponsors over the past seven months of working on Culmination and Eximius Sports. We are always looking for more though. In this industry you can never have enough support. I am sure most will agree with me on that. We expect to release sponsorship information with the release of our new site coming around June 21st. So stay tuned for more information!

With backing like that, what can we expect from Eximius Sports? Will you be heading into the console scene or will the organization continue to stick with PC gaming?

Well, I hope to enter both if I can. Console is a big industry right now with Major League Gaming. But, I also know that with entering the MLG scene there are many politics with teams recognizing different organizations at events, so we will see. As for the PC division, everyone knows that this is my bread and butter. I hope to be picking up Counter-Strike 1.6, but as of now, we believe we have a solid Left 4 Dead & Counter-Strike Source division. We are dipping our hands in Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty 4 most likely as well; I guess time will only tell.

What are your plans for a Counter-Strike: Source team in the near future?

We already have our team that we want and we have had meetings with them. They have already agreed to come play for us. My game manager, Dan C., alias daN_NY, agrees with the team that I have decided to bring on as well, and he will be working hand in hand with them.

What kind of backing for your Counter-Strike: Source squad can we expect to see? Will you be sending them to LAN events?

I have been talking to them about some LANs that they want to go to but I told them that Counter-Strike Source is low-budget for us because there are not many LANs going on with the game at this time. We have agreed to help them out from time to time to get them to various LANs if needed. We also want to get them some hardware support from our new sponsor. The regular stuff like vent, servers, site, and league fees is the easy stuff. But to be honest, that is more than most teams are already getting in Counter-Strike: Source. I have dealt with these players for years and I know they are good people and are deserving of this organization.

Upcoming Date: June 21 revealing new sponsors and hopefully our new site. The new sponsors are very exciting!

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