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Boston Uprising is one of the founding members of Overwatch League. In fact, their owner Robert Kraft was one of the very first names to be associated with Overwatch League in 2018. However, the team is now facing accusations of player mismanagement.
Chris ‘Huks’ Loranger is the President of Gaming for the Boston uprising Franchise and is responsible for multiple aspects of the players lives as they play for Boston uprising. According to a report by VPesports, Huks has been claimed to be directly responsible for the players’ poor performances throughout the season. Even despite this setback, Boston Uprising was still able to reach the Season Playoffs.
The Boston Uprising team was a surprise package for fans. Almost none of the players were ‘stars’ in the Overwatch esports scene and hence it seemed like the management went on a cheap route for this team. According to a few analysts, Boston Uprising might actually have been weaker than Shanghai Dragons, a team synonimus with coming last. Of course, we now know otherwise.
Chris Loranger – Division within the team, overarching involvement
Chris was directly responsible for creating a divide within the team. He differentiated between the Korean players and the non-Korean players, pushing Coach Crusty towards the Korean players whilst the rest of the staff to help the English players. This did not help enhance team chemistry and was one factor in creating a hostile team environment.
The players were very frustrated with Huks’ handling of the team as his knowledge of the game and the current meta seemed to be extremely limited. Yet, Coach Crusty still did not have full reins of the roster.
Chris also ended up verbally abusing one of the Boston Uprising staff early in the season, resulting in the staff member in question crying in front of all the players. The players asked Chris to take a step back during Stage 3 and they ended up being the undefeated team in that stage, however when things turned for the worse during Stage 4, Boston Uprising was in free fall. The management even banned a player from the practice facility as punishment.
Huks’ Response to the Report
Chris Loranger publicly released a statement refuting many of the allegations in the report and ended up calling much of the report inaccurate. You can read the entire reply on his Medium Blog post.
Multiple Players refute Huks’ statement
Huks denied any of the wrongdoings reported by VPesports and claimed all was fine in the team; The players would all practice, watch VODS as well as scrim together. He also mentioned that he cannot comment on player transfers right now, but contrary to this Boston Uprising has been accused of quoting unreasonably high prices for player transfers.
Kalios also mentioned in a stream (translated by Reddit user bartlet4us) that the Boston Uprising management did not pay for their plane tickets during tournament travel. Almost all of the players were getting near the Overwatch League minimum salary ($50,000) and with their strong performance during Season 1, it is not unreasonable for Boston Uprising players to demand a raise.
This situation is definitely not something that looks good for Boston Uprising. The Overwatch League is supposed to be extremely transparent, as well as the ‘pinnacle’ of the esports in general. It is time for Overwatch League to publicly release a ‘Code of Conduct’ in order to prevent such situations in the future.