Ninjas in Pyjamas (often abbreviated to NIP and NiP) is a professional esports organization from Sweden. It is most famous for its Counter-Strike teams. In 2012, the team reorganized and created a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team when the game was released. In addition to Counter-Strike, the organization has teams in Valorant, Rainbow Six Siege, FIFA, Rocket League, Apex Legends, Fortnite Battle Royale, and League of Legends. They no longer have teams in Overwatch, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, and Paladins.
History
Ninjas in Pyjamas (NIP) was created in June 2000. Their greatest achievement was winning the 2001 Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) World Championships after a very close final against X3, which was an earlier version of Team 3D. NIP had trouble finding a sponsor, so they joined SK Gaming, a well-known esports organization. They were then called SK Scandinavia and later SK Sweden. At SK Gaming, they continued to win tournaments. In 2003, the prize money from their tournament wins totaled about US$170,000, and they participated in every CPL event that year.
Believing they could earn more sponsorship money, the team left SK Gaming in early 2005. Later that year, some members returned to SK Gaming, which forced NIP to replace them.
In 2005, Emil Christensen, Tommy Ingemarsson, and Managing Directors Peter Hedlund and Victor Lindqvist reformed NIP as a Swedish limited liability company due to issues with SK Gaming. NIP continued to compete in international tournaments and placed highly in many events. They signed some of the largest sponsorship deals at that time. Their website gained about 100,000 members in Europe during the first two years, and they became the first team outside of Asia to enter the Asian market. Within six months, their Asian website had about 90,000 members. NIP was among the strongest opponents to the change from the original version of Counter-Strike to Counter-Strike: Source.
On November 13, 2015, NIP parted ways with its Dota 2 team, which included players Elias 'Sealkid' Merta, Jonas 'Jonassomfan' Lindholm, Adrian 'Era' Kryeziu, Simon 'Handsken' Haag, and Linus 'Limmp' Blomdin. The reason given was disappointment with recent performances, as the team had failed to qualify for The International 2015 and the Frankfurt Major. Since then, NIP had two Dota 2 teams: one formed in 2017 that disbanded later that year, and another formed in 2018. Christopher "GeT RiGhT" Alesund, one of the original 2012 NIP members, left after the StarLadder Major Berlin 2019 and was replaced by Simon "twist" Eliasson, a former Fnatic player. This left f0rest as the only remaining member of the original 2012 roster until he left in 2020 to join the 2014 NIP roster on Dignitas.
In July 2020, it was announced that NIP would merge with the Chinese esports organization Victory Five and enter the Chinese League of Legends scene by joining the League of Legends Pro League (LPL). The merger was completed in January 2023, and NIP debuted in LPL on January 15, 2023, playing against Ultra Prime. The team’s starting lineup included Xiao-Bing "Invincible" Li as toplaner, Xiao-Long "XLB" Li as jungler, Wen-Xiang "Dream" Tan as midlaner, Qi-Shen "Photic" Ying as AD Carry, and Xu-Zhuo "Zhuo" Wang as support. For their first split in LPL, the team finished 13th out of 17 teams with 5 wins and 11 losses.
NIP began competing in Valorant in April 2020 by re-signing their former Paladins 2019 world champions roster. However, this team did not last long. In July 2020, NIP announced a completely new Valorant roster, including former Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pros CREA, Fearoth, luckeRRR, Rhyme, and former Overwatch pro HyP. The organization did not achieve much success, and over the next two years, many players joined and left the team. This led to the decision in January 2022 to leave the European scene and instead invest in a Brazilian team.
In September 2022, NIP failed to join the Riot Games partnership program, which left them without a spot in Valorant’s VCT (Valorant Champions Tour). Following this, NIP announced they would disband their male Valorant roster and instead compete in VCT Game Changers, the female division of Valorant. The first three players were announced in early January 2023, and the full roster was completed and named the Ninjas in Pyjamas Lightning team in April 2023.
Ninjas in Pyjamas won the RLCS 2022-23 – Winter: South America Regional 3 – Winter Invitational.
On May 6, 2024, the Esports World Cup Foundation, funded by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund and organizers of the Esports World Cup, announced the 30 organizations (called Clubs in the ESWC) that would join the Club Support Program. NIP was one of these organizations. This program gives teams a one-time six-figure payment if they are willing to enter new esports and additional funding each year if they help increase viewership and fan engagement for the Esports World Cup.