“There’ll always be a place for him in Vitality” Danny Engels and Jeondding on building a legacy beyond the match

It’s not often that a story in esports makes you pause. But when Team Vitality announced that Tekken legend Jeon “Jeondding” Sang-hyun had renewed his contract until 2030, it did exactly that. A five-year deal in a scene built on short-term results? Almost unheard of.

Curious about how such a long-term partnership could even happen, I spoke with both sides of the deal – Danny Engels, Team Vitality’s director of esports and one of the most seasoned executives in the industry, and Jeondding himself, whose charisma and competitive poise have made him a fan-favourite across the fighting game community.

“Honestly, it’s rare to have an announcement that’s only met with positivity,” Engels told me. “Jeondding is one of those unique players you just can’t hate – he’s phenomenal.”

That same warmth is something Jeondding feels in return. “I love Team Vitality,” he said. “They made me feel truly valued. It wasn’t just about Tekken – they welcomed me into the whole Vitality family. I even got to cheer with fans at the CS2 finals. Not many teams do that.” 

It’s a simple comment, but it says a lot about why this partnership works. Vitality didn’t just sign a fighter; they embraced a personality that fits the team’s hive-like culture – one built on belonging as much as winning. Engels described it as mutual commitment. “It’s not only about Tekken. What Jeondding has created is an environment where he’s loved by everyone, especially within our fan base. No matter what happens in the next five years, there’ll always be a place for him in Vitality.”

Engels has spent more than 15 years in the industry, first as a professional sim-racing player, later as an executive shaping giants like G2 Esports and Evil Geniuses, before joining Vitality. His perspective on sustainability carries the hindsight of someone who’s lived through esports’ highest highs and toughest winters.

That awareness is part of why he sees Jeondding’s deal as more than a gamble. “You don’t often see five-year renewals, especially not in the fighting-game space,” he said. “It holds some risk, because we don’t know what the ecosystem will look like, but when you think about who we’ve signed, it mitigates that. Jeondding brings more than results – he brings culture.”

For Jeondding, joining Vitality redefined his own goals. “If you look at how many trophies Vitality has won, it raises your level,” he said. “Before, I aimed for Top 8. Now, I aim to win. I practise more systematically than I ever did.”

Both talk about success in almost identical terms – not as a metric, but as a mindset. “Of course we want to win,” Engels added, “but it’s also about showing what competitive esports can become – a space that values people, not just performance.”

Jeondding nodded to that same idea: “My biggest goal is to be a valuable player for Team Vitality at the Esports World Cup. It’s the most important event right now, and I want to win trophies there and in the Tekken World Tour. I haven’t yet – but I’m working hard.”

In esports, five-year contracts are nearly mythological. Careers rise and fall in less time than it takes a new game to patch its meta. That’s why Team Vitality’s decision to tie itself to Jeon “Jeondding” Sang-hyun until 2030 feels like a deliberate statement – one that runs counter to how the industry usually operates.

Danny Engels knows how volatile that rhythm can be. “It has been an up and down,” he said. “Coming from a player background helped. I didn’t understand the business side back then, but over time, you connect the dots backwards and start to understand why certain things were the way they were.”

That reflection defines much of his current philosophy at Vitality. “A lot of external factors impact the life not only of players but of organisations,” he explained. “We have to react to this. Something we’ve matured in is trying to anticipate these things more and more and be prepared for them.”

He learned the fragility of the esports world up close during his two years in the US. “The American business leans much more on the risky side,” he recalled. “In 2021, crypto was on the rise – it impacted a lot of organisations – and then the bubble burst. We had layoffs across the entire US side. That winter started there.”

The lesson travelled back with him to Europe: grow ambitiously, but never recklessly. “In the US, you can be really aggressive on investing into talents or initiatives and then offload them the next day,” he said. “In Europe, you can’t. If I commit to a contract with Jeondding for five years, I can’t just get rid of him tomorrow. I need to commit to a certain philosophy, a certain approach.”

That commitment now forms the base of Vitality’s strategy. Engels describes the next five years as a likely stress test for the entire ecosystem. “You’ll probably have the challenge of a larger gap between tier one and tier two esports opening up,” he said. “You already start to see this on the League of Legends side, where a lot of ERL clubs are struggling. Some organisations will be left behind.”

For Vitality, the only answer is diversification. “We want to be one of these global powerhouses,” he said. “And we can only do this if we invest into long-lasting opportunities. It needs to be something you can maintain for the next five to 10 years. If we underachieve in one area, we still have other areas where we succeed. That’s also protection for our partners because they don’t rely on one thing.”

Jeondding’s mindset complements that structure almost perfectly. Where Engels plans for sustainability, the Tekken star thinks in endurance. “My biggest goal is to be a valuable player for Team Vitality at the Esports World Cup,” he said. “Beyond that, I want to win lots of trophies – in EWC and in the Tekken World Tour. I haven’t won one yet, but I’m working hard to make that happen.”

It’s a simple goal but an unusually long horizon for fighting-game players, whose careers are often measured one major at a time. Engels recognises that alignment as the rarest kind of safety net – the one built on mutual intent. “When you think about Jeondding, it mitigates risk,” he said. “He’s loved by everyone, and there will always be a place for him in Vitality no matter what happens.”

Both men approach the same question: how do you last in a short-term world? – from opposite ends of the timeline. Engels looks decades ahead, crafting structures that outlive the hype. Jeondding lives the philosophy in real time: daily discipline, cold-water showers on match days, and the quiet conviction that consistency itself can be style.

Together, they outline what esports longevity might actually look like – not eternal youth, but sustained purpose.

What sets Vitality apart is how its fanbase acts long before trophies are lifted. “When we signed KingReyJr for the Tekken side,” Engels recalled, “three days later he went to Brussels – and there were maybe 10, 20 Golden Hornets there to support him. They’d never seen this kid before. But now that he’s part of the club, they came out to cheer. That dedication and love is extremely valued by us, and valuable for any club to have.”

That kind of support blurs the line between professional sport and community ritual. For Jeondding, it’s been transformative. “Their cheering is so different, they’ve been supporting me so hard that I lost my voice! That’s why I really wanted to be on the final stage.”

Engels said that fan involvement extends beyond the stands. “The community is invested enough to guide us in the right direction. They’ll tell us when we’re wrong. They hold us accountable.”

In an industry often built on short attention spans, that kind of consistent energy changes everything. It gives players like Jeondding a sense of belonging that doesn’t vanish when the stream ends. It also creates feedback loops: the more Vitality opens its doors, the louder the Hornets buzz back.