Gabriël "Bwipo" Rau recently revealed that he turned down a $2.4 million deal from 100 Thieves.
In the latest episode of Summoning Insight, podcast hosts Thorin and MonteCristo asked Bwipo which North American teams had offered him contracts in the past. The 21-year-old Belgium player told the two esports personalities that 100 Thieves had offered him a $2.4 million three-year deal back in 2018.
Thorin noted that Bwipo was a rookie playing in Turkey not much earlier than that. At the time that 100 Thieves approached him, Bwipo was competing on Fnatic. That year, Fnatic had reached the World Championship finals, a huge achievement for Europe. According to Bwipo, European teans had never made it past the semifinals in the game's modern era before that and he didn't want to give up being a part of the region's potentaily victorious journey.
Because of that, Bwipo was able to shoot down the lucrative offer very quickly.
"In the same day, I knew I wasn't going to take it," Bwipo revealed.
Bwipo joined Fnatic as a substitute at the beginning of 2018. He was quickly moved to the starting roster in March after the squad saw his performance. When Paul "sOAZ" Boyer was injured, that was the perfect moment for Bwipo to step up. Fnatic gave priority to sOAZ when he came back from his injury, but Bwipo proved himself to be the better top laner when it came down to the most important tournament of the year. This earned him more play time in Worlds.
While it was definitely a momentous moment for Bwipo and his team, they were easily dominated by Invictus Gaming in the finals.
Still, North American teams haven't come as close to victory on the Worlds stage. It's not a surprise that Bwipo opted to stay with a European team at the time, although it's unclear what his contract with Fnatic was worth by comparison. For Bwipo, winning might be more important than any amount of money thrown at him.
