About Us
About Team Norse Thunder
Team Norse Thunder is a British esports organisation that uses the power of games to bring people together. We have elite and community esports rosters competing in some of the world’s biggest gaming titles, a local game store in the heart of Birmingham city centre, and an esports education academy too.
Founded in 2016, Team Norse Thunder is a social enterprise that runs esports projects that help people fight social isolation and loneliness. Originally launched as a passion project among friends, we became an officially registered CIC in 2021. As a not-for-profit organisation, we focus our time, effort, and resources on helping people to build positive and structured relationships and communities as a platform to help them tackle the social barriers they face.
Not only do we have a track record of supporting people to overcome the challenges they face, but we also have a reputation for competitive success too. Team Norse Thunder players have excelled in competition! Our players have earned top-ten finishes at world championships, qualification for major international events, multiple tournament victories, and impressive world and European rankings too.
Our Projects
Team Norse Thunder esports rosters are often the most visible part of what we do. Our rosters compete in some of the most well-known titles in the industry, such as League of Legends, the Pokemon TCG, Hearthstone, and many more. The rosters operate much like a sports team would, with a Head Coach leading a team of players through training sessions and then into battle in regular tournaments. Each roster is focused on developing a sense of community and shared goals, while soft skills like teamwork and communication are built on top of game specific skills.
Meanwhile, our local game store located in the heart of Birmingham city centre offers a physical space for people to come together to have fun playing games together. The venue is fully focused on providing an accessible community for all who are interested in playing tabletop and role playing games.
The Team Norse Thunder Esports Academy, which launched in February 2022, is a major new project that we are running. The academy supports cohorts of students who haven’t excelled in mainstream education to earn industry recognised esports qualifications alongside any resits they need to take - such as English and Maths. Students on the academy program are given hands-on work experience with an esports organisation and once they graduate, they are set to move onto a guaranteed college place with a local provider.
Our Mission
Working to help eradicate social isolation and loneliness is at the very core of what we do. While many people take having friends, family, and hobbies for granted, others lack those connections. Limited social connections can have a devastating impact on someone’s life and that’s a problem for both that individual person and society as a whole.
Social isolation - defined as a long-term lack of meaningful connections with other people - can harm someone’s decision-making abilities, attention span, memory skills, and over time, it can lead to an increase in aggressive behaviour too. Social isolation can also lead to serious mental health problems and studies have shown that conditions like dementia, heart disease, and stroke all became an increased risk.
Meanwhile, young people suffering from social isolation are more likely to achieve lower grades in education and have lower employment prospects than their peers. When those two things combine with the mental and physical health problems that can arise, the effects can become a vicious cycle.
You can read more about our social cause, and about social isolation and loneliness here: Our Social Mission.