When people remember the first Rocket League world champions, they remember a single car in the air.
At Avalon Hollywood in August 2016, as cameras tracked a blue Octane leaping from wall to ceiling and back down into a perfect shot, it was Cameron “Kronovi” Bills who turned a small nightclub stage into the center of a new esport. As the striker for iBUYPOWER Cosmic, he helped win the inaugural Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) finals over FlipSid3 Tactics and claimed the first official Rocket League world title.
This Esports Legacy Profile follows Kronovi’s Rocket League career from his years in Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars to his long run as a Season 1 RLCS world champion, captain, and streamer, and finally to his transition into content creation and collegiate competition. It focuses on his work inside Rocket League itself and on the way his play and personality helped shape the early culture of the game.
Early Life In Atlanta And The Supersonic Era
Cameron Bills was born on August 30, 1997, in the Atlanta, Georgia area. Before Rocket League existed, his life looked like that of many American teenagers. He trained in karate from a young age, played soccer in middle school, and tried football in high school before eventually running the scoreboard at games for extra money.
Around 2009, while he was in sixth grade, Bills found the demo for Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars (SARPBC), Psyonix’s experimental car–soccer game on PlayStation 3. He earned enough to buy the full game and spent the next several years immersed in its small but dedicated competitive community. Those years built the foundation of his later success. Community wikis describe him as an active tournament player in SARPBC and note how he became known for aerial skills and high–scoring games, long before those mechanics became standard in Rocket League.
When Rocket League launched on PlayStation 4 and PC in July 2015, SARPBC veterans like Bills moved over almost immediately. Within weeks, he was a visible star. Archived competitive pages record that he reached the number one spot on both the 1v1 and 2v2 ranked ladders by late July 2015, an early indicator of his mechanical and competitive edge.
At the same time, he began streaming and posting content. In an official Rocket League interview from 2018, Psyonix described “Cameron ‘Kronovi’ Bills and Rocket League” as one of the most iconic pairings in early esports, remarking on how he quickly rose to fame on Twitch and YouTube by showcasing the highest level of play while the game was still new. Those streams did more than entertain. They showed tens of thousands of players what was possible in a game that most people were still learning to drive.
Cosmic Aftershock, iBUYPOWER Cosmic, And The First World Title
As Rocket League’s player base exploded, a small group of SARPBC veterans formed Cosmic Aftershock in early June 2015. The roster centered on three players who had already battled for years in the predecessor game: SadJunior, Gibbs, and Kronovi. They dominated early community tournaments, turning wall shots and aerials into reliable weapons at a time when most teams were still grounded.
On October 30, 2015, gaming PC builder iBUYPOWER acquired the roster. Cosmic Aftershock became iBUYPOWER Cosmic, and the team continued to rack up results in the run–up to the inaugural RLCS season. In these months, Bills’s on–field identity solidified. He was listed as the team’s striker, the player expected to convert chances and lead the attack.
The RLCS itself was a partnership between Psyonix and Twitch that transformed Rocket League from a patchwork of community tournaments into a structured esport. The first International Finals in August 2016 took place at Avalon Hollywood, a nightclub that hosted eight of the best teams from Europe and North America, a then–modest crowd of about one thousand fans, and a total prize pool of fifty five thousand dollars.
iBUYPOWER Cosmic arrived in Los Angeles as a veteran contender, though many treated them as a dark horse after the roster disruption that changed their season. Their path was not straightforward. In North America’s run–up they had already battled teams like Kings of Urban, and at Avalon the brackets placed them against opponents like FlipSid3 Tactics and The Flying Dutchmen, early giants of the scene. Red Bull’s retrospective on the RLCS World Championship notes that the first finals produced a “brilliant grand finals battle between iBUYPOWER Cosmic and FlipSid3 Tactics” and describes the series as an “epic win from early Rocket League star, Kronovi.”
When the confetti fell, iBUYPOWER Cosmic held the trophy and Cameron Bills held the distinction of being the first official Rocket League world champion. Official Psyonix coverage later summarized the moment in straightforward terms: he had “become a World Champion with iBUYPOWER Cosmic during Season 1 of the Rocket League Championship Series.”
His legend on stage was matched by a quieter but equally unusual prize from earlier that year. At E3 2016, he entered a Rocket League competition at a trade show booth and won a BMW M235i, an event he later recalled in that same Rocket League interview as a “magical experience” that hinged on being in the right place at the right time as the only professional–level player in the building. In the span of a single year, he had gone from a SARPBC devotee to a car–winning trade show champion and the first RLCS world titleholder.
G2 Esports And A Long Run At The Top
The success of iBUYPOWER Cosmic drew immediate attention from larger esports organizations. In early September 2016, G2 Esports announced its entry into Rocket League by picking up the reigning world champions. ESPN’s report on the move noted that the roster would remain mostly unchanged, with Cameron “Kronovi” Bills, Brandon “Lachinio” Lachin, and Ted “Over Zer0” Keil starting, while Cody “Gambit” Dover joined as substitute and coach.
Over the following months, the lineup evolved. In February 2017, Jacob “JKnaps” Knapman and Dillon “Rizzo” Rizzo signed with G2 Esports to play alongside Bills, whom official Rocket League coverage called “one of Rocket League’s biggest names.” The trio quickly became a fan favorite thanks to the blend of veteran leadership and rising talent.
Results eventually matched the expectations. G2 missed the Season 3 World Championship but returned in force later that year, winning the ELEAGUE Cup 2017 in Atlanta. EsportsEarnings records show that the win earned the team seventy thousand dollars, with Bills’s share, more than twenty three thousand, standing as the single largest prize of his career. They also secured a first–place finish at the RLCS Season 5 North American regional championship, defeating NRG Esports in a memorable seven–game series, and remained a fixture at subsequent World Championships.
The work behind those results was demanding. In his 2018 1v1 interview, Bills described a routine built around individual ranked play, team scrimmages against other RLCS squads, and replay analysis aimed at breaking down top teams and correcting mistakes. For G2, he said, the goal was a three–man rotation where every player could do everything without overextending, a style that required trust and constant communication.
By early 2019, however, G2 and its long–time captain were ready for change. In a January 7, 2019 update, G2 Esports announced that after nearly two years together, the organization would add Reed “Chicago” Wilen to the starting roster and that Cameron “Kronovi” Bills would step down from his captain role. The move ended his tenure as the face of G2’s Rocket League team and closed a chapter in which he had been both champion and standard bearer for one of North America’s most visible organizations.
Rogue, Later Teams, And The Road To Retirement
After leaving G2, Bills joined Rogue and continued to compete at the RLCS level. A summary of G2’s Rocket League division on Wikipedia notes that he went on to Rogue immediately after his departure, keeping his name in the top tier of North American competition. With Rogue he added more RLCS seasons to his resume, though the era did not produce another world championship.
Even as results became more uneven, his backlog of accomplishments grew. EsportsEarnings lists more than one hundred forty tournaments with total Rocket League earnings exceeding one hundred sixty thousand dollars across organizations that include iBUYPOWER, G2 Esports, Rogue, Pioneers, and independent lineups. These numbers do not capture the countless smaller competitions, scrimmages, and showmatches that filled his calendar, but they give a sense of his longevity.
During these years, his balance began to shift from competition to content. He streamed regularly on Twitch and built a YouTube channel that introduced new players to advanced mechanics and to the history of the scene. His Twitch profile today introduces him as a “Season 1 World Champion” and “Ex-RLCS pro” turned content creator, a concise summary of the transition.
On January 1–3, 2022, several outlets reported what many fans had feared. Through a TwitLonger linked from his social media, Bills announced that he was retiring from professional Rocket League. Upcomer and esports.gg described the announcement as the end of an illustrious competitive career and noted that he planned to focus on content creation, coaching, and casting rather than RLCS play. He wrote that, after nearly seven years in the scene, the experience of being a pro and the rewards that came with it no longer motivated him the way they once had.
Retirement did not mean walking away from Rocket League completely. He continued to stream and appear in community events, and by 2025 his name reappeared on the competitive side in a new setting when Kennesaw State University signed a roster that included him for collegiate play. The RLCS era that had made him famous was over, but the game that had transformed his life remained at the center of his work.
Playstyle, Personality, And Esports Legacy
From the beginning, Kronovi’s appeal came from more than just results. Competitive wikis and archives consistently describe him as a striker known for his aerial control and high–scoring games, traits that stood out in an era when many players were still learning how to take the ball up the wall. His early ladder dominance and highlight–heavy tournaments helped establish the idea that Rocket League could support a mechanical skill ceiling worthy of a serious esport.
Official coverage by Psyonix emphasized his role in building the scene. In 2018 they credited him with breaking early viewership records, winning a car, and leading Rocket League’s push toward broader esports recognition, while also depicting him as a captain who thought deeply about practice habits, consistency, and team dynamics. Those same articles framed him not only as a champion but as a role model for newer pros navigating the stresses of travel, scrims, and public attention.
Other features highlighted how closely his story was tied to the growth of RLCS itself. In a 2018 Red Bull piece on the evolution of the World Championship, Bills reflected on the journey from the cramped Avalon nightclub to the arena setting of London’s Copper Box, noting that the continued growth of the event and the fan base put Rocket League on “a good track to really blow up.” In that article, writers called his Season 1 victory “magical” and credited him as the early star who delivered the final win that launched the esport’s biggest stage.
Within the community, fans and commentators have frequently referred to him as a “legend” or even the “godfather” of Rocket League, shorthand for the idea that he embodies the first generation of professional play. He was one of the first players many viewers saw when they discovered the game on Twitch, one of the first names new competitors learned to pronounce, and one of the earliest examples of a player who built a full–time career around Rocket League.
For any serious attempt to rank legacies in Rocket League, those factors matter. Kronovi’s trophy case includes the inaugural RLCS World Championship, an ELEAGUE Cup title, a North American RLCS regional championship, and deep runs at multiple World Championships. His earnings reflect a decade of consistent play at or near the top level. His stream archives capture the evolution of mechanics and metagame in real time.
Yet his impact is broader than statistics. He helped bridge the gap from a niche PlayStation title to a global esport, from a nightclub LAN to Olympic arenas, and from community tournaments to a system that could sustain full–time professionals. His Esports Legacy Profile in Rocket League is that of the archetypal first–generation star: a player whose career mapped onto the growth of the game itself and whose name still stands as a reference point for what Rocket League can be.