I'm confused. Do you not know what a partnered team is?
Instead of Academies every VCT team is allowed to have a partnered tier 2 team. For example Giantx and UCAM, this essentially means Giants has control over the UCAM players which are all 2 way players, allowing them to move between both teams freely, like famsii has been doing.
This is a way cheaper solution than fielding an entire team themselves since they only pay a little sum to UCAM, and pretty much have the same benefits as an academy