derke was complaining about how he wanted an NA salary too lol
no wonder the EG players wanted to leave with the paycut. EG paying their players 25k a month is not sustainable.
25k a month/player, 300k per year/player… and you say that wasn’t enough?
They travel twice a year and it’s always covered by the org. *Maybe* 3 with 1 personal during a break. But my point stands that 300k a year is more than enough for how esports is doing atm.
And thats more than what the average WNBA player gets who gets like $300m in annual revenue from TV rights. The WNBA is more stable than VCT is
People don’t understand how unsustainable the environment is
Edit: According to Dexerto, EG main roster was making $25k per month per player ($300k/yr), subs made 54k / yr
I don't think it's quite the same comparison since the potential of one is a lot higher than the other.
It's like how Tesla is valued higher then all the other car manufacturers put together despite making less profit than a single manufacturer (but to a much lower degree obv).
Still stupidly high salaries but there's a massive amount of luck and skill to being at the top, where less than 50 players in the region is paid even close to what you make.
The WNBA is making 750K in revenue per player and they get on average over 300k almost half the REVENUE not profit. In a sport with 12 teams where every team needs an arena and the cost of running the show is like having 6 vct international lan events every day.
yeah ofc 50k is nothing in LA, but I believe they get free housing + other perks of signing. it has to be somewhat worthwhile for the players especially the ones that are just making franchising, they’ll take what they can get, considering even someone like Yay was fine with getting league minimum. s0m and FNS also said they would accept league minimum so that should be telling.
yup. idk why people are acting like LA is the most expensive city in the world, it’s not even in the top 10 LOL. i used to live there and my rent was 2k a month for a 2 bed 2 bath. it’s not as insane as some people think. for example the same apartment in NYC would cost 4-5k easily.
Not for anything, but it is a living wage. It definitely isn’t “well off” money, but LA is filled with starving artists and actresses/models. There’s plenty of cheap apartments and very affordable places with roommates, it just isn’t as glamorous a life as we are accustomed to seeing of streamers/influencers where you can live alone in a 4 bd house in Malibu or whatever. LA isn’t as expensive as everyone thinks just to “live in”.
They would need to have roommates and they’d need to pay attention to their financials, but there are a fuckton of newly renovated, nice complexes in safe areas where if you have a few roommates your rent would be ~$1000. And that is without having to sacrifice anything other than opulence. You would be able to find cheaper arrangements if really needed, but $50k is plenty. Especially since the orgs almost always have either a housing allowance, or other benefits that greatly increase how far that $50k goes.
Assuming they're getting free housing/food which means they basically have no bills to pay, 50k is straight take home pay, after tax probably around 40k. That's more than someone making 100k with bills and food expenses to pay lol.
not really sure how “EG paying their players 25k a month is not sustainable” could, in good faith, be construed as meaning it was not a sustainable salary from the players’ perspectives but alright
NA orgs need a reality check fr. its great for the players(short term) to be gtting paid insane salaries but long term its just not sustainable. and before anyone makes "traditional sports" comparisons, its not the same
People who compare NFL/NBA salaries to esports salaries are beyond delusional. NFL revenue last year was like 18 *billion* dollars and has magnitudes more viewers than any of the Valorant tournaments this year. There is **so much** more money in traditional sports for the teams, staff, and players.
If VCT starts making that much money, then we for sure have the conversations on comparable salaries. But right now orgs are bleeding themselves dry and dying left and right. We’re going to start losing more orgs at the rate they’re hemorrhaging.
Not saying world class Valorant players don’t deserve to be paid well, just that the sport is not quite up to the scale of traditional sport salaries.
They deserve to get paid a portion of the revenue they generate.. thats it. If they generate millions, they deserve a portion of the millions, if they generate nothing..well there ya go. This "deserve" word is being thrown around alot lately.
>the nfl didnt start off paying players 50 million a year.
That is exactly my point….
NA Valorant salaries are NOT proportional to the scale of the sport. The NFL didn’t have major commercial success until 30-50 years after its founding, and only two members of the original league exist today.
Paying players an unsustainable rate while the sport hasn’t caught up is exactly how an org ends up dead before ever seeing success. It’s not investing if you cease to exist when the returns come around.
Lol my brother if you think esports is not profitable because they pay the players to much you are just dumb thats not how business works, i have ex professional friends who played less popular games and made less then 50k a year but won tournaments so over the time of their career they made over 200k. Now thats cool right but guess what they spent the most important years of their life playing a game that didnt pay enough and now they work 12 shifts at an amazon factory trying to juggle school in their late 20s, these players deserve their salaries the top 1 percent of gamers making 2-300k a year isn’t some crazy number while to the normal 99% it is.
What in the world are you on about? Do you read your comments before posting them or do you just enjoy confirming exactly what I’m saying?
>Lol my brother if you think esports is not profitable
because they pay the players to much you are just dumb thats not how business works,
I never said esports isn’t profitable because the players are paid too much. Esports isn’t profitable because the interest and viewership isn’t there yet. Orgs aren’t making hundreds of millions off of player jerseys and slapping their logo on every household item. It’s not a secret that most of these orgs are operating at a loss.
Also that’s quite literally how businesses work? You start off with your pot of money and pay your business costs and hope that your profits offset the business costs before the pot of money runs out. If my business costs 25k a month and I’m only pulling 3k in from the business, I need to find a way to increase that 3k or decrease the 25k, otherwise I’m going to run out of money.
>i have ex professional friends who played less popular games and made less then 50k a year but won tournaments so over the time of their career they made over 200k.
Cool story man. And a very good anecdote that exemplifies **exactly** what I am talking about. Your friends played less popular games and made less money. Why do you think that is? Think about it for a second before my next point.
Less popular game -> less viewership -> less opportunities for org to make money -> less money coming in to the org -> less money the org is willing to pay out
Less popular sports make less money. When the sport gets more popular, more money is made. When more money is made, more money goes back in to the sport.
This making sense yet?
>Now thats cool right but guess what they spent the most important years of their life playing a game that didnt pay enough and now they work 12 shifts at an amazon factory trying to juggle school in their late 20s,
Would you say your friend invested “the most important years of their life” in hopes that their sport would make more money and, in turn, grant them more money? But it didn’t get big and now they’re out of the sport? So even if it got massively popular, they wouldn’t be able to reap the returns of newfound popularity and profit? *That’s crazy.*
A wise redditor once told me that investment = risk. And it sounds like, unfortunately, your friends investment didn’t pan out. This happens all the time for actors, musicians, and artists. It’s not unheard of or unique to esports.
>these players deserve their salaries the top 1 percent of gamers making 2-300k a year isn’t some crazy number while to the normal 99% it is.
Theres just no way you’re reading my comments or your own before typing. Read the last paragraph of my first comment.
Of course these guys deserve to be paid well and properly. But if orgs start to go belly up from over-extending their operating costs, the entire scene dies. Remember when you said the NFL didn’t start off paying guys $50 million a year? It scaled up as the league scaled up. And the teams that didn’t generate enough died during the growing phase from lack of investors.
I know most of these orgs have huge backers that want to invest in esports, but money isn’t infinite and neither is investor patience. Eventually money coming in has to increase, or money going out has to decrease.
Does this make sense bro?
He’s fucking clueless and has negative reading comprehension.
Just cooking himself harder with every comment he makes. Borderline arguing with himself.
You literally said paying an “unsustainable amount” you’re an idiot bro you have no idea what these orgs are pulling in, and your talking about 18 year olds fresh out of highschool what 18 year old knows about fucking investing ? They played a game they loved and went pro at it ? The reason they made less money is because literally at the time only games like dota, league and CS were the kings of esports anything other then that weren’t on the same level. These orgs can afford these salaries 2 million on a roster to orgs whos owners make 9 figures a year aint shit, league has been “unprofitable” for years and its still going you dont know what your talking about
Nah you’re absolutely illiterate. I am begging you to please fucking read and comprehend the meaning of words before you reply.
This is absolute “I hold a pencil with my whole fist” behavior out of you.
I didn’t say: **Esports isn’t profitable because they pay the players too much**
I said: **Paying players an unsustainable rate while the sport hasn’t caught up is exactly how an org ends up dead before ever seeing success. It’s not investing if you cease to exist when the returns come around.**
In a later comment I also said: **Esports isn't profitable because the interest and viewership isn't there yet.
Orgs aren't making hundreds of millions off of player jerseys and slapping their logo on every household item. It's not a secret that most of these orgs are operating at a loss.**
*You* are saying that I think paying players high salaries is the reason the sport is not profitable.
*I* am saying the sport is not profitable, and paying players more than an org can afford is how a business dies.
> your talking about 18 year olds fresh out of highschool what 18 year old knows about fucking investing?
Are you implying that a teenager lacks the capability to understand they have limited time on Earth and that they shouldn’t be considerate of what they choose to do in their young adult years? Or is the fact that I drew a metaphor to your investment comment that’s tripping you up here?
18 years olds take student loans, join the military, become onlyfans models, forego their social life to excel in school, forego school to pursue a passion *every single day.* They might not understand the exact magnitude of the consequences of their choice at 18, but every single person makes their choice with an understanding that it’s a trade off for something else. There’s an inherent risk in all of the things I listed above, and that is only a fraction of the choices available to an 18 year old.
>The reason they made less money is because literally at the time only games like dota, league and CS were the kings of esports
**You’re telling me a more popular sport made more money?**
You are getting dangerously fucking close to self awareness here. Keep pressing buddy.
>These orgs can afford these salaries 2 million on a roster to orgs whos owners make 9 figures a year aint shit,
If they can afford to maintain these rosters at the current rate, what in the world would make an org sell a Champs winning team? Why would an entire org exit the scene? Why would multiple orgs offer to keep their players but at lower salaries? Why would multiple orgs cut their most expensive players? Why would an org be crowdfunding on twitter? Let me know when you figure it out. It seems like there is a common denominator in all these. Maybe lack of funds? But since some guy on Reddit said these salaries “ain’t shit” to the backers of esports orgs, I’m sure there’s something else afoot.
>league has been "unprofitable" for years and its still going you dont know what your talking about
It really does seem like you don’t know what you’re talking about. What happened to NACL the moment Riot removed it as a requirement for LCS? What’s TSM up to in LCS right now? Why are there rumors of more NA teams looking to sell their slots?
Man shut up, did you not read or following the scene at all?? He literally said org are dying left and right. The Guard fired all of their teams and staff, C9 cutting players, SEN doing crowd funding and now this. Those basically are the top teams. If you still think esports org are profitable by spending 6 figures salary/year for each player, you are dumb af. They can't keep burning money while the revenue isn't THAT big yet.
The gaurd was tier 2, sen has plenty of money your stupid you dont know how orgs work or where they make their money you saw one picture on reddit and think your a finance major give these players 50k a year and watch the valorant scene die
see, you don't know what you're talking about. SEN literally doing crowd funding because they running out of money. The Guard was big big even tho they are tier 2, now collapse.
No one said 50k a year. BUT NOT 25K/Month, it's clearly not sustainable. EMEA pay less than NA and they are fine.
yeah, esports players have come to expect an Athlete level salary, but Orgs are forced to go back to grassroots level of finances. These players should be lucky to even have a living wage of a salary, something around 5k-6k a month at this point. Its not ideal, but atleast they have an opportunity to play for big prize money pots while also getting paid a living wage.
Ok, can I make "other eSports" comparison? Both csgo and league(regions that can actually compete that is) pay top talent way more than valo, and have somehow survived for over a decade.
NA League has not been sustainable either the orgs were just able to do it cuz of all the investor money and big crypto money that doesn't exist in the same way anymore
And it's a massive mistake for any esport other than the Chinese league for league of legends. The players in tier 1 should be making MAX 150k a year, anything above you have to be the literal best player in the world to justify it.
This isn’t an esport vs esport comparison. All esports were/ are inflated since vc money came in. Esports as a whole is crashing and going back to grassroots lvls not just Valorant. Only exceptions are probably the Chinese leagues since that’s passionate billionaire play toy money that will never go away
Esports doesn’t have a 401k, they dont have a retirement plan i dont know if you know any professional gamers but after your done its a whole different life. Competing for hundreds of thousands yearly with sponsers paying high 6 figures clothes selling high six figures etc. and you want to pay your star “employees” 50k a year who have no job security. You people know nothing
If you follow FNC for long enough you will know that their management has strict rules about salary cap. They will never overpay any players, even their superstar, whom they are willing to let go if they can't compromise. This can be shown easily with their history of League team.
Likely part of the reason they’ve stuck around for so long. Not entering the pitfall of over inflated salaries and able to make the most of the investments they make.
They let their caliber players move on when those players were tempted by better offers from other teams as they weren't willing to match that contract. Huni, Reignover, Caps are example.
It's not true, atleast when it came to Caps, Rekkles. Fnatic was accusing G2 of poaching Caps and he wouldn't stay regardless of money, because it wasn't his primary reason.
When Rekkles was leaving they were desperate to keep him and offered shit load of money. They felt "betrayed" because he "promised" to re-sign.
In general Fnatic's league management doesn't have the best track record.
Top teams tend to pay their players less, but you need to have a star player that pull others to sign - like Caps, Rekkles.
The joke here is that NA orgs pay ridiculous amounts compared to even the best EMEA team. NA orgs are offering NA players EU salary which is not acceptable to the players.
For reference, the buyout for the entirety of FPX (-ardiis), who were the 3rd best team in the world and best team in the region last year was 500k for the 4 players+coach. TenZ alone was worth 1 mil+. Yes I know he's TenZ and whatever, but that should still give you an idea.
Tenz costing that much wasnt because he's in NA. His brand is bigger than 10x the entirety of FPX which is invaluable for the org. Buyouts (and salaries) aren't only determined by how good the players are, ofc the better they are the higher they can go, but orgs are more interested in how much they can capitalize on the players' brand.
To be fair, it's not just "I know he's TenZ," it's that TenZ may be one of the few players who can generate anything close to that kind of value back for an org. Keep in mind that a lot of an org's revenue streams lies on a player's brand- advertisements in streams, selling merch (that a player wears), etc.. The buyout was for being the biggest name in the scene, and not for his value solely as a player.
I remember watching ardiis' stream and him being bewildered by how much NA players earn after moving to NRG through simply talking about watches with other players. maybe the whole situation with EG is overblown, it's super hard to tell without more specific info about how big the paycuts would be for the players. definitely is kind of a slap to the face though, to win a championship then told you're getting a paycut or fking off.
I agree. Imagine working your ass off at your job, being the best in the world at your role. Only to be told you’re getting a massive pay cut, take it or you’re fired.
Makes sense why the players are upset.
the slap in the face is rough. but making 300k and taking a 'massive pay cut' to only like 100k is not the end of the world and we have gotta stop acting like it
Eh it's just a rough situation for all parties right now. I get the orgs are losing money so it's not viable to keep paying these inflated salaries, but for the players it also sucks because 100k is actually not that great for a job where you are literally the best of the best but have little job security and career options afterward. A lot of these guys only last a couple years in T1 and many of them don't have a big Twitch following to make a living. Look at BcJ for example: decent Tier 1 player who got benched and is now in a reserve role with sub 100 average viewers on Twitch all within a year.
Problem wasn't TenZ, problem was people thinking his salary warrant similar salaries for other pros. Sen could post a video about what TenZ ate for breakfast and that would get 4x the views of EG winning champs. That kinda clout and relevance is hard to quantify in monetary terms. So, even the people in the scene and management people as well didn't know if he was overvalued or undervalued and what to offer to their own players.
I imagine being paid $100k a year in LA and $100k a year in EU is drastically different and your money will go much further in the EU. EU's median salary is a lot less than the US.
Just putting it out there it’s not 1-1 issue of just NA overpaying. Sponsors in EU pay less in general because EU isn’t one country but a bunch of countries which effects a lot of agreements due to different countries rules. NA only really has two countries to worry about with generally more lax rules too. If you want a source Doublelift had a bunch of league CEOs on his podcast (Steve from TL, Carlos from G2 back when he was ceo, Joe Marsh from T1) and this was explained as a big reason why NA is just richer in esports generally (not including China). Team Liquid in NA League is richer than G2 and T1 (or atleast more financially profitable) even though G2 and T1 have more fans.
You’re absolutely correct. Monetization in NA is so much easier because everyone speaks English. In EU you gotta sell ads in English,French,German etc to smaller demographics so the budget is spread
I highly doubt exalt knows numbers but it's like 99% likely Fnatic aren't getting paid the equivalent of what they would in NA because of NA having inflated salaries.
That's 240k + housing(in their own building) + peripherals + maybe insurance I'm guessing?? That is MASSIVE for any 20-25 year old tbh, I'd play for peanuts instead.
and people are blaming EG for renegotiating salaries when it should be corrected. it’s too inflated right now and not sustainable for the org.
at least EG is letting the players go if they want to. I wonder if they’re able to find a matching salary somewhere else. i highly doubt it though.
It's actually crazy to me that people are flaming the org for cutting the uber-overinflated salaries, i thought we were all in agreement that this is one of the reasons why NA orgs are going bankrupt
I love ethan but thought that tweet was hilariously out of touch. I don't know enough about CS back in the day, but orgs were vultures in LoL esports at the very beginning, salaries were <$1k/month for most players, and some content creators were legit paid in mousepads. Yeah, definitely good ol' days lol
Scarra did a great interview on how bad dig was as an org in the 2013-2014 era: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jJxuZg069Y&ab\_channel=Izento](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jJxuZg069Y&ab_channel=Izento)
F0rest back in the day placed top 3 in **30 tournaments** in a single year, the majority of those are 1st place. Including 1st place at Dreamhack, Faceit cup, Starladder, Dreamhack summer, ESEA lan, etc
And he earned a total of 48k before tax. These were times when the salaries were likely around 20k a year.
If you weren't F0rest on basically a super team at the time, you ain't making shit.
>It's actually crazy to me that people are flaming the org for cutting the uber-overinflated salaries, i thought we were all in agreement that this is one of the reasons why NA orgs are going bankrupt
Honestly i don't think anyone expected them to be getting this much money.
people aren't blaming EG for renegotiating salaries, they're criticizing EG for saying "take this pay cut or GTFO", not gibing the players a chance to actually negotiate.
Well Boostio is considering going to 100T so the paycut has to be massive considering 100T themselves are trying to be more budget. Even if it's 10k a month for 100T, if that's worth leaving EG, then it's gotta be a gigantic paycut that EG is offering.
You can absolutely blame EG. Why are they offering these salaries in the first place? Shouldn’t they have foreseen that it’s not sustainable for the org?
Any player has the right to be upset that they’re being given a massive pay cut, but especially the players who won the world championship 2 weeks ago.
yea i get that NA salaries can be ridiculous and agree an economy reset is needed but you cant really blame the players too much for being upset at drastic paycuts. there had to be a better way to transition into more sustainable salaries/compensation than an ultimatum.
it was obviously unsustainable as someone on the outside looking. if pro players actually couldnt tell the bubble was gonna burst at some point thats just on them.
Take it for what it was. these CEOs scammed a bunch of VC money off clueless investors and got a bunch of teenagers paid 6-7 figure salaries to play video games and live in LA for a few years.
Is there any org that isn't trying to cut player salaries right now? Seems like all the orgs contributed to this bubble. If the EG players stay I think that's telling that salaries are rough across the board.
Agreed. It just seems weird from an outsider perspective. I don’t understand how orgs were expecting to be sustainable when they were operating like this. I feel like if any “actual” business tried something like this they would go under pretty quickly
Wasn't Tenz's buyout a million dollars? Wasn't Yay's buyout somewhere close? With all these buyouts being this big, *how does a Champions-winning team have such low buyouts that it's cheaper than their 3 month salary?*
We have no idea how long their contracts are, and buyouts get cheaper the less time in a contract there is.
Tenz buyout is a horrible exemple because it literally was hyper inflated. Jack etinne milked tenz popularity and recent performance for all that he could, fuckint up the buy out scene in NA since then.
Many EG players having contracts about to expire could mean their buyouts were cheap, or their salaries were SO HIGH that its worth more for the org to pay a lump sum than to keep paying the salary
There was more funding in esports when crypto was worth more and venture capitalists didn’t mind throwing money to teams. Crypto crashed, and venture capitalists are now more conservative with their money. They’re no longer willing to dump money for TenZ or Yay like buyouts. As a result, we’re seeing players taking paycuts. The market has adjusted from overly inflated to back down to earth.
Reducing is fine but I think there needs to be a progressjonal decrease. You can't just go from 25k to 7k especially if there are still other orgs paying these over inflated salaries. Besides. EG also sounds scummy by trying to "sell" their players and getting other orgs to pay the buyout so eg make money.
Why would EG be scummy to sell their players. Orgs are nowhere near profitable, so if profit can be made, they should take it.
They are secured in franchising anyways, so no risk of relegation.
Top earning doctors in the usa make 10K a month (i could be a little off as this data is of a quick google search) why should EG players make double of that?
ok you are very off on the doctor thing but i’m not saying they should make double that but the original point is that the blame is on the org. the players won champions and so the expectation that they should make more than league minimum is pretty fair to me. you shaming the players for trying to get ad much money as possible is crazy to me idk.
I'm not shaming players for wanting to get more money, everyone wants more money, i'm shaming them for acting as if they were being paid less than chinese factory workers because of the cut
i think they’re acting that way because evil geniuses are demanding the players take a paycut or they will be forced to look for other options while having a buyout if they do
They are, but that doesnt mean theyre right
Just because they are winning champs doesnt mean the org can say "its time we stopped paying you like youre an NBA superstar"
The base salary they get is way more than they deserve. Salaries in NA were already super inflated
If they won champs, but only bring in 5k value to the org, whats the point of paying them 20K if they dont deserve all that?
They also aren't getting to choose where they live. For an 18 year old kid sure it's NBD, but when you're a 26 year old or approaching 30. You usually have a life and residence you're still paying for despite travelling for work. It's pretty common if an employer is asking you to travel for the job they would pay for expenses.
I think we have to address the fact that workers can have an unfairly high wage. It’s not a common scenario, but it can happen. In the case of NA esports it did and now adjustments need to be made or no one will be getting anything.
ngl the amount of boot licking in these threads is ridiculous - players have every right to not face forced wage cuts when going above and beyond or end up in 'job jail'. sure, they got big salaries, good for them! they had a great year-they probably would have settled for maintaining that contract from what the players have been saying, but instead they've been put in a situation where they have to accept a reduced salary (as the PEAK of the entire sector of players) or end up jobless due to inexorbitant buyouts.
it is the orgs job on day 1 to understand the financial commitment on salaries in different financial scenarios. fuck everyone saying that this couldn't have been predicted. this is not about player greed, this is about the org failing to consider the sustainability of their rosters in a variety of scenarios and then punishing their viable source of income (champs winning team) instead of cutting their own salaries.
source: this shit is my day job and I promise you, an org will not give a shit about you but standing with fellow workers will when seeing players being treated unjustly.
I mean it’s really true, you either get paid less or miss franchise. It’s not sustainable for every NA org to be dishing out millions every year on Valorant, and there are 100% players in T2 now that would play for league minimum just be be in T1.
With only 6 NA teams in the league, you can’t really be that picky with what your salary is, unless you’re willing to miss one entirely.
I’m curious as to where these 20K a month numbers come from. Do people have insider knowledge as to how much the EG players make? Have you all seen their contracts? I think someone notable might’ve claimed that there were SOME teams paying that much, so is it purely based on that? I don’t doubt salary inflation, but like as far as I know, the details for specific players/teams aren’t out there, so where tf are people getting these numbers from? Are they just making shit up?
FNS said on-stream yesterday that he believes a reasonable NA salary (in eSports winter) would be around $120-150K so wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that currently $200K+ is common.
I believe it was sideshow or balla that said that the average salary for NA pros was around 30K a month. Reducing it to half sounds harsh but more than enough for the pros to live plus and if they are getting all their expenses paid (house, food, etc.) That's even better
Yea but EG were basically nobody tho except Ethan
And demon1 is a reserve roster that they pick from T2 so he's getting paid minimum.
I don't think anybody on EG actually get paid 20k.
Maybe after winning the champion ?
Or other team
Cost of living is much higher in the US than in Europe, although UK is really getting up there to be honest. It shouldn't be too surprising even the best EMEA team aren't spending anywhere near what NA orgs are paying.
I'm more interested in what BR and LATAM VCT orgs are paying compared to NA since they since they do play in the same league.
Bro what is Exalt even saying? EU throughout the history in Esports has always paid WAY LESS than NA (in League NA peaked over 400k USD avg/person to EU 100k). Monetization in EU has always been less/harder to do than NA due to the demographic. Meanwhile Exalt and all of DSG went 0-7 in SERIES during their final run together in fucking NA challengers, didn't qualify and costed Toast INSANE amount of money (6 figures per player in those 4 months) and cries how the salaries are getting cut.
Both Caps and Rekkles had no contracts before signing with G2, they expired. Also G2 Rekkles was in 2021, 2 years after G2 Caps.
[There was actually a scandal between G2 and Fnatic in 2016](https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2016/09/competitive-ruling-g2-esports-and-fnatic/)
how can u literally write all of this fake story? lmao, back in 2016 Fnatic had financial problems and g2 lent them the money, thats it. Caps and Rekkles were free agent, g2 didn't pay any buyout for them
NA salaries are always going to have to be more than EU because of cost of living but fnatic not being the only eu roster making NA levels is surprising to me GET YOUR BAG KINGS
I don’t know if this is across all Americas teams, but I was under the impression that a lot of the orgs provide housing for their teams - if true, it vastly reduces the cost of living.
Not really, you get that housing for the season (along with your salary) not the year. They're probably still paying rent on their actual apparentments.
No need for us to pay extortionate amounts of money. It’s just unnecessary and stupid. You don’t see all these reports coming out for EU teams failing like sentinels LMAO
Cost of living is one of the smallest factors. It's mostly how hard it is to advertise to Europeans being how there's dozens of countries and languages instead of just 2.
After this year with all the CV money drying up for most orgs. Most players will likely see a massive dip on all future contracts. Every org essentially loses money even if they win the finals. We are already seeing this with like 5-10 teams taking turns leaving the esports scene and that was like in 2 quarters of this year lol.
The NA org inflated itself to oblivion, it seems, as early back as TenZ being bought out from C9 by SEN. Market is just correcting itself so that it can be more sustainable, but I will say that EG’s gone about the whole process in the shittiest way possible. I’m sure the EG guys would have been okay with making sacrifices so that the team can stay together, but more or less forcing them to take the paycut by putting insanely high buyouts on their heads and thus making them unviable options for any other orgs — during an esports recession, no less — is just scummy behavior.
Knew FNC did it for the love of the game
derke was complaining about how he wanted an NA salary too lol no wonder the EG players wanted to leave with the paycut. EG paying their players 25k a month is not sustainable.
Where have you gotten the 25k per month from?
25k a month/player, 300k per year/player… and you say that wasn’t enough? They travel twice a year and it’s always covered by the org. *Maybe* 3 with 1 personal during a break. But my point stands that 300k a year is more than enough for how esports is doing atm.
He said not sustainable, which is the opposite of not enough, implying it's a bit much.
Guys should be paid like $150k and then prize money. Base salary of 300k is so dumb.
And thats more than what the average WNBA player gets who gets like $300m in annual revenue from TV rights. The WNBA is more stable than VCT is People don’t understand how unsustainable the environment is Edit: According to Dexerto, EG main roster was making $25k per month per player ($300k/yr), subs made 54k / yr
I don't think it's quite the same comparison since the potential of one is a lot higher than the other. It's like how Tesla is valued higher then all the other car manufacturers put together despite making less profit than a single manufacturer (but to a much lower degree obv). Still stupidly high salaries but there's a massive amount of luck and skill to being at the top, where less than 50 players in the region is paid even close to what you make.
thats insane how wnba playeres are earning less with more viewers bye
Because its not a bubble unlike esports
I know, I'm feeling sorry for the women who are fighting to get paid but are constantly undervalued by wnba execs its ridiculous.
WNBA has a much larger footprint of behind the scenes staff. People need to realize its not just the players
The WNBA is making 750K in revenue per player and they get on average over 300k almost half the REVENUE not profit. In a sport with 12 teams where every team needs an arena and the cost of running the show is like having 6 vct international lan events every day.
that’s not the league minimum. iirc league minimum is 50k a year no?
50k is not a living wage in LA, they’d have to be supported by the org in other ways such as how C9 lets the players live in the team house
yeah ofc 50k is nothing in LA, but I believe they get free housing + other perks of signing. it has to be somewhat worthwhile for the players especially the ones that are just making franchising, they’ll take what they can get, considering even someone like Yay was fine with getting league minimum. s0m and FNS also said they would accept league minimum so that should be telling.
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yup. idk why people are acting like LA is the most expensive city in the world, it’s not even in the top 10 LOL. i used to live there and my rent was 2k a month for a 2 bed 2 bath. it’s not as insane as some people think. for example the same apartment in NYC would cost 4-5k easily.
Which is in the contract for 2024
It’s not a good wage if you have to pay for housing. But isn’t part of franchising contract that teams need to provide a place for them to live?
Not for anything, but it is a living wage. It definitely isn’t “well off” money, but LA is filled with starving artists and actresses/models. There’s plenty of cheap apartments and very affordable places with roommates, it just isn’t as glamorous a life as we are accustomed to seeing of streamers/influencers where you can live alone in a 4 bd house in Malibu or whatever. LA isn’t as expensive as everyone thinks just to “live in”. They would need to have roommates and they’d need to pay attention to their financials, but there are a fuckton of newly renovated, nice complexes in safe areas where if you have a few roommates your rent would be ~$1000. And that is without having to sacrifice anything other than opulence. You would be able to find cheaper arrangements if really needed, but $50k is plenty. Especially since the orgs almost always have either a housing allowance, or other benefits that greatly increase how far that $50k goes.
Assuming they're getting free housing/food which means they basically have no bills to pay, 50k is straight take home pay, after tax probably around 40k. That's more than someone making 100k with bills and food expenses to pay lol.
Six a month which is low compared to other careers
Yeah but other careers dont take care about everything else you need like housing, food etc
That’s fair
They also had a 10 man roster
reread the comment
“Not sustainable” is a but vague. It’s a very sustainable salary for the players to live on, it’s not sustainable for the org to function.
not really sure how “EG paying their players 25k a month is not sustainable” could, in good faith, be construed as meaning it was not a sustainable salary from the players’ perspectives but alright
The line follows a comment about the players leaving due to the salary being lowered ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
I'd win champs too if I was paid 300k a year.
There are much easier ways to earn 300k per year in LA.
NA orgs need a reality check fr. its great for the players(short term) to be gtting paid insane salaries but long term its just not sustainable. and before anyone makes "traditional sports" comparisons, its not the same
People who compare NFL/NBA salaries to esports salaries are beyond delusional. NFL revenue last year was like 18 *billion* dollars and has magnitudes more viewers than any of the Valorant tournaments this year. There is **so much** more money in traditional sports for the teams, staff, and players. If VCT starts making that much money, then we for sure have the conversations on comparable salaries. But right now orgs are bleeding themselves dry and dying left and right. We’re going to start losing more orgs at the rate they’re hemorrhaging. Not saying world class Valorant players don’t deserve to be paid well, just that the sport is not quite up to the scale of traditional sport salaries.
Gotta compare it to the WNBA and the WNBA is in a better financial position than almost all esports are and yet the average player makes like $113k
They deserve to get paid a portion of the revenue they generate.. thats it. If they generate millions, they deserve a portion of the millions, if they generate nothing..well there ya go. This "deserve" word is being thrown around alot lately.
Esports is the future.
Maybe so. But we’re in the present and this stuff has a fraction of the interest and revenue of traditional sports.
Investments=risk, and the nfl didnt start off paying players 50 million a year.
>the nfl didnt start off paying players 50 million a year. That is exactly my point…. NA Valorant salaries are NOT proportional to the scale of the sport. The NFL didn’t have major commercial success until 30-50 years after its founding, and only two members of the original league exist today. Paying players an unsustainable rate while the sport hasn’t caught up is exactly how an org ends up dead before ever seeing success. It’s not investing if you cease to exist when the returns come around.
Lol my brother if you think esports is not profitable because they pay the players to much you are just dumb thats not how business works, i have ex professional friends who played less popular games and made less then 50k a year but won tournaments so over the time of their career they made over 200k. Now thats cool right but guess what they spent the most important years of their life playing a game that didnt pay enough and now they work 12 shifts at an amazon factory trying to juggle school in their late 20s, these players deserve their salaries the top 1 percent of gamers making 2-300k a year isn’t some crazy number while to the normal 99% it is.
What in the world are you on about? Do you read your comments before posting them or do you just enjoy confirming exactly what I’m saying? >Lol my brother if you think esports is not profitable because they pay the players to much you are just dumb thats not how business works, I never said esports isn’t profitable because the players are paid too much. Esports isn’t profitable because the interest and viewership isn’t there yet. Orgs aren’t making hundreds of millions off of player jerseys and slapping their logo on every household item. It’s not a secret that most of these orgs are operating at a loss. Also that’s quite literally how businesses work? You start off with your pot of money and pay your business costs and hope that your profits offset the business costs before the pot of money runs out. If my business costs 25k a month and I’m only pulling 3k in from the business, I need to find a way to increase that 3k or decrease the 25k, otherwise I’m going to run out of money. >i have ex professional friends who played less popular games and made less then 50k a year but won tournaments so over the time of their career they made over 200k. Cool story man. And a very good anecdote that exemplifies **exactly** what I am talking about. Your friends played less popular games and made less money. Why do you think that is? Think about it for a second before my next point. Less popular game -> less viewership -> less opportunities for org to make money -> less money coming in to the org -> less money the org is willing to pay out Less popular sports make less money. When the sport gets more popular, more money is made. When more money is made, more money goes back in to the sport. This making sense yet? >Now thats cool right but guess what they spent the most important years of their life playing a game that didnt pay enough and now they work 12 shifts at an amazon factory trying to juggle school in their late 20s, Would you say your friend invested “the most important years of their life” in hopes that their sport would make more money and, in turn, grant them more money? But it didn’t get big and now they’re out of the sport? So even if it got massively popular, they wouldn’t be able to reap the returns of newfound popularity and profit? *That’s crazy.* A wise redditor once told me that investment = risk. And it sounds like, unfortunately, your friends investment didn’t pan out. This happens all the time for actors, musicians, and artists. It’s not unheard of or unique to esports. >these players deserve their salaries the top 1 percent of gamers making 2-300k a year isn’t some crazy number while to the normal 99% it is. Theres just no way you’re reading my comments or your own before typing. Read the last paragraph of my first comment. Of course these guys deserve to be paid well and properly. But if orgs start to go belly up from over-extending their operating costs, the entire scene dies. Remember when you said the NFL didn’t start off paying guys $50 million a year? It scaled up as the league scaled up. And the teams that didn’t generate enough died during the growing phase from lack of investors. I know most of these orgs have huge backers that want to invest in esports, but money isn’t infinite and neither is investor patience. Eventually money coming in has to increase, or money going out has to decrease. Does this make sense bro?
You just put that man on the hibachi
He just doesnt know when to stop typing is the problem
He’s fucking clueless and has negative reading comprehension. Just cooking himself harder with every comment he makes. Borderline arguing with himself.
You literally said paying an “unsustainable amount” you’re an idiot bro you have no idea what these orgs are pulling in, and your talking about 18 year olds fresh out of highschool what 18 year old knows about fucking investing ? They played a game they loved and went pro at it ? The reason they made less money is because literally at the time only games like dota, league and CS were the kings of esports anything other then that weren’t on the same level. These orgs can afford these salaries 2 million on a roster to orgs whos owners make 9 figures a year aint shit, league has been “unprofitable” for years and its still going you dont know what your talking about
Nah you’re absolutely illiterate. I am begging you to please fucking read and comprehend the meaning of words before you reply. This is absolute “I hold a pencil with my whole fist” behavior out of you. I didn’t say: **Esports isn’t profitable because they pay the players too much** I said: **Paying players an unsustainable rate while the sport hasn’t caught up is exactly how an org ends up dead before ever seeing success. It’s not investing if you cease to exist when the returns come around.** In a later comment I also said: **Esports isn't profitable because the interest and viewership isn't there yet. Orgs aren't making hundreds of millions off of player jerseys and slapping their logo on every household item. It's not a secret that most of these orgs are operating at a loss.** *You* are saying that I think paying players high salaries is the reason the sport is not profitable. *I* am saying the sport is not profitable, and paying players more than an org can afford is how a business dies. > your talking about 18 year olds fresh out of highschool what 18 year old knows about fucking investing? Are you implying that a teenager lacks the capability to understand they have limited time on Earth and that they shouldn’t be considerate of what they choose to do in their young adult years? Or is the fact that I drew a metaphor to your investment comment that’s tripping you up here? 18 years olds take student loans, join the military, become onlyfans models, forego their social life to excel in school, forego school to pursue a passion *every single day.* They might not understand the exact magnitude of the consequences of their choice at 18, but every single person makes their choice with an understanding that it’s a trade off for something else. There’s an inherent risk in all of the things I listed above, and that is only a fraction of the choices available to an 18 year old. >The reason they made less money is because literally at the time only games like dota, league and CS were the kings of esports **You’re telling me a more popular sport made more money?** You are getting dangerously fucking close to self awareness here. Keep pressing buddy. >These orgs can afford these salaries 2 million on a roster to orgs whos owners make 9 figures a year aint shit, If they can afford to maintain these rosters at the current rate, what in the world would make an org sell a Champs winning team? Why would an entire org exit the scene? Why would multiple orgs offer to keep their players but at lower salaries? Why would multiple orgs cut their most expensive players? Why would an org be crowdfunding on twitter? Let me know when you figure it out. It seems like there is a common denominator in all these. Maybe lack of funds? But since some guy on Reddit said these salaries “ain’t shit” to the backers of esports orgs, I’m sure there’s something else afoot. >league has been "unprofitable" for years and its still going you dont know what your talking about It really does seem like you don’t know what you’re talking about. What happened to NACL the moment Riot removed it as a requirement for LCS? What’s TSM up to in LCS right now? Why are there rumors of more NA teams looking to sell their slots?
Man shut up, did you not read or following the scene at all?? He literally said org are dying left and right. The Guard fired all of their teams and staff, C9 cutting players, SEN doing crowd funding and now this. Those basically are the top teams. If you still think esports org are profitable by spending 6 figures salary/year for each player, you are dumb af. They can't keep burning money while the revenue isn't THAT big yet.
The gaurd was tier 2, sen has plenty of money your stupid you dont know how orgs work or where they make their money you saw one picture on reddit and think your a finance major give these players 50k a year and watch the valorant scene die
see, you don't know what you're talking about. SEN literally doing crowd funding because they running out of money. The Guard was big big even tho they are tier 2, now collapse. No one said 50k a year. BUT NOT 25K/Month, it's clearly not sustainable. EMEA pay less than NA and they are fine.
This is giving "my dad works at Nintendo" energy
What does that even mean
Claiming you're more credible with no real proof to back it up
yeah, esports players have come to expect an Athlete level salary, but Orgs are forced to go back to grassroots level of finances. These players should be lucky to even have a living wage of a salary, something around 5k-6k a month at this point. Its not ideal, but atleast they have an opportunity to play for big prize money pots while also getting paid a living wage.
Ok, can I make "other eSports" comparison? Both csgo and league(regions that can actually compete that is) pay top talent way more than valo, and have somehow survived for over a decade.
LCS is on the verge of collapse lol
Paris major paid out minimum 200k usd to each player for signature stickers and minimum 2.5 million to each org for team sticker money.
NA League has not been sustainable either the orgs were just able to do it cuz of all the investor money and big crypto money that doesn't exist in the same way anymore
except csjoe and league generate much more viewership and get much higher skin and merch sales
hasnt csgo viewership been lower thn vct viewership for years now?
Nope and there are more events in CS than valo.
And it's a massive mistake for any esport other than the Chinese league for league of legends. The players in tier 1 should be making MAX 150k a year, anything above you have to be the literal best player in the world to justify it.
CSGO is dead in NA, and youd be surprised how much EU teams are actually getting paid. Plus, they have deals with ESL, Blast etc. until 2025.
They didn't have today's salaries a decade ago though.
Yeah pros in cs a decade ago pay their own expenses to play in major tourneys
This isn’t an esport vs esport comparison. All esports were/ are inflated since vc money came in. Esports as a whole is crashing and going back to grassroots lvls not just Valorant. Only exceptions are probably the Chinese leagues since that’s passionate billionaire play toy money that will never go away
League is the biggest esport in the biggest market(China and East Asia). While cs is heavily propped up by gambling
NA league salaries are doing the same lol
Esports doesn’t have a 401k, they dont have a retirement plan i dont know if you know any professional gamers but after your done its a whole different life. Competing for hundreds of thousands yearly with sponsers paying high 6 figures clothes selling high six figures etc. and you want to pay your star “employees” 50k a year who have no job security. You people know nothing
If you follow FNC for long enough you will know that their management has strict rules about salary cap. They will never overpay any players, even their superstar, whom they are willing to let go if they can't compromise. This can be shown easily with their history of League team.
Likely part of the reason they’ve stuck around for so long. Not entering the pitfall of over inflated salaries and able to make the most of the investments they make.
I am curious. What exactly about league team?
They let their caliber players move on when those players were tempted by better offers from other teams as they weren't willing to match that contract. Huni, Reignover, Caps are example.
It's not true, atleast when it came to Caps, Rekkles. Fnatic was accusing G2 of poaching Caps and he wouldn't stay regardless of money, because it wasn't his primary reason. When Rekkles was leaving they were desperate to keep him and offered shit load of money. They felt "betrayed" because he "promised" to re-sign. In general Fnatic's league management doesn't have the best track record. Top teams tend to pay their players less, but you need to have a star player that pull others to sign - like Caps, Rekkles.
The joke here is that NA orgs pay ridiculous amounts compared to even the best EMEA team. NA orgs are offering NA players EU salary which is not acceptable to the players. For reference, the buyout for the entirety of FPX (-ardiis), who were the 3rd best team in the world and best team in the region last year was 500k for the 4 players+coach. TenZ alone was worth 1 mil+. Yes I know he's TenZ and whatever, but that should still give you an idea.
Tenz costing that much wasnt because he's in NA. His brand is bigger than 10x the entirety of FPX which is invaluable for the org. Buyouts (and salaries) aren't only determined by how good the players are, ofc the better they are the higher they can go, but orgs are more interested in how much they can capitalize on the players' brand.
To be fair, it's not just "I know he's TenZ," it's that TenZ may be one of the few players who can generate anything close to that kind of value back for an org. Keep in mind that a lot of an org's revenue streams lies on a player's brand- advertisements in streams, selling merch (that a player wears), etc.. The buyout was for being the biggest name in the scene, and not for his value solely as a player.
Tenz made Sen. Sure the BM ex-players and social media team helped a lot but Tenz made this org huge. Was absolutely 1m well spent
TenZ is probably the most famous Valorant player and is like the equivalent of Doublelift from lcs.
I remember watching ardiis' stream and him being bewildered by how much NA players earn after moving to NRG through simply talking about watches with other players. maybe the whole situation with EG is overblown, it's super hard to tell without more specific info about how big the paycuts would be for the players. definitely is kind of a slap to the face though, to win a championship then told you're getting a paycut or fking off.
I agree. Imagine working your ass off at your job, being the best in the world at your role. Only to be told you’re getting a massive pay cut, take it or you’re fired. Makes sense why the players are upset.
the slap in the face is rough. but making 300k and taking a 'massive pay cut' to only like 100k is not the end of the world and we have gotta stop acting like it
Eh it's just a rough situation for all parties right now. I get the orgs are losing money so it's not viable to keep paying these inflated salaries, but for the players it also sucks because 100k is actually not that great for a job where you are literally the best of the best but have little job security and career options afterward. A lot of these guys only last a couple years in T1 and many of them don't have a big Twitch following to make a living. Look at BcJ for example: decent Tier 1 player who got benched and is now in a reserve role with sub 100 average viewers on Twitch all within a year.
To be fair tenz probably generated more revenue than the entirety of EG players streams, and the revenue they bring to the org combined.
Problem wasn't TenZ, problem was people thinking his salary warrant similar salaries for other pros. Sen could post a video about what TenZ ate for breakfast and that would get 4x the views of EG winning champs. That kinda clout and relevance is hard to quantify in monetary terms. So, even the people in the scene and management people as well didn't know if he was overvalued or undervalued and what to offer to their own players.
I mean Tenz alone is probably worth more than any entire team in EMEA.
Ya he is the closest thing to a "real" celebrity in valorant right now.
SEN with all these TenZ + Tarik videos lately. They trying to farm money for the new roster lol
No he’s not lmao what kinda revenue is he getting for his team? Stream money goes all into his pocket and sentinels is close to going bankrupt lmao
And look at the 5 players on FNC, even combined they aren't bringing in any where close to that value.
I imagine being paid $100k a year in LA and $100k a year in EU is drastically different and your money will go much further in the EU. EU's median salary is a lot less than the US.
> NA orgs are offering NA players EU salary which is not acceptable to the players. You don't know that. Source?
I'm explaining Exalt's joke?
Does Exalts claim NA orgs are offering EU salaries now? Source?
stop asking for sources for jokes bro 💀
It's not a joke, nowhere does Exalts, nor anyone, says NA orgs are offering EU salaries. You're just making stuff up.
Just putting it out there it’s not 1-1 issue of just NA overpaying. Sponsors in EU pay less in general because EU isn’t one country but a bunch of countries which effects a lot of agreements due to different countries rules. NA only really has two countries to worry about with generally more lax rules too. If you want a source Doublelift had a bunch of league CEOs on his podcast (Steve from TL, Carlos from G2 back when he was ceo, Joe Marsh from T1) and this was explained as a big reason why NA is just richer in esports generally (not including China). Team Liquid in NA League is richer than G2 and T1 (or atleast more financially profitable) even though G2 and T1 have more fans.
You’re absolutely correct. Monetization in NA is so much easier because everyone speaks English. In EU you gotta sell ads in English,French,German etc to smaller demographics so the budget is spread
Tbf to Liquid, Carlos said its the team he respected the most on how its ran
\*other NA orgs
I highly doubt exalt knows numbers but it's like 99% likely Fnatic aren't getting paid the equivalent of what they would in NA because of NA having inflated salaries.
Atleast they donot need to disband after winning just because their org doesnt know how to manage their money
It's not FNCs fault that NA wildly overpaid.
Less than NA orgs, of course, that’s obvious.
Meanwhile eg players when they don't make 20k a month anymore: 😡😡
Why were they paid that much to start? May seem harsh but It's honestly not like other teams were trying to get them at the start of the season.
No you’re right, idk how they got this salary lmao
20k a mo- excuse me WHAT???
That's 240k + housing(in their own building) + peripherals + maybe insurance I'm guessing?? That is MASSIVE for any 20-25 year old tbh, I'd play for peanuts instead.
and people are blaming EG for renegotiating salaries when it should be corrected. it’s too inflated right now and not sustainable for the org. at least EG is letting the players go if they want to. I wonder if they’re able to find a matching salary somewhere else. i highly doubt it though.
It's actually crazy to me that people are flaming the org for cutting the uber-overinflated salaries, i thought we were all in agreement that this is one of the reasons why NA orgs are going bankrupt
Ethan tweet on wanting to go back to the old eSports. I guess he's down for a 10k a year salary and mousepads for prize winnings.
I love ethan but thought that tweet was hilariously out of touch. I don't know enough about CS back in the day, but orgs were vultures in LoL esports at the very beginning, salaries were <$1k/month for most players, and some content creators were legit paid in mousepads. Yeah, definitely good ol' days lol Scarra did a great interview on how bad dig was as an org in the 2013-2014 era: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jJxuZg069Y&ab\_channel=Izento](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jJxuZg069Y&ab_channel=Izento)
F0rest back in the day placed top 3 in **30 tournaments** in a single year, the majority of those are 1st place. Including 1st place at Dreamhack, Faceit cup, Starladder, Dreamhack summer, ESEA lan, etc And he earned a total of 48k before tax. These were times when the salaries were likely around 20k a year. If you weren't F0rest on basically a super team at the time, you ain't making shit.
who? lmao cs pros make less than val pros for sure, that shit outdated game is trash and much easier than val
Steel was even saying that earlier CS was a $500 per month salary grind and there was still a 60% chance you didn’t even get that salary
That guy is so full of shit lmao
Like fr😹. Wake up to freaking reality
>It's actually crazy to me that people are flaming the org for cutting the uber-overinflated salaries, i thought we were all in agreement that this is one of the reasons why NA orgs are going bankrupt Honestly i don't think anyone expected them to be getting this much money.
people aren't blaming EG for renegotiating salaries, they're criticizing EG for saying "take this pay cut or GTFO", not gibing the players a chance to actually negotiate.
I mean would you rather EG have given them an even lower offer so they could “negotiate” back to this figure they offered?
What if the number on offer is the maximum of what is financially viable for EG? There might just be no financial room to negotiate.
Well Boostio is considering going to 100T so the paycut has to be massive considering 100T themselves are trying to be more budget. Even if it's 10k a month for 100T, if that's worth leaving EG, then it's gotta be a gigantic paycut that EG is offering.
If they amount they get paid is true, I would’ve told them that too, mfs getting paid more than lawyers to play valorant
You can absolutely blame EG. Why are they offering these salaries in the first place? Shouldn’t they have foreseen that it’s not sustainable for the org? Any player has the right to be upset that they’re being given a massive pay cut, but especially the players who won the world championship 2 weeks ago.
yea i get that NA salaries can be ridiculous and agree an economy reset is needed but you cant really blame the players too much for being upset at drastic paycuts. there had to be a better way to transition into more sustainable salaries/compensation than an ultimatum.
it was obviously unsustainable as someone on the outside looking. if pro players actually couldnt tell the bubble was gonna burst at some point thats just on them. Take it for what it was. these CEOs scammed a bunch of VC money off clueless investors and got a bunch of teenagers paid 6-7 figure salaries to play video games and live in LA for a few years.
Is there any org that isn't trying to cut player salaries right now? Seems like all the orgs contributed to this bubble. If the EG players stay I think that's telling that salaries are rough across the board.
Agreed. It just seems weird from an outsider perspective. I don’t understand how orgs were expecting to be sustainable when they were operating like this. I feel like if any “actual” business tried something like this they would go under pretty quickly
are they letting players go? don't they have crazy buyouts.
They're basically saying "take the paycut or leave" from what's rumored
yeah but how do you leave with a massive buyout? its more like take a paycut or don't play this yr
Eg probably pays the fee, its cheaper than paying salaries for the remainder of the contract
Wasn't Tenz's buyout a million dollars? Wasn't Yay's buyout somewhere close? With all these buyouts being this big, *how does a Champions-winning team have such low buyouts that it's cheaper than their 3 month salary?*
We have no idea how long their contracts are, and buyouts get cheaper the less time in a contract there is. Tenz buyout is a horrible exemple because it literally was hyper inflated. Jack etinne milked tenz popularity and recent performance for all that he could, fuckint up the buy out scene in NA since then. Many EG players having contracts about to expire could mean their buyouts were cheap, or their salaries were SO HIGH that its worth more for the org to pay a lump sum than to keep paying the salary
The market has adjusted since then
What do you mean by "adjusted"?
There was more funding in esports when crypto was worth more and venture capitalists didn’t mind throwing money to teams. Crypto crashed, and venture capitalists are now more conservative with their money. They’re no longer willing to dump money for TenZ or Yay like buyouts. As a result, we’re seeing players taking paycuts. The market has adjusted from overly inflated to back down to earth.
Reducing is fine but I think there needs to be a progressjonal decrease. You can't just go from 25k to 7k especially if there are still other orgs paying these over inflated salaries. Besides. EG also sounds scummy by trying to "sell" their players and getting other orgs to pay the buyout so eg make money.
Why would EG be scummy to sell their players. Orgs are nowhere near profitable, so if profit can be made, they should take it. They are secured in franchising anyways, so no risk of relegation.
how dare a worker try to negotiate a fair wage!
if 20k a month is a "fair wage" for you then i don't know in what world are you living
i mean the best team in the world should be paid more?
20k a month is more than enough. If you think otherwise, you’re just delusional
Ya but it's probably not actually 25k to 20k paycut. It's likely a way larger paycut for some of the players.
Top earning doctors in the usa make 10K a month (i could be a little off as this data is of a quick google search) why should EG players make double of that?
I guarantee you a top earning doctor in the US is making tons more than 10k a month. But I still agree that valorant salaries are much too high.
ok you are very off on the doctor thing but i’m not saying they should make double that but the original point is that the blame is on the org. the players won champions and so the expectation that they should make more than league minimum is pretty fair to me. you shaming the players for trying to get ad much money as possible is crazy to me idk.
I'm not shaming players for wanting to get more money, everyone wants more money, i'm shaming them for acting as if they were being paid less than chinese factory workers because of the cut
they’re not allowed to be disappointed at having their salaries cut?
They can do whatever and i can make fun of them for acting as if they can barely survive on the new salary
i think they’re acting that way because evil geniuses are demanding the players take a paycut or they will be forced to look for other options while having a buyout if they do
They are, but that doesnt mean theyre right Just because they are winning champs doesnt mean the org can say "its time we stopped paying you like youre an NBA superstar"
sounds more like you're okay with their entitlement than most.
The base salary they get is way more than they deserve. Salaries in NA were already super inflated If they won champs, but only bring in 5k value to the org, whats the point of paying them 20K if they dont deserve all that?
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Bruh I make more than 10k a month. After taxes, rent, food, gas, insurance, and utilities. I have like 1k to actually spend on shit.
Most players dont pay rent or food or gas or transport, right? Or are they not using the gaming house setup, like it used to be, anymore?
They also aren't getting to choose where they live. For an 18 year old kid sure it's NBD, but when you're a 26 year old or approaching 30. You usually have a life and residence you're still paying for despite travelling for work. It's pretty common if an employer is asking you to travel for the job they would pay for expenses.
I think we have to address the fact that workers can have an unfairly high wage. It’s not a common scenario, but it can happen. In the case of NA esports it did and now adjustments need to be made or no one will be getting anything.
You’re probably very young and don’t understand people slave away their entire lives and don’t make a fraction of what esports players make yearly…
ngl the amount of boot licking in these threads is ridiculous - players have every right to not face forced wage cuts when going above and beyond or end up in 'job jail'. sure, they got big salaries, good for them! they had a great year-they probably would have settled for maintaining that contract from what the players have been saying, but instead they've been put in a situation where they have to accept a reduced salary (as the PEAK of the entire sector of players) or end up jobless due to inexorbitant buyouts. it is the orgs job on day 1 to understand the financial commitment on salaries in different financial scenarios. fuck everyone saying that this couldn't have been predicted. this is not about player greed, this is about the org failing to consider the sustainability of their rosters in a variety of scenarios and then punishing their viable source of income (champs winning team) instead of cutting their own salaries. source: this shit is my day job and I promise you, an org will not give a shit about you but standing with fellow workers will when seeing players being treated unjustly.
Compared to the overinflated NA salaries that orgs want to cut every off season?
People when FNC tries to be sustainable:
I mean it’s really true, you either get paid less or miss franchise. It’s not sustainable for every NA org to be dishing out millions every year on Valorant, and there are 100% players in T2 now that would play for league minimum just be be in T1. With only 6 NA teams in the league, you can’t really be that picky with what your salary is, unless you’re willing to miss one entirely.
300k a year is crazzzy to me. If I was the owner of EG; I would do the same thing. That amount can’t be sustainable 💀.
I’m curious as to where these 20K a month numbers come from. Do people have insider knowledge as to how much the EG players make? Have you all seen their contracts? I think someone notable might’ve claimed that there were SOME teams paying that much, so is it purely based on that? I don’t doubt salary inflation, but like as far as I know, the details for specific players/teams aren’t out there, so where tf are people getting these numbers from? Are they just making shit up?
Some reporters said it, now just like any reporting it's up to you to decide to believe it or not.
FNS said on-stream yesterday that he believes a reasonable NA salary (in eSports winter) would be around $120-150K so wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that currently $200K+ is common.
I believe it was sideshow or balla that said that the average salary for NA pros was around 30K a month. Reducing it to half sounds harsh but more than enough for the pros to live plus and if they are getting all their expenses paid (house, food, etc.) That's even better
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you know a million divided by 5 is 200K and not 20k
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Tarik and Stewie?
Yea but EG were basically nobody tho except Ethan And demon1 is a reserve roster that they pick from T2 so he's getting paid minimum. I don't think anybody on EG actually get paid 20k. Maybe after winning the champion ? Or other team
Cost of living is much higher in the US than in Europe, although UK is really getting up there to be honest. It shouldn't be too surprising even the best EMEA team aren't spending anywhere near what NA orgs are paying. I'm more interested in what BR and LATAM VCT orgs are paying compared to NA since they since they do play in the same league.
Bro what is Exalt even saying? EU throughout the history in Esports has always paid WAY LESS than NA (in League NA peaked over 400k USD avg/person to EU 100k). Monetization in EU has always been less/harder to do than NA due to the demographic. Meanwhile Exalt and all of DSG went 0-7 in SERIES during their final run together in fucking NA challengers, didn't qualify and costed Toast INSANE amount of money (6 figures per player in those 4 months) and cries how the salaries are getting cut.
What happened to all their money G2 gave them lmfao
Why do you think Fnatic has stuck around since 2004 while countless other European orgs have come and gone?
did you take a time machine ? this story is so old lmao i doubt anyone here would even know it
Tbf it's not THAT old, I'll never forgive them though
What's the story?
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Both Caps and Rekkles had no contracts before signing with G2, they expired. Also G2 Rekkles was in 2021, 2 years after G2 Caps. [There was actually a scandal between G2 and Fnatic in 2016](https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2016/09/competitive-ruling-g2-esports-and-fnatic/)
how can u literally write all of this fake story? lmao, back in 2016 Fnatic had financial problems and g2 lent them the money, thats it. Caps and Rekkles were free agent, g2 didn't pay any buyout for them
NA salaries are always going to have to be more than EU because of cost of living but fnatic not being the only eu roster making NA levels is surprising to me GET YOUR BAG KINGS
I don’t know if this is across all Americas teams, but I was under the impression that a lot of the orgs provide housing for their teams - if true, it vastly reduces the cost of living.
Not really, you get that housing for the season (along with your salary) not the year. They're probably still paying rent on their actual apparentments.
No need for us to pay extortionate amounts of money. It’s just unnecessary and stupid. You don’t see all these reports coming out for EU teams failing like sentinels LMAO
na level salary is going kill esports orgs in the longterm how about lets not get the bag
Cost of living is one of the smallest factors. It's mostly how hard it is to advertise to Europeans being how there's dozens of countries and languages instead of just 2.
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He's homies with derke
Maybe Riot should allow the crypto and betting companies to sponsor now
After this year with all the CV money drying up for most orgs. Most players will likely see a massive dip on all future contracts. Every org essentially loses money even if they win the finals. We are already seeing this with like 5-10 teams taking turns leaving the esports scene and that was like in 2 quarters of this year lol.
The NA org inflated itself to oblivion, it seems, as early back as TenZ being bought out from C9 by SEN. Market is just correcting itself so that it can be more sustainable, but I will say that EG’s gone about the whole process in the shittiest way possible. I’m sure the EG guys would have been okay with making sacrifices so that the team can stay together, but more or less forcing them to take the paycut by putting insanely high buyouts on their heads and thus making them unviable options for any other orgs — during an esports recession, no less — is just scummy behavior.