What do you guys think is causing this issue with the orgs being nearly broke or having to lower their costs? Viewership has gone mostly up throughout the years, so I'm curious about it.
Do you guys think it's bad management on behalf of the org's CEO's and team? Or does money really not come in despite having lots of viewers.
And most importantly, what do you guys think could be done for these orgs to get more revenue... this genuinely seems like an issue that affects esports in general.
One of the big reasons why salaries were so high is bc there was a shit ton of VC money in esports bc a bunch of businessmen thought that esports would be a profitable enterprise like traditional sports were. This led to orgs and CEOs spending like crazy, and now that a lot of the VC money is running out orgs are figuring out that they are far in the red in terms of financials, and now they’re trying to just mitigate the damage. After this whole dark period I think the market should stabilize and the remaining orgs that don’t go under are gonna be more financially responsible
I would argue that salaries needed to be that high, since part of the reason esports popularised was due to people finding out you could make a shit ton of money, and that brought a lot of new eyes to esports.
But it does look like it backfired now. I wonder what other sources of income these orgs have besides advertising, merch and investments.
Orgs definitely need to diversify their sources of income but tbh there are so few routes an org could take to make money. I only rlly know the NA scene in depth but I think 100T is one of the better orgs in terms of sustainability, they have a lot of clout in the industry and they effectively utilize that to do things like high profile merch collabs. I know they are also expanding into other industries, I distinctly remember an energy drink but they have a few other things, and their clothing lines are always pretty good and actually wearable unlike other orgs (EG). And on the esports side of things they are usually responsible in their budgets and try not to overspend, and also treat their players very well while they’re rostered.
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