The German Twitch streamer Rumathra bought into an e-sports team at Valorant as co-owner in 2022, but it will be over in 2024. The e-sports winter is hitting. The German Valorant league is simply not attractive enough to pay 8 people reasonably, says the streamer.
What kind of team is this?
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High expenses, low income
Why is the team broke now? You can already see the problem in the measly prize money of €3,625.
Rumathra explains: An org in Valorant needs around 8 people: In addition to 5 players, there are also 3 people on the staff. At that level everyone worked full time, so they had to be paid in full, it was only fair.
For him, that means that an org costs, on a low level, around €30,000 a month.
But the number of viewers is only around 1,000 on average and with such a reach, no sponsor in the world will give you €30,000.
In addition, the Valorant league in Germany was paused for 6 months. No money comes out during that time, but the costs don’t go away.
Therefore the org is simply no longer worth it. Although they are not insolvent, they have been in the red for months and cannot maintain it.
What does he see as the problem? Among other things, the global economy caught him: Tech companies grew strongly during Corona, but then cut advertising budgets in 2023 to save costs. It is therefore extremely difficult to find advertising money.
When they were still playing in the Valorant league, some top-class players like Eintracht Frankfurt were not there, but rather teams that had no reach:
“In addition, there was no Valorant League DACH played for 7 months.”
During that time, €210,000 would have had to be raised without any games taking place. It’s also not clear to him to simply fire the games, let them work at McDonalds for 7 months and then hire them again.
“They just don’t have any spectators”
What’s next? Most of the Angry Titans players have found employment with other teams. One ended his career. The e-sports team is now officially “retired”, i.e. put on ice.
Rumathra says he could imagine doing something like that again, but it doesn’t sound like he wants to do it again on Valorant:
“Anyway, we also roasted Valorant DACH well. […] They simply don’t have any spectators. It’s just not exciting enough for viewers to watch. It’s not divided up well, Riot does everything wrong that you can do wrong. It hasn’t been played for 6 months, what can I say? It’s just done shit.”
But Rumathra admits that they didn’t do everything right either and perhaps should have tried harder to find sponsors.
Investing in e-sports is like burning money right now
This is what lies behind it: If Trymacs is to be believed, Rumathra is a frugal person who sleeps on Omis’ couch instead of in the hotel. It’s therefore hard to imagine that he actually made a loss of €30,000 a month; he would certainly have been out much sooner. They were probably hoping for an attention and advertising boost.
What Rumathra describes can also be found in many stories from influencers from the USA: young men with millions of dollars in disposable income who are building an e-sports team “on the side”: No matter whether Ludwig or Disguised Toast, they all tell the same story Story. Anyone who invests in e-sports might as well burn their money. Then at least the room will be nice and warm.
It is not clear how one should finance normal salaries, especially at lower tier levels. The money is concentrated on the absolute top teams like G2. And things are looking bleak there too, because, as Rumathra rightly describes, advertising money is apparently tight at the moment.
The idea that e-sports could become the next poker and trigger a huge boom has not come true. Experiments like the expensive Overwatch League have failed.
Even large organizations that have won multiple championships and played in the top leagues in the United States have turned away from esports in recent years. The fact that the team in Valorant has to withdraw because they paid fair salaries is nothing that Rumathra should be ashamed of.
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