Multiple Valorant players in North America, who took part in Riot Games-sanctioned Nerd Street competitions in the second half of 2022, claim that they have not been paid by the Philadelphia-based tournament organizer. Nerd Street also allegedly owes (or owed) money to “talent and production.”
In January of 2022, Riot Games named Nerd Street as its exclusive partner for the three stages of the North American Valorant Champions Tour and all three Game Changers tournaments (a program creating new competitive opportunities and exposure for women and other marginalized genders) in 2022.
News of the company’s struggles to pay people involved in its Valorant tournaments first came to light on Dec. 15, when Kariann Tan, general manager of Atlanta-based esports organization Detonate, called out Nerd Street on Twitter for promoting upcoming CS:GO competitions and looking past loose ends from previous competitions: “So is Nerd Street going to pay their talent and production that have been waiting months for their compensation first or what,” she wrote.
At the time, Nerd Street CEO John Fazio responded by saying that the company was working to get “everyone paid asap” before the start of the next season, adding that the company is “often at the mercy of third parties like brands/publishers that we produce these events on behalf of. When they don’t pay, we’re on the hook.“
He also said that issues with FTX (Nerd Street signed a sponsorship deal with the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange in February—financial terms were not disclosed) and other parties have resulted in a change in policy on funding future events: “After FTX and other recent issues with partners, we’ve decided to exclusively self fund our events moving forward with smaller budgets to avoid this happening again.”
TEA reached out to Kariann Tan on Wednesday but she did not respond to our request for comments as of this writing.
A report by Dot Esports journalist George Geddes published on Tuesday claims that at least three commentators, who worked on the broadcast team for Nerd Street, had to harass the company to get paid… four months later. In addition, Dot Esports highlighted a number of players and teams who have not been paid their prize money or other associated expenses.
The conversation around players not getting paid came to light in a Twitter thread started by former TSM Academy player Timothy “ZK” Ly on Monday. That list of players—according to information collected by Geddes and from the thread—includes (but is likely not limited to):
- Former TSM Academy player Timothy “ZK” Ly
- Oxygen Esports player Yassin “Reduxx” Aboulalazm
- The former Ghost Gaming team (they were released in early September).
- Shopify Rebels player Benita Novshadian
- Team Seal
A representative for New England-based Oxygen Esports told TEA Wednesday that, while Yassin “Reduxx” Aboulalazm has been paid his prize money, team members are still owed approximately $2K USD for travel expenses. Other players and organizations that we reached out to did not respond to our request for comments as of this writing.
TEA also reached out to Nerd Street CEO John Fazio, who pointed us to his Dec. 13 thread on Twitter and provided the following statement:
“We’re doing our best to get through the backlog of payments as fast as possible and are releasing payments weekly. As of next week, all VAL Summer Champs payments will be completed for both prizes and staff. We’re hoping to have Frag’s payments all caught up by next month and we’re working with Riot on a resolution for VCT.”
Riot Games declined to comment on this story.
Nerd Street has raised approximately $25.3M in disclosed investments across four funding rounds since 2017, according to Crunchbase data. Those investors include U.S. retailer Five Below, telecommunications company Comcast/Comcast Spectacor, angel investor George Miller, and VC investment firms Founders Fund, Elevate Ventures, and SeventySix Capital.