Staff Cuts Hit IGC’s Immortals

Credit: Immortals

Last Week (Feb. 15), several Immortals employees were let go as part of a round of layoffs. The Esports Advocate can not independently confirm the exact number of layoffs beyond the handful we found who announced publicly that they had been affected (describing it as being a “round of layoffs”) and were looking for new opportunities. TEA reached out to several of those people who either declined to comment or did not respond at the time of writing.

TEA also spoke to an executive from Immortals on Tuesday evening, who declined to comment on the number of employees that were affected last week.

Immortals is part of Immortals Gaming Club—which also owns Overwatch League franchise Los Angeles Valiant, Brazilian esports organization MIBR, and Gamers Club.

It is unclear if these layoffs have affected other companies in the IGC ecosystem, but TEA has reached out to executives at MIBR, IGC, and Gamers Club, and will update this story should more information become available.

Immortals currently fields teams in the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS), North American LCS Academy (NACL), and Valorant. Its current sponsors and partners include Bitstamp, Progressive, Socios.com, Nitto, DXRacer, and American Express.

While Immortals is the latest esports organization to lay off staff, it is certainly not alone in having to make tough choices in 2023 due to a turbulent global economy, diminishing revenue, and a general lack of additional capital due to investor fears about the sector. In the first two months of 2023, staff cuts hit FaZe Clan, OpTic Gaming, TSM, Team Liquid, Torrent Esports (which released its rosters), Nerd Street, Riot Games, Microsoft, Unity, eUnited (which ceased operations), 100 Thieves, and many other companies either in gaming or tangentially connected to esports.