Riot Games announced Tuesday that it has terminated TALON Esports’ Valorant Champions Tour Pacific (VCT Pacific) and League of Legends Championship Pacific (LCP) partnerships effective immediately due to a “failure to operate and manage its team in accordance with league standards, including a pattern of significantly overdue payments to players and an inability to demonstrate sufficient financial capacity to continue participating in the VCT.”
Riot announced the decision on social media and on its official blog for the league.
The news isn’t particularly surprising to anyone paying attention to TALON over the last few months, which was showing signs of financial challenges in August. The Esports Advocate reported at the end of August that TALON had found itself in hot water after a private loan agreement between its co-founder and CEO, Sean Zhang, and investor Bainy Zhang surfaced on X (formerly Twitter). Bainy, founder of Fisher8 Capital, alleged that Talon owed him $75,000 USD in unpaid interest tied to a short-term $1 million bridge loan dating back to late June. Ultimately, Zhang and TALON paid off the interest payment at the beginning of September. Other rumors circulated that TALON was struggling to pay staff, players, and contractors the money it owed.
Talon issued the following statement on the matter via social media on Tuesday:
The company added:
“To all our fans and community since day one, THANK YOU so much. Your support has carried us through every meme war, every chaotic match day, and even the quiet moments in the off-season. You’ve shown us love in ways we’ll never forget, and we’re insanely grateful for every single one of you. Time to log off from the server for now.”
Finally, Jake Sin, head of Valorant Esports for APAC & VCT Pacific, issued the following statement:
“We’ve just announced the termination of TALON Esports’ partnership with VCT Pacific. This was a really tough decision, and it comes after weeks of working closely with TALON to try to resolve their issues. Ultimately, we had to make the call, but we wish TALON nothing but the best going forward and are grateful for everything they brought to the league.
“I have spoken directly with the affected players about their options. They are more than welcome in our ecosystem, whether as part of another team or even across multiple teams. I truly hope we’ll get to see them competing in our league again. I know this is a very difficult moment for them, so my team and I will support them however we can.
“As for a replacement team, we’re going to run a selective application process to find one before our 2026 season begins. Our priority is to identify a team that can resonate with our Thai community to ensure we maintain representation in VCT Pacific. We’ll share more when we can, and I appreciate your continued support as we navigate this.”
Despite these significant setbacks for the organization, TALON continues to operate professional teams in StarCraft 2, Pokémon Unite, PUBG Mobile, TEKKEN 8, Street Fighter 6, Dota 2, Arena of Valor, and Rainbow Six Siege. The company also has partnerships with Visa, Paris Saint-Germain, Flipster, Razer, MELBET, ExitLag, Secretlab, Monster Energy, ZOWIE, Thermaltake, AGON by AOC, Vaseline, Carnival, Chef Cares, and Certified.