It's impossible for him to complete a seven-year sponsorship with Riot Games now that FTX has gone bankrupt.
In August 2021, League of Legends Riot Games has signed a sponsorship deal with cryptocurrency exchange FTX worth tens of millions of dollars. You know, the now bankrupt stock market, whose founder was arrested and facing serious fraud and money laundering charges.
Web3 It's Great reported by Molly White As such, the deal was supposed to last seven years and involved FTX making “significant payments” to Riot, starting at $2022 million for calendar year 12,5 (and increasing to $2023 for 12,875). on. Only $2022 million of the 6,25 amount has been paid out so far, and Riot's chances of seeing another penny are virtually nil, so the company has filed a lawsuit in Bankruptcy Court in Delaware to void the remainder of its sponsorship deal.
Certainly from a business standpoint, that totally makes sense. As Riot Games pointed out in its filing, FTX has declared bankruptcy, which should send the entire deal straight to the trash with no questions asked. However, in case anyone has any questions, Riot added, “As a result of the massive public discredit caused by the fiasco before FTX filed for bankruptcy, there is no way FTX can heal the reputational damage Riot has already caused. FTX can't turn back time and Riot can't undo the damage it did after its collapse.”
Basically, Riot argues that FTX's reputation has been completely trashed over the past few weeks, and even remotely being associated with such a failed trade is hurting Riot. To top it all off, Riot cites the fact that Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced ex-boss of FTX, is notorious for playing League of Legends during business meetings:
Before and throughout this media storm, Riot's image and reputation with its client base remained inextricably linked to FTX through its former CEO, Mr. Media outlets and Twitter commentators strewn pictures of Mr. Bankman-Fried playing League of Legends -Riot Games' game as FTX crashed. Mr. BankmanFried is famous for his affinity for the game. He is known for playing League of Legends at meetings among investors. He admitted on Twitter that he “plays a lot more [League of Legends] than you would expect from someone who routinely quits work instead of sleeping.” Even Mr. Bankman-Fried's rank in League of Legends has been the subject of online comments weighed in by prominent names Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elon Musk.
Even when this deal was first signed in August 2021, video game developers, NBA teams or over-enthusiastic celebrities, he painfully understood what the end of all this scam would be.