In its heyday, the now bankrupt crypto exchange, FTX, had signed a number of huge sponsorship deals, which also includes one with Riot Games.
It promised $100 million to the developer of ‘League of Legends’, as part of their agreement to sponsor the esports competition called League Championship Series (LCS).
This information was recently revealed in the ongoing trial of the co-founder of the FTX crypto exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried.
The deal
The Riot and FTX deal’s sum was published this month as part of the criminal trial proceedings that are taking place in New York.
The disgraced crypto mogul, Sam Bankman-Fried, is facing seven criminal charges, which include money laundering, securities fraud, and wire fraud.
They had not disclosed the value of the said deal previously. FTX had signed a seven-year deal with Riot back in 2021 to sponsor its League of Legends Championship Series (LCS).
A spreadsheet that was shared in court on Monday highlighted the details of the various sponsorships of the crypto exchange.
The said agreement with Riot had been scheduled to renew automatically in 2028 unless either of the two parties decided to dispute it.
The exhibit
According to the exhibit, Riot’s LCS was to receive about $4 million in 2021, while $12.5 million was to be paid in the next year and almost $2.8 million in 2023.
Annual recurring payments were to be made until the deal ended. The document showed that FTX had also made a deal with esports organization TSM.
This was for an ‘FTX Trading’ label and also for an ‘FTX US’ label and these deals were made for $136.5 million and $73.5 million, respectively.
The $210 million deal for 10 years had also been announced back in 2021. According to the spreadsheet, TSM was to receive $10.8 million from the total in the same year.
$15.37 million was to be paid in 2022 and $16.6 million was to be paid this year. It remains unclear as to how much money was paid to TSM before the collapse of the exchange that happened last year in November.
Further details
Neither Riot nor TSM confirmed the amounts that were promised, or how much they had received from the exchange.
It should be noted that Sam Bankman-Fried was obsessed with ‘League of Legends’. He had talked about the game on his social media.
In fact, reports indicated that he would even play the game during interviews and business meetings. Back in 2021, he himself had said on Twitter that he played the game while on phone calls.
Data from ActivePlayer shows that there are 133 million monthly active users of League of Legends and it is also one of the most renowned competitive esports games.
Esports organizations have found a new source of revenue in the crypto industry, as they are dealing with financial challenges while trying to make a profit.
In fact, there are some organizations that are heavily dependent on sponsorships, while others are trying to leverage crypto and NFT integrations to engage their fanbase.