Tournament operator Nerd Street Games laid off about a quarter of employees

According to The Esports Advocate, tournament operator Nerd Street Games fired about a quarter of its staff. This decision follows ongoing problems with prize payments to teams.

Back on Wednesday, January 18th, Nerd Street Games informed all employees that there would be layoffs, and soon after, 25% of employees were fired from their positions. According to preliminary estimates, the company employs about 100 people, but this figure may be far from the truth.

Some of the people who were fired by Nerd Street Games were reported to have worked in design/graphics, esports operations, and production.

The tournament operator's first difficulties appeared at the end of last year, when some players and teams accused Nerd Street Games of delaying the payment of prize money. At the same time, John Fazio, CEO of the company, assured that the problem was being solved jointly with Riot Games, and the difficulties themselves arose after the collapse of the FTX exchange.

We do our best to deal with backlogs as quickly as possible and send payments weekly. Starting next week, all VAL Summer Champs payouts will be completed for both prizes and work. We hope to have all Frag payments paid out by next month and we are working with Riot Games on VCT payouts.

John Fazio, CEO of Nerd Street Games

It is not known how the situation will develop in the future. It is unlikely that the tournament operator is experiencing great financial difficulties, given the number of partners and funds raised from investments. However, Nerd Street Games has already lost its status as the main partner of Riot Games in the VALORANT discipline, which may indicate a loss of confidence on the part of the publisher.