Developer Riot Games earned $18.72 million in revenue from VALORANT Champions skins, sources told Upcomer, which means participating teams earned $585,000 for competing in the first global championship for VALORANT esports.
Riot’s Champions Collection, announced Nov. 23 ahead of the finale of the VALORANT Champions Tour, provided a 50% revenue share with teams who took part in Champions, according to sources. The participants’ portion of the revenue from the VCT Champions skins, $9.36 million, was divided evenly among the 16 teams, sources said.
How teams used the VALORANT Champions skin money, however, depends on the organization. Some teams, sources said, split the $585,000 evenly between players and the organization; others gave players the majority, or teams the bulk of the money. The decision was left to each individual organization.
Of the 11 teams with confirmed VALORANT Champions skin revenue splits, two gave the majority of the money to their players, while seven teams kept the majority of the Champions bundle money for the org. There were two 50/50 splits and one team, X10, who decided to not split the money at all.
Here are some of the VALORANT Champions skins revenue splits according to sources close to the orgs.
- EMEA
- Acend: 75% team/25% players
- Fnatic: 80/20
- Team Liquid: 70/30
- North America
- Team Envy (now OpTic Gaming): 50/50
- Sentinels: 50/50
- Cloud9: 25/75
- Latin America
- Furia: 60/40
- Vivo Keyd: 20/80
- Asia-Pacific
- X10: 100/0
- Team Secret: 70/30
- Vision Strikers: 70/30
Editor’s note: Other Champions participants Gambit Esports, Crazy Raccoon, Full Sense, KRÜ Esports and Vikings have been left of due to incomplete information.
Update 3/3/2022: A previous version of this article listed Team Secret’s split as 85% team/15% players. After further investigation, the correct figure is now listed instead.
Update 3/11/2022: Operations and development lead at X10, Hawaii Yee, reached out to Upcomer, claiming X10 would share 10% of the skin revenue with the Champions players. This came after one X10’s coaches also claimed players will receive 10% of the skin revenue.
However, Upcomer’s sources denied this. According to them, only the coach had an agreement for 10% while the players would still receive no part of the skin revenue — despite failed attempts to discuss the subject. Sources also said the organization has only responded after this story’s publication.
