Over the past week, the walls have crumbled around the castle of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. A day ago, the company filed for bankruptcy, and as a result, the future of their multiple partnerships around the esports community was thrown into question.
One popular team that featured FTX prominently in their branding is TSM, who signed a whopping $210 million, 10-year long deal with the cryptoexchange back in 2021. The organization has finally released a statement on the situation, saying that the team doesn’t have any insight on what has happened other than what has been publicly reported, but is closely following the situation regardless.
“We are currently consulting legal counsel to determine the best next steps to protect our team, staff, fans and players,” TSM said. “To be clear, TSM is built on a solid foundation. We are stable and profitable, and we continue to forecast profitability for this year, next year, and beyond. We look forward to a great year in 2023.”
Related: LCS, TSM sponsor FTX files for bankruptcy
The spotlight has been beaming on this company for several days now, after FTX’s rival Binance backed out of acquiring the company due to “corporate due diligence.” Binance also said that the recent allegations about US agency investigations and mishandled customer funds made the issues “beyond [their] control or ability to help.”
Besides TSM, FTX currently has partnerships with other major entities in esports, including the LCS in North America, esports tournament organizer and news publication Nerd Street Gamers, and popular Brazilian esports organization FURIA. It still isn’t known how FTX’s recent backruptcy will affect the deals that are standing, but it is expected that the organizations will terminate their deals, like the Miami Heat announced earlier today.
Update 9:11pm CT: As of this morning, FURIA has already terminated their partnership with FTX, according to a post by FURIA co-founder Andre Akkari.
Published: Nov 12, 2022 10:12 pm