CDL star Clayster says Vegas Legion’s 2024 contract offer was more work for less money

We’re still in the middle of the professional Call of Duty offseason, with the 12 CDL teams attempting to navigate “rostermania” once more with the hopes of lifting the Champs trophy at the end of the next season.

Following the conclusion of the Vegas Legion’s first season since moving from Paris, multi-time world champion James “Clayster” Eubanks left the team as an unrestricted free agent. And according to the veteran with three world titles to his name, he wasn’t impressed by the Legion’s most recent contract offer.

In a recent clip from his Twitch stream, Clayster claims he was offered “33 percent less” money by coach Dylan “Theory” McGee to return to the Legion for the 2024 season, but with the added responsibility of taking on the role of the team’s partnerships manager. This offer supposedly included the caveat that Clayster could claim 50 percent of revenue from any partnerships or sponsorships he picked up for the Legion.

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Clayster, though, didn’t see the value in taking just 50 percent of brand deals he could go out and acquire on his own. “If I was gonna go do that anyways, wouldn’t I just get the brand deal for myself and take 100 percent?” Clayster said. “Because the brand deal would be sponsoring us because of me and not because of the rest of the team. How do you expect me to get paid 33 percent less and take on more responsibilities? That’s not how the real world works.”

During the clip, Clayster also admonished the organization for not capitalizing on the amount of fan support the team had. “We were getting hella crowd support, people were actually buying Vegas merch, the socials were blowing up, we were bringing Vegas to a popular point,” he said. Clayster says the organization didn’t have the manpower, though, to “capitalize on that” and that Vegas didn’t want to spend the money to hire people to do it.

Clayster also noted that he would have been willing to return to the team in 2024 for the same amount of money as his 2023 deal. For now, though, it seems like the three-time champ won’t be returning to Vegas for the 2024 CDL season.