Disguised Toast questions how esports orgs make money days into Valorant project

Twitch star Jeremy ‘Disguised Toast’ Wang signed a Valorant team at the start of 2023 to compete in VCT Challengers — but it’s quickly dawned on him that it’s not exactly the money-making venture some people would have you believe.

Toast has been super excited about his Valorant team, especially when they qualified for VCT Challengers to compete as one of the top teams in North America.

This is his first real venture into esports, with his team playing under the ‘Disguised’ name and, according to the man himself, costing him tens of thousands dollars a month.

The issue is, running an esports organization doesn’t automatically mean you’re going to start making money, as Toast has found out pretty quickly. He even took to Twitter to joke about it on January 19.

“How do esports orgs actually make money,” he asked in the tweet, a question that many fans likely share too.

While clearly meant in jest, many people reached out to Toast to offer advice, suggesting that sponsorships, side businesses, and investors could all help to solve his problem.

Obviously, there are ways to bring money in for esports organizations, but ultimately, very few of them are actually profitable, almost always running at a loss.

Fortunately for Toast, as a big-time Twitch streamer, he shouldn’t have too much trouble finding sponsors, but owning a top team in any esport is going to hurt your pockets regardless.