Long-time North American Valorant Champions Tour tournament organizers, Nerd Street Gamers, has come under fire for not paying its broadcast talent. When asked about the NSG situation on The Wisemen podcast, Leo Faria, the Global Head of Valorant Esports, said that tournament organizers not paying people is “unacceptable.”
NSG is a Philadelphia-based tournament organizer that used to hold the broadcast rights to the North American VCT tournaments.
The tournament organizer put on the esports circuit in the region in 2021 and 2022 before Knights, a fellow North American tournament organizer, won the rights for the 2023 Challengers League.
NSG has come under fire from Valorant players and casters alike that helped put on their events in late 2021 for missing and delayed payments. The NSG CEO, John Fazio, said in an email to an observer waiting on payment that he blames part of the missing payments on Riot not choosing his company to run the 2023 Challengers League.
Unfortunately I was expecting this and was hammering down hard on them to pay me on time for their last VALORANT gig with meAfter many missed payments, I started hammering down on them before my payment due dates, which prompted this response from the CEO of Nerd Street https://t.co/SF96XZSqJs pic.twitter.com/FGDRO0Xt0N
— mel 🇭🇰 (@melanie_mhs) January 20, 2023
Valorant head response to NSG late payments for Valorant broadcasters and players
Faria was asked about the situation on The Wisemen podcast and said that tournament organizers not paying talent and players is “unacceptable.”
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Faria also said that organizers understand the risk of running a production around the Riot Games title and some other businesses declined to take the risk to run the tournament circuit.
“It’s their own business. We cannot interfere with their commercial relationships with the people that they hire,” Faria said.
“Now is that very unfortunate? That’s very unfortunate. It’s unacceptable that a tournament organizer is just not paying people and I think that is just one of the reasons why we are not working with them this year.”
Nerd Street has continued to run tournaments in various esports since the allegations came to light in late December. Fazio has said that getting payments out to those owed is an “absolute top priority for our company.”