Esports Brand FaZe Clan Gives CEO Lee Trink The Boot “Effective Immediately”

Source: David J. Becker / Getty / FaZe Clan

Once uber-popular Esports organization FaZe Clan is struggling and now needs a new CEO.

Spotted on Digital Music News, FaZe Clan has given CEO Lee Trink the boot, “effective immediately.” The news comes on the heels of the publicly traded company’s shares plummeting “nearly 99 percent since mid-September of 2022,” the website reports.

FaZe Clan “quietly” decided to change leadership in a formal release. Before joining Faze Clan, Trink worked at Atlantic and EMI as an exec before joining the organization in an advisor capacity in 2016 before he was promoted to CEO in 2018, and it’s been all downhill since he took the job.

Per Digital Music News:

Previously an Atlantic and EMI exec, Trink signed on with FaZe Clan as an advisor in 2016 before beginning as CEO in September of 2018. But for a variety of reasons, it’s been a downhill ride for the Jimmy Iovine-backed company since it listed on the public market via a SPAC merger in July of 2022.

Shares parted with north of 25 percent of their worth immediately thereafter, and Snoop Dogg, having joined the gaming collective’s board of directors in March of 2022, abruptly ducked out of the operation in April of this year.

The following month, former BMG exec and Raised In Space CEO Zach Katz, who’d started as FaZe Clan’s president and COO in May of 2022, exited the role. And in August, the business reported Q2 2023 revenue of $11.69 million (down 37.84 percent year over year) as well as a quarterly net loss of $14.36 million.

COO and CFO Christoph Pachler will take over Trink’s now-vacated role in an interim capacity. Digital Music News reports that it’s unclear if he will permanently take the role or if there is an active search for a replacement.

Is this the beginning of the end for FaZe Clan? We shall see.

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Photo: David J. Becker / Getty

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