Esports

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Source: Andrew Toth / Getty / FaZe Clan
Esports is struggling, and you don’t have to look further than what popular esports and influencer brand FaZe Clan is going through. Now, the organization is hoping after being purchased, it can stay afloat.

Spotted on The Verge, Faze Clan has been acquired in a stock deal worth about $17 million by gaming analytics and Esports brand company Gamesquare.

The $17 million is a steep drop from Faze’s $725-million valuation at the time of its special purpose acquisition company, SPAC, merger in July of 2022.
The website also notes that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is an investor in Gamesquare.
Like many entities in the Esports industry, the Esports organization has struggled since SPAC made it a publicly traded company on the Nasdaq exchange, posting a $28.4-million loss “through the first half of 2023,” Bloomberg reports.
A History of Struggle
Before news of the $17 million acquisition, FaZe Clan gave CEO Lee Trink the boot. The Esports organization boasted big names like Lil Yachty and LeBron James’ son, Bronny James, as members and NBA hooper Ben Simmons as an investor. 
The organization abruptly lost one of its most prominent investors, Snoop Dogg, who reportedly lost millions after investing in the Esports organization.
With the acquisition by Gamesquare, FaZe Clan hopes that hitting the reset button will help right the sinking ship. FaZe Clan’s leadership is reverting to its original leadership structure.
Richard “Faze Banks” Bengtson will serve as CEO, Thomas “Faze Temperrr” Oliveira will become president, and Yousef “Faze Apex” Abdelfattah will take over as COO.
Via a press release, FaZe Clan says it will be “re-engaging with its core fanbase” in hopes that it will return the organization to the top of Esports relevancy.
We shall see if this all works out for the once mega-popular Esports organization.
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Photo: Andrew Toth / Getty

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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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