Show me the money!

[stimperi]

Yeah, I dont think covering this with more license fees can work. For the vast majority, it was something to swallow in the first place that the average mid-tier gamer pays licences that mostly fund the elite teams prizes. Didnt that reduce players already when you started to hike up the license fees?

But I do hope that the league can come out of this, and re-establish itself as a gaming platform first and foremost. People are willing to pay a fair fee for operating what the website offers (stats and standings first and foremost) and people like the competition and established team base. That is what this site does well. 

[Simbee434]

25 minuuttia sitten, markalla2 kirjoitti:

All of you acting like you’re in a scam: just stop. Just like any small business can go bankrupt, so does SportsGamer. If they didn’t succeed in landing big sponsors then it’s extremely hard to maintain profitability when your only cash revenue is license fees & investors pumping money into the system. I can’t blame Kenu & other shareholders for trying to make money with SportsGamer but perhaps a steady cashflow would have needed to be secured in order to do big live events or celebrity live streams. I bet that’s why the license fees have gone straight to the operational costs and not the prize pools. I hope SportsGamer goes back to being an esports platform with small fees to cover operational costs only. Elite teams can play for prize pools if they wish.

I hope everyone understands this, but that’s not the real issue here. When a they publicly states that 50% of fees go directly to the prize pool, then that money legally can’t be redirected elsewhere. If it is, that’s not just bad business it's potentially illegal. Even if they have some clause in the terms to justify it, it's still skating the line of what's legally and ethically acceptable.

 

[iSvamp]

 

This calculation has been around the community for a while. From what I remember, it was based on the license setup and pricing during NHL 24, using the actual number of teams per division that year. It also includes both Winter and Spring seasons, plus the officially announced prize pools.

---

💰 Original Community Estimate

Elite
💳 Player Licenses: 6 players × 16 teams × 40 € = 3,840 €
🏒 Team Licenses: 16 teams × 1,000 € = 16,000 €
💰 Total Revenue: 19,840 €
🏆 Prize Pool: 18,920 €
📈 SportsGamer Profit: 920 €

Pro
💳 Player Licenses: 8 players × 32 teams × 40 € = 10,240 €
🏒 Team Licenses: 32 teams × 700 € = 22,400 €
💰 Total Revenue: 32,640 €
🏆 Prize Pool: 6,192 €
📈 SportsGamer Profit: 26,448 €

Lite
💳 Player Licenses: 8 players × 64 teams × 40 € = 20,480 €
🏒 Team Licenses: 64 teams × 400 € = 25,600 €
💰 Total Revenue: 46,080 €
🏆 Prize Pool: 6,261 €
📈 SportsGamer Profit: 39,819 €

Core
💳 Player Licenses: 8 players × 48 teams × 40 € = 15,360 €
🏒 Team Licenses: 48 teams × 222 € = 10,656 €
💰 Total Revenue: 26,016 €
🏆 Prize Pool: 1,980 €
📈 SportsGamer Profit: 24,036 €

Total (Top 4 Divisions)
💰 Total Revenue: 124,576 €
🏆 Total Prize Pool: 33,353 €
📈 SportsGamer Profit: 91,223 €

Summary:
Only 26.7% of all money collected actually went back to the players.
The remaining 73.3% stayed with SportsGamer.

And as many of us know, some teams were even offered to skip their prize payout entirely, in exchange for having it deducted from their next season’s license fee. Which, while fair on paper, doesn’t change the percentages above.

What SportsGamer Said Themselves

Their official statement in the thread said:

“Following a later decision that reclassified the licenses under a higher rate, SportsGamer has been required to apply 24–25.5% VAT, which has significantly increased our costs and placed a heavy strain on our finances.
In practice, this means that of the total amount paid for licenses, roughly 20% goes to taxes, about 50% to prize payments, and around 30% to operational costs.”

So, let’s recalculate using their own explanation.

According to Their Claimed Distribution (20% / 50% / 30%)

Category	Amount (€)	Share
Total Revenue	124,576 €	100 %
Taxes (≈20%)	24,915 €	20 %
Prize Money (50%)	62,288 €	50 %
Operational Costs (30%)	37,373 €	30 %
Total	124,576 €	100 %

Comparison

Source	Total Revenue (€)	Prize Pool (€)	% to Players	Difference
Community Estimate	124,576 €	33,353 €	26.7 %	—
SportsGamer’s Own Claim	124,576 €	62,288 €	50.0 %	+23.3 %

 

If we take their numbers at face value, it would mean that half of all collected money went back to players. Which sounds great — except that it clearly didn’t. The official prize pools are nowhere near that.

Their own math completely contradicts the public data.

Even if we assume 20% VAT was paid (fair enough), that still leaves about 99,660 € within the company. Out of that, according to their statement, 62,288 € should’ve gone to prizes.
But the actual amount distributed was 33,353 €.

That’s a gap of roughly 28,935 € per season, using their own claimed figures.

 

If their 20 / 50 / 30 split was real:

• The tax is fine, it’s part of the license cost anyway.

• The prize pool should’ve been closer to 62,000 €, not 33,000 €.

• About 29,000 € per season is simply unaccounted for.

So the question becomes even more obvious: where did the money go?

And when they now say that no salary has been paid to Kenu since December 2024, it raises even more questions. Because if no salary was paid, the money clearly isn’t showing up as prizes, taxes, or operating costs either.

As Janikka said perfectly in her post:

 "have questions about the current organizational or ownership dynamics. A company called Reactio Media is or was somehow involved (as evidenced by the current Twitch account that hosts all the SportsGamer streams). I can't find any pertinent information about the company online, but its owners are involved in various companies whose background information is available."

This whole thing didn’t clarify anything , it just made it all look even more suspicious.
At this point, the picture being painted is less of a struggling company… and more of a pyramid-shaped business model.

I’m not a mathematician, and I’m not an economist.
But what’s certain is that the total amount of paid licenses adds up more or less correctly.
It’s everything else that doesn’t add up.

[Coco]

 

 

Hello SportsGamer Team,

Thank you for your transparency regarding the current situation of the ECL. I understand the financial difficulties you are facing and appreciate your efforts to keep the league running.

However, I would like to share my opinion regarding the licenses and prize pools. Personally, I am not willing to pay the same license fee if the cash prizes are reduced for the 2026 seasons. The size of the prize pools is a key part of the competitive experience and is part of the value I expect as a player.

I remain interested in the ECL and would like to continue participating, but I believe it is fair that the license fee reflects the rewards being offered.

Thank you for taking my feedback into account in your decisions for the future of the ECL.

Best regards,

---

 

[Janikka]

25 minuuttia sitten, iSvamp kirjoitti:

 

As Janikka said perfectly in her post:

My pronouns are he/him. But thanks for the compliment and for breaking down the numbers like you just did.

[iSvamp]

Just nu, Janikka säger:

My pronouns are he/him. But thanks for the compliment and for breaking down the numbers like you just did.

I know! But I can't edit it! (for real) 😅

[Spidde]

Can we get the financial results and statements for the years 2023 and 2024?

[JakePlay77]

1 tunti sitten, Spidde kirjoitti:

Can we get the financial results and statements for the years 2023 and 2024?

All financial statements should be sent to PRH by every limited liability companies in Finland: https://prh.fi/fi/index.html 

These documents are public so they can be bought from that PRH site. From those documents you should be able to see where the money goes in every company whose financial statements are sent there including Sportsgamer. 2025 is not there yet because the financial year is 1.1-31.12. so 2025 information should be there in next spring but 2023 and 2024 should be there already.

[saaggssy]

Im playing here not for prize pool, but for fun and competition, so for me, free league is not a problem, every prize pool win only elites, top pros, or pros who goes lite :D. so i am pretty sure 90% of players never winned prize pool  so to put it out like its only why we play and its only what hold us together ir bs. different is that sportagamer adiminstration wants profit, thats other story, and of course you dont want to do stuff for free puting soul and time in to community what is not profitable just for idea. yeah but we are paying for running this community with our licenses so maybe dont need to make your salarys up to the roof, and just profit as much to make sportsgamer work stable , its like about everything - if you got money from customer, then be ready to give back wining prizes or something to customer like product why we pay?, if you just take money and dont give nothing to customer its scaming, and its law breaking customer rights and also if you are charity organisation, "we are living just what you donate" then offering license prices is again breaking law. So it just big scam for now i see.I was thinking we pay licenses so sportsgamer could work and so on, but now seems like its not enough, our someone wants so much money to steal or what, and its not anymore like community of gamers, but trying to be some big company what is stealing all money and then go bankrupt.