Riot Tries To Pull Out Of Sponsorship Deal With Bankrupt Crypto Firm

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Riot Games is trying to get out of a silly sponsorship deal they struck last year with now-defunct crypto exchange firm FTX. The deal involved FTX paying several million dollars to League Of Legends developers Riot, who only received $6.25 million of the $12.5 million FTX was supposed to cough up in 2022. is because FTX is a) bankrupt and b) formerly a leader. by Sam Bankman-Fried, who was arrested last week in the Bahamas. It’s hard not to LoL.

As crypto scholar and critic Molly White reports, FTX was supposed to pay Riot an increasing annual sum of millions until 2028. They went bankrupt, so now Riot has filed a motion to have their deal voided, which seems reasonable.

Riot’s lawsuit also argues that they are suffering from reputational damage, given that FTX was found to be specifically fraudulent rather than just a regular crypto-fraudulent. Top executives there literally had a secret conversation called “Wirefraud”, which is why Bankman-Fried was trying to avoid testifying before the House Financial Services Committee by hiding in the Bahamas. He is currently on trial for wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy and money laundering.

It seems insignificant by comparison, but Riot also points to the public reprimands Bankman-Fried received for playing League Of Legends in meetings while FTX was in the throes of a meltdown, which included comments from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elon Musk. Not exactly natural allies, those two.

As Riot summarizes: “There is simply no way for FTX to undo the reputational damage already done to Riot due to the very public disrepute caused by the debacle preceding FTX’s bankruptcy filing. FTX cannot return. back and repair the damage inflicted on Riot as a result of it collapsing.

It’s hard to have much sympathy for Riot when they agreed to the deal in the first place – but even harder considering that another reason they’d like this canned is so they can find another crypto sponsor.

We’ve reached out to Riot for comment and will update this post if we hear more.

Well done, Kotaku.

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