The announcement of the partnership between TSM and a site specializing in crypto-currencies caused a lot of noise at the time. The amount of this association was $21 million, received annually by the structure of Andy “Reginald” Dinh. This figure had broken all the records set in the world of electronic sports. However, a year and a half after concluding this agreement, TSM wants to end its collaboration with FTX.
Declared bankrupt a few days ago, the company cannot therefore honor its commitments with TSM. Via a press release, TSM announced the end of their collaboration, specifying that from now on FTX would no longer appear on any jersey or logo of the team. The North American structure has also specified that this would not bother them to complete their budget for the year 2022.
An impossible name change on Twitter?
Only the problem has spread in the name used by TSM on the famous social network now owned by Elon Musk. FTX was associated with the structure, and therefore always appears in the name of the structure on the blue bird network. Only because of the Twitter’s new policy, TSM can’t change its name, and seems (temporarily?) condemned to having to keep the memory of this partnership. This may be detrimental to him finding a new main sponsor, and could also prevent certain partnerships in the future, not only for TSM or even for the esports sector (difficult to engage the image of a club if no return rear is not possible). The situation should probably evolve relatively quickly, but the facts are interesting to highlight, and tend to reinforce criticism of Elon Musk on its management of the social network.
Of course, redoing an account is not a viable solutiongiven the potential loss of subscribers.
A black year for TSM?
Despite the affection the public had for him, particularly in North America, TSM is under fire from critics. Their partnership with this crypto firm had already made people cringe at the time, then recent scandals exposing the working conditions and the behavior of Reginald marred the image of the structure. The results on LoL for the year 2022 were far from meeting the ambitions of the structure, and even if it is not in immediate danger, it must do everything to prevent this situation from continuing. Which could be hard to achieve if she has to deal with a reduced budget in 2023, because she will have had trouble finding a sponsor following this problem.