Valorant esports head reveals in-game monetization for partnered teams

The Global Head of Valorant Esports, Leo Faria, revealed on The Wiseman podcast that partnered esports organizations in its leagues will have in-game monetization outside of Valorant Champions skins.

Valorant teams have only been able to see money from Riot Games in terms of tournament winnings and skin sales from the Champions bundle in 2021 and 2022. The Valorant esports head revealed on The Wisemen podcast that teams in the partnered leagues will also have in-game monetization opportunities outside of making it to Valorant Champions.

“We are supporting partnered teams in a few different ways,” Faria said. “The first one is the stipend. We have a lump sum of money that is quite healthy that a team receives for just being in the league, and we want to give them predictable revenue… The second thing is a revenue share from in-game goodies. As you know, the past two years the Champions bundle has been incredibly successful… We are also giving teams a big portion of the revenue from their team-branded content.”

Faria also revealed that during the process of choosing partnered teams, Riot worked with orgs together to create different types of in-game content.

Valorant esports fans will get org-branded content in game

Riot Games has been reluctant to do in-game monetization for its esports teams in the past, while other esports like Halo and CS:GO have org or player-branded content available for purchase at certain times.

Faria said that teams will also have a minim guarantee of money attached to the in-game content, so even unpopular orgs will still profit. Faria also said that teams have incentive payments for doing things that will help grow Valorant as an esport like hosting a watch party.

Faria did not give a timeline for when the team-branded in-game content will see the light of day.