Tournament organizer UnifiedEA accused of incompetence, missing payments, mistreating staff Twitter @UnifiedEAA bastion of the NA amateur scenes for LoL and Valorant, Unified has recently come under scrutiny from the community for repeated delays in paying talent and participating teams. Note: a previous version of this article included incorrect information about casting rates for Unified\u2019s Proving Grounds Qualifiers. Multiple former Unified employees have since come forward to share the correct rates for the event, and the information has been amended. Making money in esports is a difficult business. Across the world, we\u2019re seeing organizations scale back their employee numbers and post shocking financial losses as the boom in esports investment during the global health crisis drives to a screeching halt. And if things are bad at the top of the food chain, then they\u2019re only going to get worse the further down you go. Recently, North American amateur tournament organizer UnifiedEA has come under heavy scrutiny from the NA League of Legends community for alleged outstanding payments to freelance staff and teams, with some saying they\u2019ve waited up to four months and are yet to receive tournament winnings and wages for event work. The issue spans multiple titles and has given way to testimonies of a disorganized, uncommunicative workplace environment and unfair dismissals from Unified\u2019s staff. We spoke to multiple members of the NA amateur community to find out just what\u2019s been going on with Unified and how one of the region\u2019s most prolific and well-loved community bastions failed players and staff through mismanagement and poor communication from its senior leadership. Who are UnifiedEA? From humble beginnings as Midwest Esports, the brainchild of a few college students based out of Wichita, Kansas, UnifiedEA grew to become one of the premier amateur tournament organizers in North America. Between 2020 and 2021, they acquired two TOs, Upsurge and Challengers Uprising, to become the premier amateur tournament entity in the region. In 2021, they also worked directly with Riot Games to host and broadcast the Unified Grand Prix, a qualifier to Riot\u2019s Proving Grounds tournament that gave amateur teams the chance to play against LCS Academy rosters. After the success of the Unified Grand Prix, which ran alongside tournaments from multiple other amateur TOs during the Proving Grounds qualification process, Unified acquired the sole rights to run Proving Grounds qualifiers for 2022. In addition to the Proving Grounds events, Unified runs pay-to-enter, cash prize online tournaments, bracketed by in-game rank. Leagues are split up into community, collegiate, and premier, with prize pools scaling from around $1,000 for community events to up to $29,000 for premier events. The company runs on a subscription basis for the large majority of its events; for a $25 monthly fee, subscribers get one \u2018League pass\u2019, which allows them access to one of Unified\u2019s tournaments, and the potential to claim part of its extensive prize pools. Transitioning from LAN to online In the beginning, one of the key areas of Unified\u2019s business was their in-person events. They would set up LANs at conventions all across the midwest, with former employees stating that they\u2019d often be attending a convention every weekend. But the global health crisis hit the company hard, as they (like many other areas of esports) were forced to transition to a wholly-online model after having spent a large part of their early days generating profit through LAN events. Despite this, though, the company maintained a positive external image \u2014 continuing to pay out tournament winnings on time, although they were reportedly late in paying multiple contractors, including casters and observers for League and Valorant tournaments. Valorant caster Jesse \u2018JAG\u2019 Goodman explained that, while he\u2019s not currently owed any money by Unified, the TO would \u201cusually be late with payments\u201d and that in working with the company he was making \u201conly half of what could be made elsewhere\u201d. In the spring of 2022, the prize pool for Unified\u2019s Premier League Valorant tournament was doubled from $2,500 to $5,000 total \u2014 but casters for the event were kept on a flat rate of $37.50 for a best-of-three series, with Goodman explaining that the average industry rate for in the amateur scene can range anywhere from $75-$125. Failure to pay prize winnings from UPL Spring 2022 On July 11, Lane \u2018Lipolane\u2019 Sorell, co-owner of amateur organization Return of the Middlesticks, posted a Twitlonger in which he outlined that Middlesticks (along with multiple other amateur organizations) were owed $1,000 in prize money for their participation in Unified\u2019s Premier League LoL tournament. The payment had been promised to arrive within 2-4 weeks of the tournament\u2019s completion \u2014 but with the tournament finishing in April, it had been almost three months and no participating organizations had seen any sign of payment. Middlesticks were not the only team to not receive payment, and League was not the only esports title for which Unified was apparently unable to make their payouts. Elton \u2018XT\u2019 Moc, manager for amateur League team No Team, told Dexerto how, after repeated failures to pay out their Spring 2 Proving Grounds qualifier winnings, he was forced to pay around $4,000 out of his own pocket to players, many of whom were relying on the winnings as a source of income. XT has only just received reimbursement for these winnings, four months after the initial win in March. A Valorant team manager, who has asked to remain anonymous due to potential repercussions on other teams within their organization, told Dexerto that their organization was owed upwards of $7,000 total from multiple tournaments throughout 2022. Although Sorell has now received the money owed by Unified, there are multiple other participants who, at the time of this article, still have not received payment. Not a new problem for Unified But according to contractors who have worked with Unified in the past, having to chase up the organization for money isn\u2019t a new problem. One caster (who requested they remain anonymous) who had worked with the company since 2019 on multiple tournaments, explained how much of a battle it had always been to ensure payment on time \u2014 even though Unified has consistently offered some of the lowest rates in the amateur scene. This caster also explained how Unified\u2019s rates had consistently dropped since they began their tenure with the TO. \u201cMy day rates also began at $200\/$300 when I first started working with them, and now I\u2019m having to fight to get like $140 per day.\u201d This contractor went on to explain that they had signed multiple net 30 contracts with Unified during their tenure working with the company, very few of which had been honored. A net 30 contract essentially states that a client has 30 calendar days to make a payment after the initial billing \u2014 which this contractor states was violated multiple times throughout their three years of experience working with the company. \u201cIt\u2019s been like this from the beginning. This is just what they\u2019ve done \u2014 Unified has been infamous for delaying payments consistently and just having you really, really fight for your money.\u201d They claim they\u2019re currently owed over $1000 by Unified. How were things from an insider perspective? It would be easy to think that these delayed payments to both contractors and tournament winners came from financial struggles due to COVID. But according to former Unified employee David Robbins, it was mostly \u201cjust incompetence.\u201d \u201cRamsey (Unified\u2019s CEO Ramsey Jamoul) was always just like this \u2014 he\u2019d need to be reminded two or three times a week just to get the payments done.\u201d Another former employee shared a similar sentiment, telling Dexerto that \u201cbecause there\u2019s no senior leadership, the buck just gets passed around constantly. And it\u2019s not that people at the operations level don\u2019t want to pick up slack, but it felt like if we did, we\u2019d be admonished by Jamoul for doing the wrong thing, and our initiative wouldn\u2019t be matched by the senior leadership team. \u201cIt was just us running around like headless chickens, not really understanding what the expectations on us were.\u201d Former social media manager and contracted cosplayer Soph \u2018OhMySophii\u2019 Donnay told Dexerto how she\u2019d felt consistently overworked and undervalued by the company\u2019s upper management, who rarely communicated with employees. Donnay began working with Unified back when they still operated under the name Midwest Esports, during the summer of 2019. She was brought on as a contractor to run the company\u2019s social media, and after a few months with the company, she was promoted to a full-time member of staff in the company\u2019s marketing department. While Donnay explains that the environment at Unified was initially a welcoming one, in which the company looked to \u201cbuild an open, inclusive esports culture in Wichita, Kansas\u201d, repeated new hires to the leadership team led to a \u201ccorporate and cold\u201d atmosphere that Donnay claims was far removed from the \u201chomegrown and passionate\u201d beginnings. Donnay describes how, during 2020, problems began to arise with teams, venues, and event guests going unpaid. Donnay was put in charge of contracting cosplay guests for the 2020 Wichita Esports Convention, and reached out to cosplayer April Gloria to appear for three days as a cosplayer, panelist, and judge of the event\u2019s cosplay contest. The agreed-upon fee was $200, but according to Donnay that fee was never paid. Dexerto reached out to April but she was unavailable for comment. Donnay also described how she and April had appeared as cosplayers at Unified events in 2018 and 2019 and had not been paid for their appearances. Further complaints from staff members Dexerto were also supplied with a HR complaint that was filed against a member of the senior leadership of Unified who is no longer with the company. The complaint states that he repeatedly asked employees to work during furlough \u201cwith no compensation of time or wages\u201d, and that he \u201cused vulgar language to belittle, and shame previous and current employees\u201d. Multiple former members of staff told Dexerto that they believed they were the victims of unfair dismissals, with one former staff member saying that they were supposedly let go for a failure to meet quarterly targets despite only having joined the company halfway through the quarter. \u201cI directly called out that we needed more leadership, and within the next week and a half I was out of the company,\u201d the former member staff member said. \u201cAnd when they explained why I\u2019d been let go, it was because I hadn\u2019t met the metrics of my monthly scorecard (a performance review system at Unified). \u201cA scorecard I never had a meeting about, was never given a warning on, and that was measuring me against a full quarter\u2019s worth of metrics when I\u2019d only come into the company halfway through that quarter.\u201d Another former staff member claims that Jamoul repeatedly made nepotistic hires and consistently showed favoritism and leniency to family members within the business in comparison with other employees. However, a current employee of the company, who asked to remain anonymous, did tell Dexerto that there are slow fixes being made to Unified\u2019s company culture. They explained that, although the company \u201coffloading a lot of work onto people and asking a lot of them is an issue\u201d, those who spoke out against overwork were not ignored. \u201cIf you say that it\u2019s too much work or raise your concerns, they will be accommodating and try to help find a way to get things done without overworking people,\u201d the employee said. Unified\u2019s response In a statement published in response to the recent complaints of non-payment from organizations involved with Unified, CEO Ramsey Jamoul acknowledged that Unified had \u201cfailed to deliver\u201d on their promises to the amateur esports community. The statement promised transparency, with Jamoul explaining that the late payments were a result of \u201cmissing revenue goals\u201d that had put the company behind on their accounts payable. Although he stated he was unable to \u201chard commit to a date\u201d by which amateur organizations would start receiving their Spring winnings, organizations involved have told Dexerto that they\u2019ve begun to receive their payment from Unified\u2019s Spring events \u2014 four to five months after the initial payments were promised. Multiple former employees have told Dexerto that the continual late payments to contractors and organizations were the result of a lack of communication and managerial structure in Unified\u2019s C-suite. In his response, Jamoul told Dexerto that he could \u201cunderstand how some may feel that way\u201d, but the company had a \u201cclear accountability chart and documentation\u201d for the chain of command within its upper management. He did admit, however , that accountability was much harder in practise than on paper. What happens now? In response to a request for comment to Dexerto, Jamoul did not have any particular explanation for how Unified planned to address these issues going forward. He simply explained that Unified\u2019s focus for the future would be \u201cto hone in what we do best and provide the most value in that area for the community\u201d. As of July 29, multiple teams have confirmed that they\u2019ve received the money owed to them by Unified \u2014 but many more are yet to be paid. Unified have confirmed that they\u2019ll continue operating their Summer Premier events as planned. In an email to Lane Sorell, the author of the initial Twitlonger, Jamoul stated that funding had been accepted from \u201coutside sources\u201d in order to pay off the outstanding balances on tournament winnings, and that he \u201cexpected to have everyone paid within the normal net 30 window for the Summer season\u201d. It remains to be seen whether Unified will be able to deliver on these promises. Their Summer season is currently in full swing, with the Unified Premier League playoffs already underway. But only time will tell when the winners of those playoff series will see their money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tournament organizer UnifiedEA accused of incompetence, missing payments, mistreating staff Twitter @UnifiedEAA bastion of the NA amateur scenes for LoL and Valorant, Unified has recently come under scrutiny from the community for repeated delays in paying talent and participating teams. Note: a previous version of this article included incorrect information about casting rates for Unified\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67056\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}