FaZe Clan (a popular gaming organization) lost all of their content creators, including FaZe Adapt, FaZe Rug, Stable Ronaldo, JasonTheWeen, and YourRage. FaZe is the most recent content org to see talent fall off, but we have been seeing more and more creator organizations disappear. For example, OTK (a Twitch streaming organization based in Austin) has been under significant turmoil and has lost creators, the Sway House is no longer around, and the Hype House has dissolved.
Why The News About FaZe Is A Turning Point
FaZe Clan began as a Call of Duty gaming org back in 2010, when early members were uploading trickshot videos to YouTube, and then made the pivot to esports. Although esports has been a small part of FaZe Clan, the majority of their growth has come from their cultural media engine, leaning more heavily into their lifestyle brand. In 2023, it was reported that licensing and merch brought in over $75 million in revenue, along with massive long-term sponsorships with brands like Nissan, McDonald’s, DraftKings, and Verizon.
The Focus Is On Growing An Audience, Not The Business
A lot of individuals have tried to figure out how to scale a content organization over the last decade. We probably all remember Team 10, when Jake Paul assembled a group of friends into a house in West Hollywood that went on to spawn the careers of creators we know today. They all used the org to create notoriety, which they then turned into successful careers, but Team 10 didn’t get to extract any of the value. Even though the contracts were five-year deals with high revenue splits, ultimately the talent gained enough leverage to leave without any lawsuits.
The same thing has happened to other orgs, where creators join, gain notoriety, and then leave shortly after. Which begs the question: is there actually a sustainable model for content organizations, or is it smarter to never think of these as businesses, but instead as friends in a house using each other to grow their individual audiences?
Going Forward What Does This Look Like?
As I started thinking about other content organizations, one that sticks out in my mind is VShojo (a content org for VTubers), which ultimately went out of business because they never figured out a sustainable business model. The positive side of the industry can be seen with Barstool Sports. They’ve had a lot of turnover, with talent coming into Barstool without an audience (Alex Earle and Call Her Daddy, Caleb Pressley, and Bussin’ With The Boys), using the Barstool media company to grow their audience, and then leaving to do their own thing. But overall, Barstool has done a good job of growing talent and retaining talent inside the Barstool network.
I still have yet to see an organization replicate that model of building a well-functioning media company that can bring in new talent and retain talent on a fair revenue split. Until a creator organization takes Barstool as the model, I think we’re going to continue seeing individual creators join a content house, become popular, and then leave to do their own thing.
That’s exactly what I think the guys from FaZe should do. Live in a house together. Don’t start a new company or creator organization. You can have a name for it, but don’t operationalize it. Do things together, figure out a good revenue split, and when you’re ready to do your own thing, leave the house.
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