In 2023, Riot Games announced the franchise system with partner teams. In the first year, 10 teams from 4 areas have participated in the system and the teams will receive additional revenue from the publisher Valorant. These include fixed assistance, incentive support and part of sales from the sale of items in the game (including Capsule and Bundle Champions sale).
Part of the encouragement from Riot Games is by viewing VCT tournament as well as activities related to VCT tournaments. This led to the team's start to sign with content creators to view content tournaments, and also hire people to deploy contents on social networking platforms. A typical example is Tarik's cooperation with Sentinels or Paper Rex to sign a contract with Spicyuuu.
According to Sheep Esports, the source of money that teams can receive in communication content can be up to $ 400,000. However, Riot Games is considering cutting this support and shifts the focus to sell items in the game in the 2025 season. Many VCT teams are showing dissatisfaction with this decision as well as Riot Games's promise that “everything will happen normally in the next year even without this support money”.
If Riot Games decides to cut this money, eSports will be affected. The creative content on social networks is bringing positive effects with the number of people interested in the teams attending VCT. When these sources of money are reduced, many eSports organizations will fall into difficulties when they cannot guarantee the amount of money maintained for current activities.
