Start: So to begin, let's start about me making the team. The original 5 for the LCS qualifiers were obviously, MegaZero/ClakeyD/Heartbeat/Atomic/Me. After long days of trying to qualify, and actually getting into that spot for the tournament, Heartbeat was like "Real talk Marn, we need a better player". I said if we do that, we're still going to split the money evenly 7 ways (this includes djWheat getting a cut by the way). Everyone agreed. And to be fair, I'm not going to lie (Sorry Wheat if you're reading this), I was shady in the fact that I was going to use djWheat's cut for team expenses. How else would we pay for what we needed? I recall telling him that too. He helped me get my organization turned into a LLC with eSports Management Group. Riot wanted all organizations to be real, to be a LLC, to be legitimate, so that's what I did. So in a way, MegaZero was right. I got more than the players, and I won't even deny that.
The House: Riot gives a certain amount to the teams for housing subsidy for three months. What they didn't include was 1. Security Deposit, and 2. May's Rent (Relegation month) and 3. Utilities. It was way above our means for a new team and in actuality, Clakey wanted to live near the beach, and everyone else said screw it, let's do it. BUT I do recall MegaZero not agreeing/liking it because I did give the option of doing what complexity did and getting 2 apartments for way cheaper. In the end, everyone loved the house and no one complained. Clakey and I split the extra money ($800) for the house because we had the two biggest rooms so no one had to pay anything extra.
What happened: Keep in mind, that my name is not on the lease. A majority of the team did though and our website designer. MegaZero/Heartbeat/Atomic/Inflame/ClakeyD signed the lease. Why? Because for a nice house like that I wasn't even sure I had the credit necessary because I've never used a credit card before only debit. When we first got the house before even the lease was completely signed, I had my brother front us the money to get the security deposit and first month's rent. Obviously, he wanted to be paid back when Riot gave us the monthly salary. But we wanted to move in earlier, so he sent the money to me. When Riot gave us the money, my brother was still owed $5000. So I talked to the team and I said, hey team, we need $800 each from you guys to pay for the security deposit. We obviously get it back when the lease ends. They didn't say anything, they understood we needed it. So May rolls around and we're in relegations, and I go, "Hey guys, we need $800 each again to pay for May's rent. I talked to Riot and they'll advance us the money for May's rent if we qualify again." "Sure go ahead, so we get our money back when we qualify right?" "Yeah but if you guys lose..." "Yeah right." Ok. So Riot's problem is that I have no written confirmation of this. Nothing. I lived with them. Why would I Skype them over something so small? So yeah, I did take $1600 from their salaries.
Breakdown: Players received $12,500 from Riot and Riot does give an extra $25,000. Which went to me, and I salaried myself $12,500 like the players with $12,500 that was supposed to be djWheats (but I used it for expenses). So I would say that I made it so that I made as much as the players did but $12,500 went to the MRN stuff.
This is a typical month of JUST electricity. Gas ~$100-200 and so is Water. On top of that is $100 for the Internet. I did edit this to get rid of personal info and the first number is the amount I paid and the second number is my balance after that.
Where did the money go?: So we were in the house for FIVE months. Two months not even in the house, and the new tenants didn't move in til July 1st. So from February - June, I was paying all the bills with the $12,500 that was put to the side. It was about $1500-$1700 a month, and if you guys want to see, I have the bills for May and June also and NO ONE WAS IN THE HOUSE and it was about the same. Even in the MINIMUM of the $1500 a month, it turned out to be $7500~. On top of that, who has to pay for June's rent? All of them, but not me, cause I'm not on the lease. So could I have afforded to pay the rent/security deposit myself? No. I paid myself the same as the players. "Oh you should have just used your cut for all of this instead of them." No. I got paid the same for benching myself and I created the team from scratch, and we all agreed to it. There was ONE time I asked them for $10? or $20 each so we could get a maid to clean the house. We're all boys, we don't like to clean!
Where do we go from here: I was the only one who stayed behind after everyone left about a week after relegation. I cleaned up the house, I did everything I could, and Clakey came and helped. Everyone else left the house just took their things and left it a mess. There were scratches on the wall from when they decided to take Heartbeat's bunk bed and split it in 2 to make Ecco's room with a bed. There were broken chairs. The couch was almost falling apart. The stove didn't work right. Just everything was left and I had to stay behind and fix and talk to the realtor about everything. We had to pay to get people to help us move the bed BACK UP the stairs. Scratches on the floor from the tables moving back and forth with the computers on them. Scratches from the computers. I could keep going and going but I'm not.
What's been going on: Eventually about a month after we got relegated out of the league. Riot decides to email me saying that I owe money to the players. In my mind, I thought it was a mistake. There's no way, I took $1600 from them that we all agreed upon for the HOUSE that THEIR names are on. I'm supposed to pay that myself? No thanks. Not my problem. But I did decide stay behind and fix everything that needed to be fixed. I paid for new chairs. I did everything I SHOULDN'T have. Everyone else went back home, didn't care about the house anymore, and left it up to ME to do it. So instead of MegaZero talking to me HIMSELF, he decides to turn the whole team against me. Not Atomic / Clakey though because they have morals. So after a long back and forth with Riot, I told them that since the team wants $7000 from me, I will pay them back at the end of the month. The Realtor is accessing all the damages that the people on the lease will have to pay which is well over $7000 including June's rent, etc. so I would be PROFITING from THEM if they continue to pursue this. So in my mind, why doesn't everyone just walk away and just be done with this?
What's left: So these are texts from my players (except MegaZero since apparently I'm like the evil guy in all of this so I will just not talk to him as he chooses to ignore me and go to reddit for some reason). However, now he's claiming the whole team is against me but even if they are, why would I receive these texts? The situation here is: I did take away $300 from each member from the team, NOT FOR MY SELF GAIN, BUT because the bank didn't have all the cash they wanted since everyone wanted cash on the team except MegaZero (who got his wired to him) but I didn't take $300 from MegaZero afaik that time. But I did take $1100 away total from that last check. $300 from everyone til the next day which I lagged on is my bad. And $800 for the rent. But why would they only ask for $300 when I took $1100 from them? And EVEN WHEN I took $800 from them EACH, that = $4000. Guess who paid the extra $1800? Yeah, I did. Guess who paid the extra $1000 with the security deposit? Yep. I did. I always chipped in when I needed to.
This is Heartbeat. May 15th almost a week after we got relegated. Tells me he needs to take care of all payment stuff of $300. Now he's asking for $1900. Yep.
Here's Ecco. May 19th. He only wants $300 from the last check. But again, I took $1100, and now he's wanting $1600. I left $300 on his desk when he came back. It was gone when I went to the house to clean up.
Nien is a different case. He thinks I owe him $1900 from his first check when he came into the team in Mid-March I believe. But the $1900 was given to Atomic because he played like a couple of games in March and the salaries from what I'm told by Riot is based on number of games played, NOT monthly. But I'll figure that out with Nien later, we still talk on a consistent basis.
What now: I told them I would get them back the money by the end of the month but they will have to deal with what the Realtor wants. I could go with both sides, because I want to just get this over with and walk away. But they want to combine forces to try to get more money from me that I don't think they should get back. To be honest, I feel everyone knew what was going down when I asked for both those payments of security deposit / rent. For now it seems MegaZero has convinced them to be on his side and ask for the money back claiming they thought it was a short term loan and they would get the money back. DUDE YOUR NAMES ARE ON THE LEASE NOT MINE.
SPONSORS: Other than MadCatz, we had Origin. Both PRODUCT sponsors. Mobafire signed us up and the team refused to make one guide a week. That's all we needed to do. One guide a week. And no one did it. MegaZero started on one and didn't finish it and Ecco did it instead. I had to TELL THEM that MOBAFIRE would give them $100 for each guide when I would be paying out of my own pocket because that's how lazy my players were. How would we get new sponsors if we couldn't even please our existing sponsors and get our name out there? I had to give them $10 each to wear the MadCatz headset around their necks when they played at LCS. I tried to use my name good or bad to expose my brand and to get the players out there so we could make more money. I realized how hard it was to get a sponsor throughout all this, and to be honest, I thought it would be easy being in the LCS. It wasn't, and it came at a price.
TL:DR: It's my team, we all agreed to what I did. They aren't keeping their word. It's my fault I decided to take the $12,500 for expenses, utilities, etc. I can account for every penny I used with that if that's what it takes. I take full responsibility for taking the $12,500 extra, however if I had just split it within the team, it all would've gone back to the house anyways because then we would've had to split all the utilities / rent / etc. Their names are on the lease, they are responsible for the house, but all left after we got kicked out of LCS and basically made me do all the house work. I might be a little off on the math, but the rest of the money + some of my money was used to pay the rent of June before the new tenants moved in on the 1st of July. Everyone but Atomic/Clakey is pursuing me for money. I never asked them for money for utilities, it was all paid for by the money I put on the side. I did pay myself the same as the team because I saw myself an equal, people might not see it that way, but I put a lot of work in creating the team, benching myself, etc. We lost relegation and now the team wants money back from me for having to pay rent for the month of May after we lost. I'm supposed to give them money back for their responsibilities. Riot said I should have had written consent, I lived with them, don't need to Skype if I'm there. So basically Riot wanted me to withdraw the money and then ask for $800 after handing them the money instead of just taking it so I could pay the Realtor with it straight from my bank account. I wired her the rent money through the team account every month. They did not say anything until we lost and were completely out. Everyone had a part to play in all of this and unfortunately, it went down the wrong path. Security deposit was used mostly for all the damage that went to the house, I paid for June's rent even though I didn't need to. I take full responsibility for my actions, but they won't take theirs. They broke their word, and now we're in this big crap fest that we shouldn't be in because of money. More money, more problems. They can claim that they are young and blind, but they knew about everything they agreed to.
