Cover Image Courtesy: Unikrn | Thumbnail Image Courtesy: ELeague
In a recent podcast by Richard Lewis called “By The Numbers” featuring Duncan “Thorin” Shields, there was a segment when Richard Lewis goes on to say that “one (talents) has to deal with TOs and chase payments”, going on to say that he spoke to a dude in another podcast who told him that “StarLadder” is the unnamed tournament organizer that is not paying, who everyone (talents) else keeps referring to.
Richard goes on to say how tired he is of talents complaining “that these guys aren’t paying! And I know who it is and the talents won’t f***ing call them out. Yeah, it is StarLadder the whole f***ing time.”
Continuing on, he confronts them to start paying up what they owe to people, revealing that they have a backlog of months. “Pay what you are f***ing due. It is ridiculous that people are keeping your dirty little secret, get it paid.”
This comes just a week after James Banks - Esport Commentator, Host and Journalist, spoke his heart out via a series of tweets about how upset he was over late payment of dues from various tournament organizers, whose name he didn’t reveal over the fear of them simply choosing to not hire him.It is quite a possibility that StarLadder could be one of the tournament organizers that owe him, considering that he was on the list of the English broadcast team for StarLadder Berlin Major 2019 as an interviewer alongside Sue “Smix” Lee, and also worked as a host alongside Tres “stunna” Saranthus for StarSeries & i-League CS:GO Season 7.
In one of his tweets, he had mentioned not being paid for more than six months after the completion of his work, which lines perfectly with the completion of StarSeries & i-League CS:GO Season 7 which concluded in April, more than six months before the Tweet (26th Nov).
While this is just a speculation, considering how the event’s line-up and what has been revealed by Richard Lewis, it seems more than likely that StarLadder is indeed one of the tournament organizers that was involved in the non-payment of dues when it comes to James Banks.
Correction: James Banks has clarified that he has indeed been paid for the StarSeries event a while ago.
