How Moist Esports pays for a roster

"Over the last four years, I have lost, in total, right around $4.2 million, I believe, across all of the games we've competed in across all of these years. And you know what? I'd do it all over again. In fact, I'm going to continue to do it."

Charles White Jr., founder, Moist Esports (YouTube)

On January 17, 2025, White said that sum out loud, in a video titled "I Can Finally Talk About This," on the day Moist Esports merged into Shopify Rebellion. The $4.2 million is his tally of what he lost running the org, not a set of audited accounts, and it is the only full-period figure the founder has put on the project.

He started the American organisation on August 11, 2021. It paid for rosters in Super Smash Bros., Rocket League, Apex Legends and Valorant. The question is which pocket the money left, and why a creator who said he would do it again stopped doing it under his own name.

How Moist Esports covered the wage bill

Moist Esports paid for a roster out of its owners' pockets. Charles White Jr., the YouTuber known as Cr1TiKaL and MoistCr1TiKaL, founded the American organisation on August 11, 2021. Liquipedia's Smash page records Kolawole "Kola" Aideyan joining on August 13, 2021. SmashWiki says the side was built to fund his Smash Ultimate Summit 3 campaign. On January 17, 2025 White said he had lost right around $4.2 million across four years, and he marked the sum as what he believed rather than as an audit. By August 16, 2023 he had said the org took zero percent of player or team winnings, so a purse did not, under that stated policy, flow back to the people paying the wages. Opera GX was named lead sponsor on January 19, 2023, and no fee was published. Ludwig Ahgren, a co-owner from January 25, 2023, wrote on February 26, 2023 that a Valorant roster had cost $500,000 of White's money.

He framed the loss as four years. Divided by 48 months, $4.2 million is $87,500 a month, a reader's division of the period he named, not a budget he published. August 11, 2021 to January 17, 2025 is shorter than those 48 months. The $90,000 Esports Charts records for the Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) 2021-22 Spring Split Major sits almost on one month of that split. One Sunday in London does not retire a hole of that shape.

A founder describing a loss is not the same document as accounts. Treating the $4.2 million as a profit-and-loss statement would over-read the video. He said the org had never made a penny, and he said he would keep going anyway.

The owners who could sign a cheque

Liquipedia's Smash organisation table lists three co-owners: White and Matt Phillips, known as SuperSpicyMatt, from August 11, 2021, and Ludwig Ahgren from January 25, 2023. The Apex page carries the same three names and the same dates. No percentage has been published for any of them.

Nick Allen posted that day that he was "along for the ride as a co-owner and advisor." The post is his, and it names no buy-in.

SmashWiki also lists Danny Palmer among the owners, beside White, Phillips, Ahgren and Allen. Liquipedia's tables do not. The January 17, 2025 captions put a Danny in the merger group with White, Ludwig, Matt and Jeremy from Shopify. Captions garble names. Danny Palmer is a wiki surname, and a Danny is a person the founder named. Neither is a disclosed stake.

The people a reader can actually place in the ownership circle are White, Phillips, Ahgren and Allen. None of them has published a buy-in. When Ahgren later described a roster purchase, he described it as White's money.

A Valorant roster Ludwig priced at $500,000

"I spent $500k of charlie's money a valorant team."

Ludwig Ahgren, co-owner, Moist Esports (X)

Ahgren posted that on February 26, 2023, the grammar left as he wrote it. Dot Esports reported a North American Valorant Challengers pickup. Challengers is the tier below Riot's partnered Valorant league. Liquipedia's Smash history calls the new division Moist Moguls and dates a later tie-up with Shopify Rebellion to September 20, 2023. The $500,000 is his claim about whose money moved. It is not a contract, a buyout schedule or a salary table.

An eighth of $4.2 million is $525,000, so the $500,000 he named is a little under an eighth of the loss White later put on the whole project. Moist was buying players, not a league membership.

September 20, 2023 is the first time the two orgs shared a roster. Esports Insider, writing up the January 2025 merger, dated that Valorant tie-up to September 2023 and called the joint side MxS. Sharing a Challengers team is a cost split. It is not yet a merger, and it did not, on White's later telling, stop the losses.

Opera GX on the jersey, and no fee on the record

Esports Insider reported on January 19, 2023 that Moist Esports had named Opera GX, the gaming browser, as lead sponsor. Branding was to appear on jerseys and streams. The fee was not in the story, and it has not surfaced since. A lead-sponsor announcement without a number is a logo, not a profit-and-loss line. The same report said the company put Opera GX at about 20 million users, which is a reach claim, not a cheque.

Maciej Kocemba, product director of Opera GX, said the company had worked closely with White for a few years, and named no fee. White had also started Starforge Systems with OTK in 2022. A related company is not evidence that an outside sponsor covered wages.

Set that against the jersey market elsewhere. Gambling brands lead the jersey market in Counter-Strike, and Riot's partnered leagues have taken betting sponsors onto Tier-1 teams. Where a licensed book then lists an esports match, the legal betting age is 18 in the United Kingdom and 21 in several US states. Moist's published lead sponsor was a browser. Outside money, on the record that exists, was too small to itemise or was never itemised.

Months later White described the model as content, watch parties and streaming income. The sponsor amount is a blank.

London paid a purse the org said it would not keep

Moist Esports won the RLCS 2021-22 Spring Split Major in London, at the Copper Box Arena, in an event Esports Charts dates from June 29 to July 3, 2022. The recap puts the prize pool at $300,000 and the winner's money at $90,000, after a grand final against Team Falcons that ended 4-3 and 4-0 across two best-of-7 series. Broadcasts peaked at 255,100 viewers during that final, inside a tournament measured at 3.8 million hours watched. The roster had come over from Team Queso on May 5, 2022: Joyo, rise. and Vatira, as Esports News UK reported the next day.

"We take zero percent of any of our players or teams winnings. They keep everything that they win themselves, which isn't exactly the norm in the space."

Charles White Jr., founder, Moist Esports (YouTube)

He said that on August 16, 2023, in "Time for A Big Change," more than a year after London. The policy is dated to that video. If it was already in force in July 2022, the $90,000 never reached the org. If it was not, any cut is unpublished, so a reader cannot book the London win against the $4.2 million. Rocket League betting turnover is a different business from that purse. Readers who follow it into a wager still face a legal betting age of 18 in the United Kingdom and 21 in several US states.

Under the 2023 policy, tournament winnings were the players' money. Salaries, travel, housing and buyouts sat on the owner's side of the ledger, with no prize-pool offset a reader can point at.

An Apex stipend with no published number

On November 30, 2023, the Apex Legends Global Series (ALGS) named 12 partner teams for Year 4. Moist Esports was on the list, with Alliance, DarkZero, Disguised, FaZe Clan, Fnatic, FURIA, LG Chivas, OpTic Gaming, Riddle, TSM and XSET. Dexerto quoted the announcement.

"Each partner team will be provided with a financial stipend in order to help them establish a stable base on which to build their competitive programs."

Apex Legends Global Series, partner-programme announcement, as quoted by Dexerto (Dexerto)

The stipend's size was not in that sentence, and it has not been published in a form this account can use. A missing amount cannot be lined up against $4.2 million and called the thing that closed the gap. The support was shared across 12 teams, with no dollar figure on Moist's share.

Apex is where the name became an operating problem, on White's account. In the merger video he said US immigration trouble nearly cost the squad the major, and that Shopify Rebellion let them use facilities in Canada. On August 11, 2025 he said immigration had treated the name as if it were a slur. That is his telling, not a written finding. A stipend of unknown size did not replace a building in another country.

What Shopify could buy that a creator could not

Shopify Rebellion is the esports organisation tied to Shopify, the Canadian commerce company. SmashWiki places it in Toronto and names Jeremy Steeves as the founder who built it out from StarCraft II in 2021. In September 2023 Rebellion bought TSM's League Championship Series (LCS) slot and said it would join in 2024. The parties did not disclose the price. Dexerto, on September 20, 2023, reported that New York Times reporter Kellen Browning had put the sale at about $10 million, after a May 20, 2023 New York Times report, cited in the same piece, that TSM had been asking around $20 million. Buyer and seller have not confirmed either figure.

About $10 million, if Browning's source was right, is more than twice the $4.2 million. Moist was paying players in open circuits and one partnered Apex season. Rebellion was buying a franchised membership that could be sold on, as TSM had just done. White never claimed he had tried to buy a League seat.

By January 2025, Esports Insider described that seat as a partner spot in LTA North, the north conference of the League of the Americas, Riot's one-season rebrand of the LCS. On September 28, 2025, Esports Insider reported that Riot had said the LCS name would return in 2026, announced at that year's LTA final.

How Moist Esports closed the books in January 2025

Moist Esports stopped being a separate organisation on January 17, 2025, when it merged into Shopify Rebellion. Esports Insider reported that day that White and Ahgren had become co-owners of Rebellion, and that the teams which had competed as Moist moved under the Rebellion name. The Moist brand did not make the trip. White, in the same day's video, said a joint Valorant project had already combined the squads in 2023, and that Rebellion's facilities in Canada were what had kept the Apex roster in competition. Liquipedia's Smash page dates the full merger to January 17, 2025, and lists Phillips, White and Ahgren as the co-owners who had been on the Moist table. Jeremy Steeves, the Rebellion founder, said the combination would let the org field stronger teams and invest more deeply. No valuation, cash amount or share split was published. White described a full merger he would keep funding inside the new banner. He did not describe a sale that paid the $4.2 million back.

"Coming together allows us to field more and stronger teams, invest deeper for fans, provide more to our players, and create a singular, more resilient organisation over the long-term."

Jeremy Steeves, founder, Shopify Rebellion (Esports Insider)

Read against the $4.2 million, that is a balance-sheet sentence, not a trophy sentence. The same statement welcomed Ludwig and Charles as new co-owners. No price was published. White called it a full merger he would keep doing, not a cheque that made him whole.

Moist was closer to an owner covering a club's wages because he liked the club than to a company buying a league seat. Shopify already had the seat. The fold-in gave Rebellion the rosters and two co-owners who had shown they would spend, and it gave White a banner that did not clear every salary through his personal accounts. He answered on camera, without the books.

FAQ

White said he would keep doing it, and the vehicle is no longer the one that lost the $4.2 million under its own name. Shopify Rebellion has not published what the combined org costs to run, or whether the personal cheques stopped. Did the loss end in January 2025, or did it move onto a balance sheet large enough to carry a League seat?

This article is informational analysis only and is not betting advice.

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