Okay, so the world is going to the dogs in a hand basket, the economy is battered and beaten, people are losing their jobs, homes and personal wealth … so where does this leave the future of eSports?
In 2001 Razer pioneered eSports sponsorships by offering the first big cash award of $100,000 at CPL Summer Quake event. Back in 1999 we began contributing to local, online, live, LAN and other sponsorship programs.

Since then, other companies have come in and pushed eSports sponsorships to ludicrous amounts, many just trading cash for endorsements. Now the money has all but vanished as sponsors are running away from gamers as fast as their bottom line is evaporating. Stalwarts like the CPL, WSG and CGS have all been forced to pull the plug due to big ticket sponsors dropping out. This all started before the current recession and IMHO will only continue to hurt our community for some time to come.

Despite all of this doom and gloom, Razer continues to sponsor gamers in a low-key fashion, supporting gamers, the community, and validating hardware.

With the current financial crisis, many of the companies have, and will pull out of sponsorships. While Razer has also been affected by the economic downturn, we will continue to sponsor gamers and events as we believe in the mantra for gamers by gamers. While our sponsorship budgets have also been scaled back, we intend to continue sponsoring gamers and have no intentions of ever pulling out.
It is crucial for Razer to remember its roots and always support the community that made us successful.

We believe this retrenchment will be good for gaming in the long run, where the true sponsors will continue supporting gamers while those who were never really committed to the community have and will pull back.
And that eSports will actually flourish ultimately as ridiculous amounts of money with no possible return on investment from sponsorships were not sustainable in the first place and actually drove committed sponsors like Razer behind the scenes.

Lastly, the true committed pro-gamer will not have a problem finding a sponsor while the guys who were not committed to eSports and only in it for the money will also drop out.