For most esports organisations, losing a sponsor is a financial gut-punch. Brand money is what keeps rosters paid, covers travel and production costs, and often makes the difference between a team’s survival and collapse. Running without sponsors at all is closer to a fantasy discussed on industry panels than a business model any organisation can realistically sustain. But on August 31, 2026, Japanese esports organisation Crazy Raccoon, known for their Apex Legends, VALORANT, Overwatch, and Fortnite rosters, reached that unlikely position.
Its partnership with gaming PC brand GALLERIA, the organisation’s last remaining sponsorship deal, came to an end after five years. Yet rather than scrambling to replace the lost revenue, Crazy Raccoon’s founder treated the moment as a milestone worth celebrating.
Founder Daichi Takano, better known by his online name Ojiji, didn’t apologise for it. In posts on X the same day, he said reaching “sponsor zero” had actually been a goal of his, that he felt proud to have gotten there, and that fans had nothing to worry about.
If sponsorships are no longer paying the bills, what will keep Crazy Raccoon running from now on? The answer is that Crazy Raccoon has built something closer to an entertainment and media business than a traditional esports team.
The organisation runs its own tournaments across multiple games under the Crazy Raccoon Cup name, which draw large viewer numbers. It also puts on large in-person festivals. For instance, CR FES 2025 filled the Tokyo Dome with roughly 50,000 attendees, and CR FES 2026, which was held at Makuhari Messe, was also sold out. Tickets, on-site activities, and event merchandise all bring in revenue.
Crazy Raccoon has also mastered the “drop culture” model similar to streetwear brands. They consistently sell out collaborative and custom inventory on the Crazy Raccoon online store. Because their collective creator fan base surpasses 12 million followers, merchandising has the capability of acting as an instant multi-million dollar cash injector.
However, “sponsor zero” doesn’t mean that Crazy Raccoon never worked with any corporate brands before. Over the years, Crazy Raccoon had partnered with companies including JTEKT, Heartim, Mildom, OPENREC.tv, Level Infinite, Logicool/ASTRO Gaming, CoroCoro Comic, and X-Large. By the time the list narrowed down, GALLERIA was the only one left. Essentially, these partnerships have contributed to Crazy Raccoon’s growth and helped establish it as the organisation it is today.
Crazy Raccoon has also raised outside investment to help fund this side of the business. In December 2021, Samurai Kobo Co., Ltd., the parent company of Crazy Raccoon, raised an investment from UUUM Co., Ltd. to expand creator and player value, events, and esports growth. According to FirstCVC, MIXI, Inc., a Japanese digital entertainment and media company, also participated in Crazy Raccoon’s pre-Series A investment round in August 2023. The investment amounts for both rounds were not publicly disclosed.
Surprisingly, unlike many esports organisations that take a portion of tournament winnings, Crazy Raccoon does not keep any of its players’ prize money. The organisation describes this as a “player-first” policy. In practice, the Japanese esports club allows its members to keep all of their earnings from tournament prizes, streaming and YouTube, as well as personal sponsorships and merchandise deals. These revenues go directly to the individual players and creators, possibly easing overall salary expenses.
Importantly, this was not a special arrangement introduced for the occasion; it had already been the organisation’s standard operating model even when sponsors were still involved. Because so much of the model is built around the merchandise, personalities and events tied to its members rather than any single game’s competitive results, how the teams perform in matches isn’t what determines whether the organisation stays financially healthy.
Teams operating without sponsors aren’t unheard of, but they usually exist at the amateur or semi-pro level. This is especially true in VALORANT, where most teams outside the officially partnered VCT (VALORANT Champions Tour) league support themselves through tournament entry fees and money the players put in themselves, mainly because sponsorship money doesn’t reach that far down the ladder anyway.
At the professional level, the closest comparisons can be found in Dota 2, where a handful of player-owned teams, such as OG in its early days, Team Secret, Team Nigma, Quincy Crew, and Team Undying, have at times competed without a traditional sponsoring organisation behind them. These teams generally did so to retain a larger share of their prize money.
A number of professional esports clubs are already in the process of diversifying their revenue streams to reduce their reliance on sponsorships and tournament winnings. Examples include South Korean esports organisation DRX and French esports club Gentle Mates, which have recently invested in Korean drama production and the physical trading card market, respectively.
The reason behind the diversification is simple: sponsorships can be unpredictable, while tournament results are never guaranteed. As the esports market has become more difficult, more and more organisations are diversifying their revenue models beyond traditional corporate sponsorships by building direct-to-consumer digital products and looking to areas such as events, merchandise, content creation, media, entertainment, and other businesses. Crazy Raccoon claims to have successfully followed this path.
However, there is an important caveat to Crazy Raccoon’s success. The fact that the organisation has managed to operate with zero sponsors does not mean there is suddenly enough room in the market for every esports organisation to do the same. Crazy Raccoon has spent years building a huge audience, a powerful creator ecosystem, a recognisable brand, and an events and merchandise business capable of generating revenue at a scale that most organisations simply do not have access to.
In short, this is not a call for esports organisations to abandon sponsorships or follow Crazy Raccoon’s path exactly. The primary goal should be to find their own sustainable mix of revenue streams based on their audience, strengths, and market.
