T1, the South Korean esports organisation best known for its League of Legends team and star player Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok, announced a few months ago that it had turned an operating profit for the first time in its history. Initially, that’s a milestone worth celebrating, but a closer look by Korean media has raised a series of questions about how the sponsorship money was actually generated and who benefited most from the arrangement.
The main questions revolve around how sponsorship revenue was generated and who took a cut along the way. In T1’s case, an undisclosed source told South Korean sports news outlet Sports Seoul that nearly all of its deals, which account for the majority of an esports club’s revenue, were funneled through a single outside agency, CAA Singapore, which operates in the United States and Singapore while allegedly holding ties to T1 CEO Joe Marsh, raising corporate governance concerns.
When asked about the agency selection, the statements from T1’s majority shareholder, SK Square, and Joe Marsh, were contradictory.
Marsh said that the CAA contract received written approval from the Board of Directors, including the representative of SK Square, on October 3, 2025, and the relevant details were communicated to all members of the T1 Board of Directors, stating the contract went through the approval process of the entire Board rather than being a unilateral decision by the CEO. On the other hand, SK Square told the news outlet that it was “a matter of CEO decision-making.”
What raised the biggest concern is that the agency was reportedly paid a commission even on deals T1’s own staff sourced and negotiated. Neither T1’s CEO nor SK Square has commented on the core issue: whether CAA Singapore took a cut from deals found internally.”
The report also said that agencies usually charge a fee of 10% to 15% of a deal’s total value for setting it up, highlighting that other South Korean esports teams, like Gen.G and Hanwha Life Esports, avoid this cost by using their own in-house staff to handle sponsorships.
Away from the sponsorship division, the South Korean news outlet also reported that T1 is effectively operating without a fully confirmed CEO right now. Joe Marsh’s original term as T1 CEO was set to end on October 7, 2025. It got extended multiple times because the two main shareholders (SK Square, the majority owner, and Comcast) couldn’t agree on whether to keep him or appoint a new CEO.
However, in late May, the company reappointed Joe Marsh and extended his term through March 30, 2029. The Esports Radar has independently verified this information through an official SK Telecom regulatory filing on DART (the Financial Supervisory Service’s electronic disclosure system).
However, Sports Seoul investigation suggests that the final decision among the owners is still unresolved despite the latest regulatory filings, leaving the organisation’s long-term leadership in a state of uncertainty..
The Esports Radar reached out to Joe Marsh for comment on these reports before the publication of this article. As of the time of publication, however, we have not received any response. Should Marsh choose to provide a statement after this article, we will update this report accordingly.
In 2025, T1 earned total revenue of about ₩88.64 billion, which is roughly $58–60 million. This is a huge jump of over 80% compared to 2024. More importantly, the company made an operating profit of ₩2.51 billion ($1.66 million) for the first time. For a company that has never posted a profit before, this was a huge turnaround.
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