Vireo.pro League ceases operations
The west coast-based Vireo.pro League hub has announced it's closure, with Erik "KP" Lytle announcing the end of the hub's sponsorship and league operations. The team behind the league intend to continue operating as a ten-man hub, although seasons and prizes will no longer be a part of the league.
In a statement provided to Dust2.us, KP and the founding members of the league explained how the hub came to be, their sponsorship with Vireo.pro, and what caused it to end. The league initially began as a pet project by four former Dust2.us Western Pro League members, KP, Andrew "ayybigdrew" Schreiber, Matthew "MJC" Cummings, and Connor "Keiji" Kawashima, originally created under the name "West Coast Counterstrike" in an effort to band together west coast community members in a single hub.
The quartet founded West Coast Counterstrike as a free-to-play hub with a small self-funded prize pool on offer, allowing the hub to quickly gain traction and players. After just over a month of operation, a fifth member joined the administration team, Calvin "Benedicat", helping to fund a $1,000 weekend cup for the league which attracted further attention from players and community members alike. Not long after the cup, the administration team were reached out to by Vireo.pro's owner, Colin Chan, who was interested in sponsoring the league with a larger prize pool.
The administration team had this to say with regards to the Vireo.pro partnership:
Keeping the league free to play while also boasting a 2,000$ monthly prize pool is most likely what lead to our rampant growth as we quickly climbed to over 1,000 members throughout the different divisions; however, paying out that much money per month, while also having a free to play model obviously was not profitable.
Lack of communication with FACEIT, no west coast servers, no FPL-C spots, and payouts taking more than two months are all reasons we eventually ended up losing most of our active player base. To be very clear, the Vireo Pro League staff (myself and the other co-owners and moderators) always did our best to be open with our players on what was going on.
All prizes and money that the Vireo Pro League staff were responsible for was paid out in 72 hours or less. The payout issues and delays solely rested on the Vireo.pro organization, but Colin was always very clear with what was going on. We want everyone to know that while there were issues and delays, Colin is one of the best organization owners we have worked with. For him to be doing that at his age and running his stuff better than most adults, he definitely has a bright future in esports if he chooses to continue.
Shortly after the league began experiencing issues with payouts, Vireo.pro's investment dried up, with Chan announcing that the organization was scrambling to cover expenses. Tweets from the organization's then-COO and CFOs pointed towards the organization disbanding, although all the players who were owed prize money for Vireo.pro League were paid out by Chan, and statements from Vireo.pro indicated that they intended to continue operations under a new CEO.
Due to lack of payment over the first month and a half however, the damage had already been done to the league's playerbase according to the league's administration staff:
As quickly as we grew, we fell. At its peak in November, Vireo Pro League had more than 400 games played in a single month. After a rough December, barely hitting over 100 games played, and the news about Vireo Pro coming out, we were left without any sponsor and without any funds of our own to keep it going.
By this time, elo had been removed by FACEIT and all contacts we had with them seemingly vanished. We attempted to look for a new partner or sponsor throughout the month of January but with no success.
The staff concluded their statement with the following:
Thanks to everyone for the great memes and quality content day after day. Thanks to everyone who understands that the admin and moderator staff were genuinely trying their best and wanted nothing but success for the hub. Thanks to everyone for keeping the west coast CS dream alive.
A special thanks to:
Alex "Classified" Kefer
CJ "dapper" Benedetti
JP "BaKingSoda" Santoro
Waltz
Colin Chan
