Guild Esports reduces staff after reporting almost £5 million in losses

10 July 2022

The last time we wrote about Guild Esports, the esports organisation famously backed by former Manchester United and England football captain David Beckham, the news was good. As part of Guild’s FIFA22 squad, Argentinian player Nicolas “nicolas99fc” Villalba had just won the 2021-2022 FIFA eChampions League, bringing the organisation its sixth major trophy since its inception back in 2019. This time though, the news is a bit less festive, as Guild recently announced a loss of £4.96 million over a sixth-month period that ended on March 22nd of this year. As a consequence, the company felt forced to reduce its staff by a third, from 45 members to 30.

More income, but more costs as well

Guild’s most recent semi-annual results are not something to overly worry about immediately, as the organisation is going through a period of growth, which is shown by the increases in terms of overall revenue and gross profit. Despite the company declaring £0.68 million more in losses than a year earlier, the unaudited financial report also shows a strong increase in gross profit, from £110,000 in 2021 to £710,000 in 2022, an increase of no less than 545%.

The company also refers to this situation specifically in the report and emphasises the fact that the numbers are not something to worry about, but simply the result of the stage at which the organisation finds itself at the moment. Over the past year, considerable investments were made in staff, teams and content creation, while Guild also splashed the cash to open new headquarters in London, state-of-the-art esports academy included. This has all contributed to the increase in operating and other costs as shown by the report.

Staff cuts

Despite the plausible explanation of the latest numbers, Guild still decided it was best to reduce the size of its staff as part of its efforts to better streamline costs. The organisation explains that global economic uncertainty and challenging capital market conditions are forcing her to take measures, which unfortunately include reducing the number of staff members. By letting 15 people go and bringing its staff size back to 30, Guild estimates cost-savings of about 20% for the second half of this year.

At the same time, the company is looking forward to the future and the potential of esports in the UK and worldwide. From a sponsorship and financial point of view, the recent deal with blockchain company Bitstamp was a highlight in the past six months, and Guild used the publication of its latest financial report as a chance to announce that more deals are on the way. While details are not provided, the organisation mentions potential deals with different brands from “many different sectors”, including media, electronics and beverages.