Global Esports Founder Rushindra Sinha: “The only other title we might consider in the future is VALORANT Mobile”

Global Esports are coming off their most successful VCT campaign since the inception of the VALORANT Partnership Programme. The Indian organization broke into the top five in VCT Pacific for the first time during Stage 1, earning its first-ever qualification for an international VCT event at Masters London.

GE then went a step further in Stage 2, lifting its first VCT Pacific trophy and securing its first-ever appearance at VALORANT Champions in Shanghai. Despite being eliminated in the group stage, the organization has grown from a passion project into one of India’s leading esports organizations.

A few days after GE elimination, Sheep Esports sat down with Rushindra Sinha, founder and CEO of the org, to discuss GE’s breakthrough 2026 season, its profitability and cash-flow challenges, reported acquisition talks with Revenant Esports, the future of its VALORANT roster, the Champions jersey controversy, and much more.

Rushindra Sinha: “I would judge it by how we’ve performed over the last ten years. Every year, we’ve worked harder to improve. As you said, we’re closing in on a decade of Global Esports, and I couldn’t have asked for a better ending to this season, especially after the last four years of VCT. The only thing that would have made it sweeter would have been going further into the event (VALORANT Champions Shanghai), but I’m not complaining. This is the best result we’ve had, and we still won the Pacific Regional Trophy. I don’t think I could have asked for much more. Anything more would be greedy on my behalf.

I feel like I’ve aged two decades in these last ten years of esports. What drives me is my passion and love for the game. If I didn’t love it, enjoy playing it, and wasn’t a gamer myself, I don’t think I would have had the same exposure or experience. That’s where I think a lot of esports founders quit. When they realize the business doesn’t make sense, they walk away. For us, a lot of the last five years hasn’t made business sense. I’ve actually gone to major financial firms, shown them our balance sheets, and they’ve asked, “Why? This doesn’t make sense. What are you doing? This is bad business.” And I tell them, “Yeah, I know, but we have faith.” They’ll say, “That’s a very bad way to operate a business, on faith.”

Sinha: I would say the profitability is more on paper, based on our Indian financial-year filings. Our cash-flow problems have always been the same because of Riot’s payment cycles. We get paid at the start and end of the season, so we usually struggle in the middle of the year and then again at the end until the next payout arrives. We’ve had two consecutive profitable years because India’s financial year ends in March, while our Riot payouts come in February. So we’re flush with cash at the start and towards the end of the financial year. It’s primarily a cash-flow issue that we’re trying to deal with.

Overall, though, the company has been doing well. Our first few years were a struggle, particularly because it took us time to get incorporated in South Korea. We had to operate out of India for our entire first season, and we lost around 20% on almost every payment from Riot because we couldn’t claim the tax without having a company registered in Korea.

We lost almost a quarter of a million dollars through bank fees, USD to KRW and INR conversions, and moving money between countries — money that essentially disappeared. Once you add taxes on top of that, it became very difficult operationally. But if you look at each season individually, every season has been great. That’s why I say it doesn’t always make sense from a business perspective, but we’ve taken it one season at a time. And this has, of course, been our best year yet.

Sinha: Personally, it’s a dream come true. Every milestone we’ve hit has felt like childhood Rushi, the kid who grew up playing video games, played his first LAN event in 2001 and competed at WCG in 2003; his dreams were being fulfilled through these players. To see something we created become more than I ever imagined as a kid is incredible. We grew up playing video games, built this company, came up with the name, and built something from nothing. Even the logo. None of this existed a decade ago. The teams we compete against today were teams we used to look up to. FaZe, Fnatic, Liquid, these were organisations we watched and thought, “Wow, we wish we could play for them.” To now compete against those teams and even beat them has been brilliant.

Sinha: It’s no secret that, for the last four years, we’ve been looking at partnerships, opportunities and different ways to grow the business. There have been multiple rumours in the past as well. This one had much more weight because there were active conversations and paperwork involved. But we’ll have to wait another few weeks to know the outcome.

Sinha: Not right now. Our core team is focused entirely on VALORANT. The only other title we might consider in the future is VALORANT Mobile. If Riot adds more titles, or another publisher adopts an ecosystem similar to VCT, we may explore it. But there’s nothing else on the immediate horizon.

Sinha: We’ve considered it, but we’re still undecided. We have a lot on our plate right now. Once we’ve finalized everything over the next few months, probably around November or December, we’ll revisit it. But right now, there’s simply too much happening to add something else.

Sinha: Let’s just say we were too quick to jump the gun. We announced it and the response was incredible. Demand was much higher than expected, but our supplier wasn’t ready to start manufacturing and shipping yet. So, rather than continue taking orders that we wouldn’t be able to fulfill for a month, we pulled everything off. It didn’t make sense to send traffic to something we couldn’t deliver. The demand was so high within a single day, and it happened on a Sunday.

By Monday morning, our supplier told us there was no way they could fulfill the orders for the next few weeks and asked us to stop taking more. So we shut everything down. We also couldn’t really talk about it because the more we discussed it, the more people wanted to know what had happened to the jersey. We decided to put all our effort into making sure we could actually fulfil the orders before talking about it again. That’s also why our players had to do their media shoot without the jersey, we couldn’t get it to them in time.

Sinha: Honestly, I don’t think talent is the problem. I think talent is overrated. What matters is what people do with that talent. In India, once many players start earning a few lakhs a month, that becomes more money than they’ve ever seen in their lives. For them, it feels like they’ve already made it. In their mind, that becomes their ceiling. They don’t necessarily have the hunger to see what’s beyond it because they don’t know what’s beyond it.

It’s a similar problem across parts of Southeast Asia. In Vietnam and the Philippines, for example, a few thousand dollars a month is significant money. In North America or Europe, that could just cover your rent and food. When players get access to that kind of money at a young age, I think it can distort their sense of success and what they want to achieve. They’re comfortable. They think, “I have enough, even if I don’t push further, I’m fine.”

I’m still waiting to see an Indian player whose entire focus is winning a trophy. I’ve interacted with players from other regions who don’t care about the salary or the money. It’s not that they aren’t earning well; they simply don’t care about it. Their only focus is winning. They would rather earn less and have a better chance of winning a trophy than take a bigger salary. But if you give the same choice to an average player from Southeast Asia, they’ll often choose the money.

I think that changes as the ecosystem grows. Once there are more teams and salaries become normalised, players will realise there’s much more to aspire to. VALORANT is also a very young person’s game. For many players, it’s their first esports title. When they immediately find an opportunity to earn $1,000 or $2,000 a month, that’s a lot of money. At that point, their aspirations can shift towards, “How can I make a little more money?” That’s the problem we’ve faced. There may be hidden players in parts of the country that we haven’t discovered yet. If that’s the case, I’d urge them to work harder, climb the ranked ladder and get discovered.

Also, why are you relying on an Indian team to pick you up? There are international talent scouts everywhere. If you’re good enough, someone will notice you. Why is your aspiration to get picked up by a Tier 2, Tier 3 or Tier 1 organisation in India? Why not T1, DRX, Gen.G, Paper Rex, Sentinels or 100 Thieves? Why isn’t that the goal? A lot of players think those opportunities are unattainable, so they don’t even try. That’s where the problem lies. They need to raise their ceiling. Talent isn’t the problem. I’ve seen enough talented Indian players to know that. The problem is their attitude towards that talent and getting the right exposure.

Sinha: One of the things we realised very early on is that we have a lot to learn. The same things I’ve complained about with players also apply to organisations. Because esports is still so new in India, I don’t think many organisations have the hunger to become as good as the international organisations that are already operating at scale. In India, many organisations put a glass ceiling on themselves. If they have a local team, a BGMI roster or a Free Fire roster, they consider that enough. They aren’t necessarily aspiring to compete internationally. For us, we wanted to change that internally first. We need to become an organisation capable of going head-to-head with any organisation in the world. Only then can we expect the same from our players.

If I tell a player, “Why aren’t you trying for 100 Thieves?” they can just turn around and ask me, “Why aren’t you trying to beat 100 Thieves?” That’s a fair question. So our focus is on becoming an organisation that competes internationally and goes toe-to-toe with the best, regardless of where we come from. The region shouldn’t matter. Our skill, our output and our work should speak for themselves. If we can do that as an organisation, hopefully we can pave the way for Indian players to do the same across all titles. I want to come back to India and tell every player, “If we can do it, you can do it.” If we can do it as an organisation, you can absolutely do it as a player. There’s no question about it.

Sinha: We’ll have to wait until after Champions. I can’t talk about anything right now. It’s going to be interesting, to say the least. There will be a lot of changes. You’ll have to wait and see what those changes are, whether they involve the roster or other areas. But changes are coming.

Sinha: Honestly, I think two years is a very short time. We were quite happy to have four years. We had our best performance in our fourth year. If our partnership had been evaluated based on our first two years of VCT, I don’t know if we would have been renewed. So if it’s going to be two years going forward, I think that timeline puts a lot of pressure on organisations. However, I do think it’s better for the players because sometimes they are unhappy with the long duration of their contracts. For organisations, a longer-term partnership is better because it gives us more visibility to manage cash flow and plan ahead.

But Riot has also had situations where organisations took advantage of longer-term arrangements or abused the system. Some organisations had to be terminated, let go or defaulted on certain obligations. So it created a complicated situation. Riot is experimenting, and I’ve said this from day one. Every partnership cycle, they’ve tried different things. Some have worked, some haven’t, and we’re effectively the guinea pigs.

But I appreciate that they’re willing to change. If something works, they keep it; if it doesn’t, they change it. I’ve been very happy with Riot as a partner. Even when things haven’t worked, we’ve been able to be transparent with them. I see people on Twitter constantly going after Leo Faria whenever something happens, whether it’s tech issues or something else. But I’d ask those same people: have they seen another publisher come out and speak so transparently about these issues? Name someone from another publisher whom you can tag and directly discuss these problems with on Twitter. That doesn’t exist.

Even when the tech issues happened, my players complained about them, but I was also at the venue. I have videos of people working overnight to build and set up desks for the event. So I can see both sides, and I wouldn’t want to work with any other partner than Riot. Good or bad, they acknowledge the issues, and we have the opportunity to tell them directly, “Hey, show us what you’re doing.” With other publishers, even if you raise an issue, you might get a thumbs-up. They won’t respond, and you often don’t even know who is responsible. I’ll also say that everything I’ve said will remain true even if we don’t get partnership. Even if Global Esports is no longer a Riot partner team, I’ll still say the same things.

Sinha: The biggest positive is that the system is much more open and gives opportunities to people who may have been undiscovered or didn’t previously have a pathway. If someone says they have the talent but don’t have an opportunity, the message is basically, “Team banao, maidan mein aao, dikhao.” (Build a team, step onto the field, and prove yourself.) They’ve created a clear pathway for people to prove themselves. If, over the next two years, no open team makes it through, it would strengthen Riot’s argument that the closed partnership system was better. If open teams do break through, that’s also a good thing because everyone gets an opportunity. It’s a win-win.

For Riot, either breakout teams and players emerge, or the existing names continue to dominate and prove why they belong there. Either way, the openness benefits the ecosystem. The area that could be improved is the fact that since everything is now a tournament, for teams like ours in Southeast Asia and South Asia, that means a lot more travel. Previously, we had to worry about a team spending nine months in Seoul. Now, they could be in a different location every month because of Cups or qualifiers. For players, that’s exciting. They’ll get to travel to new cities, play in different locations and experience much more. For organisations, though, it means a lot more logistics and travel costs. I think every team should start looking at travel partners and people who can help with logistics.

Our average annual spend with Riot’s support has been between $150,000 and $200,000 on flights, hotels, accommodation and travel every season. With Riot not covering the Cups, that’s going to increase. Riot has said it will cover the two Masters events and the Champions event, but the Cups, Kickoff and other events will be the teams’ responsibility. So our travel costs will definitely increase. That said, Riot has done the maths. The money we previously spent on monthly bootcamps in Seoul and the associated expenses offsets some of that increase. So they don’t expect teams to spend significantly more overall. It’s just a shift in where the money is being spent.

Sinha: I want people to remember that GE went from fighting to winning. That’s all we wanted. There were times when everyone was against us, especially in the middle of the season when we changed our head coach. Everyone had an opinion on how we should operate, how we should run the team and how our players should perform. But the players, staff and everyone involved proved those people wrong. If there’s one thing I want people to take away, it’s this: believe in yourself, keep going and don’t give up. No matter what happens, it isn’t over until it’s over.”