In an industry where only a few companies like Team Liquid and T1 are making profits, SEN are trying to find their own solution to the puzzle, taking advantage of their recent trends in the ecosystems and ability to bring ROI (return-on-investment) to the partners they work with.

Speaking to Sheep Esports, Sentinels CEO Rob Moore said esports has already gone through one market correction, but he does not believe the industry is done adjusting.

“I do think we probably still have another year, year and a half of people realizing that, at times, people are still overpaying for salaries that aren’t sustainable,” Moore said. “I do think we probably have one more shakeout in this industry before we get to a place where we have a healthy, broad esports ecosystem that can sustain long term.”

According to the financial statements reviewed by Sheep Esports, Sentinels have reported $6.44m in net revenue in 2025, increasing from the $5.79m in the previous year.

Even though the increase is not outstanding, higher revenues were achieved by keeping the costs under control, with operating expenses dropping by over $1.3m compared to 2024. Net losses amounted to $4.28m, lower than the $6 million loss in last year’s financial report.

“What we’ve seen is we now have a very efficient organization,” said Moore. “We’ve got a very lean management team, and we have restructured some of the way that compensation is structured both for staff and for players.”

Moore sees Sentinels’ situation as part of a wider change in the industry. Investors are no longer willing to invest at a loss to build audiences and expand their brands. “Private equity put a lot of money into the space chasing that growth. Because interest rates were so low, people weren’t worried about when they got their money back. It was just: grow revenue and we’ll figure it out later.”

Speaking of revenue, Sentinels haven’t taken the diversification route like many other esports teams in the space, such as Team Liquid or Ninjas in Pyjamas. Instead, they are focusing on maximizing their current revenue streams: sponsorships, merchandise, and earning bigger shares of digital goods.

“Prize money is more volatile and, given the way the ecosystem has developed historically, the majority of prize money still goes to players. Therefore, prize money is less relevant to the org’s profitability,” said Moore.

Sentinels’ core title continues to be VALORANT, which the team joined during the beta back in 2020. The early entry allowed SEN to capitalize on the new generation of esports fans and paired with competitive success, including two VALORANT Masters trophies and multiple appearances at the VALORANT Champions, it was able to establish itself as one of the leading orgs in the space.

Thanks to this strategic move, the team has since then generated substantial revenues through the sale of in-game items within the VALORANT esports ecosystem. Riot Games has confirmed it shared over $105m with VCT teams throughout 2025, between in-game items and stipends.

With VALORANT moving to an open ecosystem in 2027, Moore is hoping to see the FPS thrive even more, as he thinks that the league format caused long gaps between matches, effectively disappearing from fans’ routines for too long. This inevitably causes problems for the commercial side of things since teams also have less to sponsor.

“If you don’t have enough matches and you don’t have enough matches that matter, your audience just starts to get distracted or finds other habits or views other things, versus keeping that consistency so you have something to watch,” he added.

The CEO also emphasized the importance of organizations prioritizing value for their partners, particularly in the current market conditions where budgets are increasingly tight. For Moore, the answer is making sponsored content that fans actually want to watch.

“That is the real challenge,” he said. “How do you make sponsored content fun and engaging so fans react and interact with it like it is content, while at the same time providing an opportunity for the brand to deliver its message?”

Aside from the competitive teams it fields, Sentinels is focused on delivering community-first initiatives, mainly through co-streams and creator activations.

Moore also touched on the opportunity it had at the end of last year when it entered the LCS. Since SEN entered the league without buying into the old franchise model, the team doesn’t have to deal with the same investment risk that other organizations have been dealing with over the past few years.

“We’re in on a different model. So we have much lower financial risk, but hopefully a big financial upside if we can all figure out a way to turn this around.”

And while the LCS is having its own problems with decreasing viewership and engagement, Moore still thinks there is a big enough audience that can be captured, as long as there is “compelling content and action for them to watch”, mentioning Nicholas “Jynxzi” Stewart as the perfect example to prove his point.

“The real key for us is continuing to deliver to our sponsors and continuing to grow that part of our business,” Moore said. “I do think that’s where being in League of Legends really helps because it gives us more diversity in terms of the game titles,” explaining how it opens up more commercial opportunities with the added exposure.

When talking about how SEN thinks about which games to enter, he revealed two benchmarks: “what games do the publishers incentivize you to compete in as an org, and what games are sponsors excited to be part of?”

This approach is also what led to the end of the Fortnite division: “There was just no real way for us to monetize that presence in Fortnite,” he added. “If this game can’t really generate a return either directly through digital goods or indirectly through sponsors and merchandise, then that’s just not a game we can be in,” he added.

Since Sentinels are heavily reliant on sponsorship revenue in their business model, it was impossible to avoid the discussion around betting sponsorships. Even though bookmakers are common in Counter-Strike, esports fans are still divided over whether teams should work with gambling brands.

“For fans to say to orgs, ‘why aren’t you trying to win?’ but then saying, ‘you shouldn’t be promoting or supported by these other groups that are currently putting the most money into the space,” Moore explained that building winning rosters while avoiding some of the best-paying revenues makes the equation for long-term success nearly “impossible”.

During the hour-long interview, we also took a break from the discussion to talk about Tyson "TenZ" Ngo, who recently joined T1 as a content creator. Once considered the face of Sentinels, Moore said he had “nothing but respect”, as Moore considers T1 the most respected organization in esports.

“They’re trying to figure out their own business model,” Moore said of T1. “Obviously, they're trying to figure out how to expand their brand into North America and really grow that brand here, and hoping that TenZ can be part of that initiative”.

Even though the company is improving its financials year-by-year, the reality is that Sentinels are bleeding money. If it weren’t for the financial backing from one of its shareholders, JAG Ventures, which injected over $12 million throughout the past few years, Sentinels would be in deep trouble.

With Moore expecting the team to become profitable by 2027, the company is looking to fund any operational shortfalls through debt or equity financing, if needed. For the CEO, however, surviving through this second correction phase is key: “I do think we probably have one more shakeout in this industry before we get to a place where we have a healthy, broad esports ecosystem that can sustain long term,” he ended.