Earlier this week the Astralis Group did a midyear roundup of their finances which showed a huge improvement in their performance, compared to the past year. A huge chunk of this was, of course, owing to the transfer of Nicolai ‘dev1ce’ Reedtz to Ninjas in Pyjamas.
The Astralis group is a publicly-traded one, and thus the shareholders have every right to enquire about the finances, and Astralis duly obliged by posting the details for the first half of the financial year 2021.
As per the report, Astralis generated $6.24 million from Jan 1, 2021, to June 30, 2021. This is a huge jump up from the $3.26 million generated in the same period in the year 2020. This was down to the global pandemic, with investors pulling out of deals as they couldn’t sustain the losses. But since then, things have been looking better for all parties, with offline tournaments and investors coming back.
The 4-time csgo major winners lost $4.8 million last year in the first 6 months, but they cut it down to less than half that amount in 2021, losing $2.01 million in the process. Astralis CEO Nikolaj Nyholm did reveal that player sales are NOT part of the revenue generated for the group, so the sale of ‘dev1ce’ to NiP did not actually play a part in the improved situation for the Danes.
Delving deeper into the report, it stated that the sale of the 2 time Major MVP cost Swedish side NiP close to US$715,000. When dev1ce left in late April 2021, it was reported that the transfer cost NiP nearly a million US dollars, but the finances reveal that it was closer to 700k USD, which is in no way a small amount and for a player of the calibre of dev1ce, it may well be worth every penny that the Swedes spent on him. The sale also paved way for the signing of ‘Lucky’ from Tricked esports.
Also as per Valves ruling, each team that has in-game items in CSGO, get a percentage of the amount every time that item is sold or bought on the market. This includes the latest 2020 RMR stickers, Player Autographs and Souvenir skins. The report stated that Astralis made nearly 1 Million USD from sticker sales alone, which would only improve once the Major comes around and new stickers come into the game.
Astralis are also partnered with ESL and BLAST Premier, the biggest TOs in CSGO currently and also have teams in FIFA and League of Legends, with CSGO being their most profitable endeavour, winning 4 majors in 2.5 years, a feat unmatched till now.