Berlin-based Esports Organisation Sprout Ceases Operations

Sprout has ceased operations with immediate effect. This was announced by the Berlin-based e-sports organisation on its website. Sprout is one of the founding members of the German e-sports organisation ESBD.

It is a surprising end. Berlin-based e-sports organisation Sprout has announced on its website that it is to be dissolved with immediate effect. After completing the annual plan, which was cut short, it became clear that a decision had to be made about the future of Sprout, the statement reads.

"Our current business model is no longer viable to ensure required sustainable and healthy growth. In the history of sprout it always has been a struggle to keep up with the loss of rising talents, and the challenges which come, while rebuilding the active roster frequently, resulting in losing precious progress over and over again.", Sprout writes on the homepage. "When looking at alternative strategies, e.g. increasing incentives therefore increasing the potential of success, we found that this model carried risk above what we’d consider our comfort zone. Embracing a model that deviates significantly from our established approach has been deemed too risky for us to pursue."

Sprout won a total of seven titles in the ESL Championship, the ESL's national tournament series for Germany, which has since been discontinued. Sprout also appeared at the IEMs in Katowice, Dallas and Cologne, as well as Eleague Bosten. As one of the founding members, Sprout was instrumental in setting up the German e-sports association eSport-Bund Deutschland (ESBD), which took to X/Twitter to thank Sprout for the "great moments".