Fissure says Vancouver Titans cut him without contract payout

Overwatch League pro Baek “Fissure” Chan-hyung took to Twitch to publicly call out his former organization, the Vancouver Titans. 

Fissure claimed that his team had “forcibly” removed him and the rest of the roster and have since avoided paying out his contract. He explained that he had attempted to play until the end of the season, even making an attempt to learn English, but the organization decided to cut the entire roster instead. 

“The team started the season with two convincing wins but meanwhile the impact of [the global pandemic] was being felt across the globe and all businesses were being affected, including ours. With cancelled homestands and travel increasingly limited, the players were bound to their training facility home. Once it became apparent this would be an extended situation, and out of an abundance of caution, the players were flown to their homes in South Korea to be with their families,” read an official press release. 

According to the statement, the initial plan was for Vancouver Titans to join the Asian division, continuing to play the new schedule “from the comfort of players’ homes,” but the organization saw too many potential challenges with this plan, including the time difference and potential technical issues. 

While the press release seemed to hint towards the organization having the players’ best interests in mind, Fissure didn’t seem to agree that it went down like that. 

While streaming a match between the Vancouver Titans and Toronto Defiant, Fissure started to make fun of Vancouver Titans’ new roster. He questioned why Niclas “sHockWave” Jensen, a talented player, even joined the team, stating that “he’s too good to rot here.” 

One person in the chat stated that Titans may have given him a good amount of money. 

“They cut us because of financial issues caused by [the global situation] and you think they gave him a lot of money? Be reasonable,” Fissure answered, seeming to be getting frustrated. 

The chat joked that Vancouver Titans pulled a move they would more expect from Boston Uprising. But this caused Fissure to go on an even bigger rant about how Titans are worse than the Boston Uprising organization. 

“Boston doesn’t toss their players mid-season,” Fissure said. “What kind of team tells all of their players to leave the team mid-season? No one does that. I wanted to stay until the end of the season, no matter what. Even if it was going to be difficult.” 

Fissure then explained how the team “released [him] forcibly.”

He noted that the Overwatch League rules state that the organizations must pay out the contract in full upon release if they close the contract prematurely. Since Vancouver Titans has yet to pay the remainder of his contract, Fissure said that he didn’t feel as though he’d been protected by the league’s rules. 

“That’s why I’m tilted,” Fissure said. 

This seems to go completely against what Ryan Nicholas, the senior director of content and design for Canucks Sports and Entertainment, told fans earlier on the Vancouver Titans Discord server. He claimed that the players are all “getting paid as per their contracts.”

Nobody was questioning the team’s handling of the players’ contracts then, which is why some fans found the statement to be strange when it was delivered. 

It’s unclear if what Fissure is saying is true or if he will be able to sue the company for what they owe him. It’s also uncertain if Fissure will stay within the Overwatch League in the future.