LA Gladiators DPS Dante “Danteh” Cruz has claimed that select Overwatch League players were being paid up to $150k per year to sit on the bench for their team.
During a casual Overwatch stream on February 9, DPS player Danteh claimed that a former teammate of his in the Houston Outlaws was making up to $150,000 to just sit on the bench.
The teammate he claims was making the jaw-dropping amount was Support player Daniel “Boink” Pence, who is now an inactive player. The last team he played for was the Outlaws.
In the clip, Danteh claimed that Boink was re-signed to the Outlaws for Season 3 of OWL, only to never play an official game. He also went on to suggest Boink didn’t even log on to play Overwatch and practice after the halfway point that year.
Meanwhile, Danteh says that Seung-soo “Jecse” Lee, another previous Support player for the Outlaws, was only paid $60,000 and was playing every single match of the season. The Outlaws allegedly couldn’t re-sign Jecse because of the cost of re-signing Boink for Season 3.
Right before discussing the matter, Danteh jokingly said, “that was the hardest re-signing ever, on a six-figure contract.”
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Danteh claims that the only reason why Boink was able to make so much while sitting on the bench was because the Outlaws’ former General Manager, Matt “flame” Rodriguez was offering the contract to him because they were friends.
“That’s actually just bank robbery” the DPS said. “flame literally just robbed a bank. He just gave his friend a six-figure contract that nobody deserves, and just dipped.”
He also claims that the contract had a clause that if the team cut Boink out of the Outlaws, he would get a payout from the organization.
Both flame and Boink are no longer part of the Outlaws, with flame retiring right as Season 3 started, and Boink when Season 3 ended.
It can only be presumed that the reason why Danteh is now comfortable talking about the matters of his former team is because he recently signed with the LA Gladiators for the upcoming Season 6, and is not bound by any restrictions.
