Popular streamer Ludwig Ahgren opened up about a multi-million dollar scandal that occurred within his creative agency, Offbrand, over the course of several years.
On December 13, Offbrand published a tweet announcing that it had closed its events branch because it “failed to make the events business sustainable.”
While Offbrand Games will continue to exist, the sudden closure of the events vertical marked an unexpected turn for the company, which Ludwig launched in 2022 with the aim of helping streamers bring their projects to life.
Ludwig spoke candidly about the situation during a December 14 broadcast, where he revealed that around $3 million had allegedly been taken from his YouTube sponsorship money by accountants to pad Offbrand’s numbers, making it seem like the company wasn’t bleeding funds.
— offbrand (@offbrand_studio) December 14, 2024
Ludwig reveals $3M was used to pad Offbrand’s numbers
The streamer said this revelation came to light after he discovered that his sponsorship money hadn’t been paid out to him for a number of years, prompting his team to dig through the books to find the cause.
“My sponsorship money has not been paid out to me in a couple years,” he said. “It was basically being used as float to make Offbrand’s numbers look better than they were. When I found this out, I was like, ‘Oh damn, the books here are cooked.’
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“…when me and the team did some digging, we were like, this hole is too deep, and if we keep digging in this hole, not only is Offbrand f*cked, Mogul Moves is f*cked, everyone loses their job.”
The streamer went on to estimate that the amount of money used in this scheme was “to the tune of about three mil,” saying he had to act quickly before the situation “got a whole lot f*ckin’ worse.”
Ludwig confirmed that he will be dealing with the situation privately, but wanted to illustrate why Offbrand closed its events branch so “suddenly.”
This is just one of several reasons why he and the team made this decision, which Ludwig went over in a YouTube video uploaded that same day.
He clarified that it was not due to his YouTube contract expiring, which officially ended on November 30, saying that although the money helped, the overall business model simply wasn’t sustainable on top of what had happened with the company internally.
