In early 2023 influencer Jeremy “Disguised Toast” Wang formed his own esports organisation called Disguised, and then a few months later revealed that he had lost around $1 million on the endeavour. Now, over a year after that revelation, Wang has revealed that the team is still losing money.
While not revealing exactly how much the team has lost, Wang confirmed in an interview discussing his signing with talent agency Loaded that the team is still losing money. It’s not a major concern right now, but if things don’t start to turn around in the next 12 months, it could be the end of the Disguised team.
“[I’m] happy with the progress and still losing a lot of money on it!,” said Wang. “It definitely has its ups and downs, I liken it to gambling but except when you win, you still lose money. But it’s very much a passion project, and I expected this from the start. I might put a hold to it in a year if we’re unable to breakeven, but so far things have been getting better with every year as I gain more understanding about the scene.”
The esports team is not only a passion project for Wang, but also part of his idea to branch out of streaming as he looks for more options in later life. Despite being one of the biggest names on the internet, Toast knows that his current career is unlikely to last until retirement age and is trying to find new things to do with his time. This is part of the reason he has signed with the Loaded talent agency, in the hopes that they can help diversify his opportunities.
“The occupation of being a Twitch streamer does not have a long history, so it’s hard to look at people who’ve done it in the past, to model for yourself to figure out what is next” said Wang. “Is it just playing the new game every year until you’re 60? What options do we have if we want to try something different? I think each streamer will face this dilemma as they get older and older. One of the best things about working with Loaded now is that they have been working with me to ideate potential future ventures, as I am someone that’s kind of reaching the end of their ‘just gaming only’ era.”
Despite only just signing with the company, the Toast and Loaded combo is already resulting in some success. As part of a campaign around World of Warcraft that Toast is involved with, Loaded helped to perfect the concept to something that could actually work and get developer Blizzard more involved with the project.
“We’re very excited to be working with Toast, someone we’ve admired for a long time,” said Yoni Ginsberg, VP Talent Strategy at Loaded. “He’s a renowned creator in the space and a top personality in a variety of gaming genres including social deception and card games, so he makes a natural addition to our roster.”
