It looks like esports talent duo James Banks and Mitch ‘MitchMan’ McBride may be missing out on hosting Riot’s Valorant broadcasts this year.
British desk host and caster Banks and Irish talent MitchMan have built up some solid experience working at Valorant events, but a Twitlonger post from Banks today reveals he won’t be a part of Riot’s official talent line-up this year.
Banks said in the Twitlonger he received an email today from Valorant tournament partner Freaks4U: “Within the email I found out that the talent for all of 2021 has been decided and I will not be involved in this circuit. That’s despite me contacting both Riot and Freaks4U multiple times to work with Mitch, and also Mitch asking them during his negotiation process that he wanted to continue the duo work with me as well.
“This means that for the majority of the year I will not be able to cover Valorant. I had one other hope to get us on the broadcast in North America but sadly with the region lock of talent that won’t be possible anymore.”
Banks went on to say that the current talent on the European Valorant Champions Tour ‘are all fantastic and we can’t fault the choices’, but that he can’t understand why both him and Mitch were ignored.
Some have speculated that the decision may have been made because both Banks and MitchMan also work at Alliance as Valorant general manager and analyst respectively. But Banks said he heard it was ‘fine in the current state’.
In other UK Valorant news, Fnatic recently signed SUMN FC, the roster with mainly UK players that have been performing well in the scene since it started to form last year.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
