Tenstar are a team organisation that have made a name for themselves in UK esports and beyond over the past couple of years, with great performances in the likes of Valorant and Rainbow Six Siege.
This hard work is unfortunately being overshadowed by unclear communication and movements around their owner, who left a lot of staff unpaid at his sister company Adamo Gaming yet somehow managed to end up on an esports integrity roundtable this week, writes ENUK editor Dom Sacco in this opinion piece.
This article should have been about UK esports org Tenstar winning the Contenders Legion: Athena Series with their women’s Valorant team.
It should have been about their teams preparing to take part in the latest Goose House Birds of Prey tournament and the upcoming Rainbow Six Siege Northern Premier League LAN playoff finals.
It should have been about Tenstar’s education work in schools and summer camps.
Unfortunately it’s about how Tenstar GG Ltd’s founder and sole owner, Carl Thomas Roderick (aka Tom), who cut back the operations of Tenstar’s sister company Adamo Gaming back in March, leaving many staff at that gaming content business unpaid, ended up on an invitation-only roundtable discussion this week on esports legitimacy and integrity.
This behind-closed-doors roundtable was held by Digital Isle of Man and the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) at industry conference ESI London 2022.
Tom is someone who used the government Kickstart scheme, which paid employers £1,500 per person hired for six months and covered their wage, to hire some 150 staff at its peak, yet still owes money to some of them half a year later. He’s someone who allegedly ignored or deleted messages when people asked him when they would get paid, is involved with more than ten different businesses in multiple separate Companies House accounts, said he stepped down as CEO after the Adamo debacle yet still had this job title listed on multiple web pages online (until I questioned it, yesterday) and for these reasons is someone I cannot trust, no matter how good Tenstar might be doing on the esports front.
Tom (previously going by his first name Carl) also previously pleaded guilty to operating a mobile phone insurance scam back in 2008. Granted, this was a long time ago, and Tom may well have changed. Some will say Tom is a really nice person and has done some positive work, and I don’t deny that, but actions speak louder than words, and his recent actions at Adamo do not personally convince me.
Some former staff at Adamo have had to start employment tribunals to get what they’re owed, including here and here. It sickens me, and I’ve covered it all in greater detail in my original article two paragraphs above.
I will keep banging the drum until every single former employee of Adamo get what they’re owed. I will cover Tenstar’s team achievements in esports, but I cannot personally trust or back this organisation until this is done.
Staff should not have to go to employment tribunals to get what they’re owed, to pay their bills or mortgage or to help them take care of their children.
So to hear that Tom joined an invitation-only roundtable on September 6th 2022, titled, ‘Furthering Legitimisation of the Esports Industry: Building for the Future’, organised by Digital Isle of Man and ESIC at ESI London, shocked and angered me, as it did to several event guests who complained to me about it.
One delegate at ESI London, a former employee at Adamo Gaming, told Esports News UK: “I am fuming. He should not be allowed in here.”
Another added: “As far as I understand it, the plan was always for Tom to temporarily publicly step down [as Tenstar CEO] and then just come back quietly when the heat died down. Can’t believe the nerve he has [being a part of that roundtable discussion.]”
I gave Tom a chance to speak about the matter further into this article for a right of reply.
And I personally don’t have an issue with Tom being at ESI London. It’s a public event, if you pay for a ticket, you can come in. But to join an invite-only behind-closed-doors roundtable, on esports legitimacy? It’s like some kind of sick, embarrassing joke.
How did Tom Roderick get invited onto the esports legitimacy roundtable?
I reached out to several people involved to find out. ESI had initially passed a list of suggested teams to Digital Isle of Man, which fired invites out.
ESIC said it was not involved in choosing or vetting guests for the roundtable discussion – it was more involved as a speaking capacity, with integrity commissioner Ian Smith speaking. Esports Insider co-founder Sam Cooke opened with a two-minute intro talk before passing to Digital Isle of Man and ESIC, who spoke for a while before opening up to the room for discussion.
It was framed as a group discussion/meeting/working session led by ESIC and Digital Isle of Man, and not a panel.
The invite for Tenstar was actually originally passed to Kieran Robertson, Tenstar director of operations and partnerships, but I was told by Tenstar that no one else at Tenstar could make it, so Tom stepped in. The organisers told me they were not aware of this, with Digital Isle of Man saying he was not part of their outreach.
This tweet also states that Tom was at the event with Ellis Bailey from Acti-Fit, a company that has funded £100 Valorant giveaways on Tenstar social accounts in the past.
The roundtable event was described as: “A series of structured roundtable discussions around industry pain points, potential models for solutions, and opportunities to improve the esports ecosystem with a long-term vision in mind. Designed as an inclusive space for key stakeholders to address their existing concerns within the industry and explore a mandate to provide support.”
Let me make it abundantly clear – I don’t think ESI, ESIC or Digital Isle of Man are in the wrong here, they do great work and didn’t know about the Adamo situation with Tom. They invited another Tenstar member.
But questions have to be asked, and I’m grateful to them – and to Tenstar – for explaining the situation to me.
Let me also make it clear again – the team below Tom at Tenstar have done some good things in UK esports, and don’t deserve to be marred by all of this.
Did Tom really step down as CEO of Tenstar? What is his role now? When will former Adamo staff get paid? Here’s what he had to say
This is one of the main reasons I wanted to write this article – to help educate some other people in UK esports who are confused as to what Tom is doing at Tenstar if he is the sole owner but not the CEO.
I reached out to Tom and Tenstar for a right of reply.
Tenstar PR/Fellowship of Gaming lead consultant Dominic Widdop told Esports News UK that Tom is not involved in the day-to-day running of Tenstar, that this is mainly the responsibility of director of esports Syndey ‘J0hn’ Meral, and director of operations and partnerships Kieran Robertson.
Tenstar also said that Tom works on the education side of things, engaging with schools and running summer camps, and gives advice to Tenstar’s team.
Tom said: “The three key areas of discussion were match fixing, child protection/safeguarding and live event safety. Given our school programmes, summer camps, safeguarding and competitive play, our experience in all of the discussion points was relevant and useful and right now being one of, if not the only, UK org doing anything in schools, we could talk about our experience based on real info and feedback from children themselves on their experiences.”
“The three key areas of discussion on the roundtable were match fixing, child protection/safeguarding and live event safety. Given our school programmes, summer camps, safeguarding and competitive play, our experience in all of the discussion points was relevant and useful.”
Tom Roderick, Tenstar
Tom added that the Tenstar summer camp was assessed at 4.5/5 by the Local Authority Walsall Council inspection team, “one of the highest scores awarded to a new provision” and that “a large number of parents and kids scored us at outstanding”.
What about the Adamo situation? When will people get paid?
Back in March, Tom promised everyone owed money would be paid, and that Adamo was awaiting £107,237 in payments from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), ‘which should come in within four weeks’.
Now, he’s said in an update to ENUK that the Kickstart matter is still with DWP, that they committed to resolve it by August 16th, which they apparently missed and extended the deadline to September 16th.
“As soon as DWP honour the grant for those staff, it will be paid. So will any compensatory element that is received. To that end, our Kickstart contract holder with the biggest DWP outstanding bill has begun legal action vs DWP for the recovery.”
When Tom said Adamo nor Tenstar ever held a Kickstart contract, I pointed out a separate company called Tenstar Personnel Ltd did, and how it having the same Tenstar name in Tenstar GG Ltd might confuse people, he deflected, mentioning the right to be forgotten rule and how some of my articles about him are requesting to be delisted, and intimated there’s been no confusion in the past Adamo situation and that people have only had a fraction of the truth.
Tom, those articles are less than a year old, and I’ve spoken to many of your former staff who have provided me with proof they weren’t paid. This is just a small reason why I cannot trust what you say.
If you want my personal view, I think you stepped down from Tenstar to remove yourself from the public eye for a bit following the Adamo unpaid staff scandal, and as one former employee said: “The plan was always for Tom to temporarily publicly step down [as Tenstar CEO] and then just come back quietly when the heat died down.”
To me, there’s nothing wrong with stepping down, but be clear with your communications and what you’re doing, lest it confuse others in UK esports.
Why not just remain as CEO? The stepping down, seemingly quietly adding CEO to your job title on your Linkedin and Tenstar website later on (or forgetting to remove it, as I was told), to me just comes across as confusing, disingenuous and like you’re trying to hide something.
Given all this, joining an invite-only roundtable on esports legitimacy that you weren’t personally invited to is insanity.
Anyway, congratulations to Tenstar Nova for winning the Contenders Legion: Athena Series.
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.
