From Liiv Sandbox to FearX via BNK: behind the on-stage story, the LCK club's financial statements tell the tale of a patient turnaround for a business model still under reconstruction.
Financially, 2025 also marks a fourth straight year of losses and a quiet restructuring. What we're laying out today is the economic story of the club at the Fennec.
Sandbox Network, the Korean content creator agency founded in 2014 and known for managing the country's biggest YouTubers (such as Dotty), bought out Team BattleComics to enter the LCK, South Korea's top-tier League of Legends league.
That was the birth of SANDBOX Gaming, and in December 2020 the team secured a naming deal with Kookmin Bank, becoming Liiv SANDBOX.
In what has become a familiar script, the club burned through serious cash. According to statements from former CEO Jeong In-mo, between 2019 and late 2022 the club invested the equivalent of roughly $15M, excluding LCK franchise fees. Sandbox Network, itself in financial difficulty, no longer had the balance sheet to carry its esports operation.
Enter 4BY4, a listed company specialized in AI video processing, run by Yoon Jun-ho. Already under pressure on its historical margins, 4BY4 was looking to diversify beyond B2B, and saw in esports a golden bridge to the mass-market consumer.
In March 2023, 4BY4's board approved the acquisition of 60.59% of SBXG (SandBoX Gaming) for a total of roughly $5.3M, structured in two steps:
The massive valuation gap between the two tranches is less the product of a deliberate strategic choice than of plain reality: Sandbox's esports subsidiary was effectively on the brink of insolvency. The deal was, first and foremost, a financial rescue — and the external expert tasked with the valuation justified the price with one project: Portal.
The premium PC bang chain was meant to grow from one location to eight, and on its own carry the club to ~$11M of Portal revenue by 2027, within a total plan projecting $22M of group-wide revenue that same year. Spoiler: neither target will ever be hit.
Income Statement (in $M)
*The 2024 net loss is artificially reduced by a one-off gain (see below).
Every year between 2022 and 2025, the club spent as much as — or more than — it earned. By the end of 2025, accumulated losses stand at $16M.
On the revenue side, a stark disappointment compared to the ambitions laid out at the time of the acquisition:
Revenue Segmentation (in $M)
Portal never crosses $560,000 in annual revenue and even shrinks in 2025. The investment thesis that underpinned the valuation has collapsed. The esports revenue line, meanwhile, stagnates for four years around $3.3M before jumping in 2024, driven by the arrival of the BNK naming deal.
Between March 2023 and early 2026, three decisions prevented a crash.
December 2023: the FearX rebranding
End of the Kookmin Bank contract, the club drops the Liiv Sandbox name. New fennec logo, refreshed visual identity, pivot toward a fan culture built around the NEXX mascot. A purely marketing operation — but one that opened the commercial window for a new partner.
May 2024: the BNK naming deal
Signed with BNK Financial Group, the impact shows up clearly in the books: +$920,000 in services revenue between 2023 and 2025. The contract has since been extended for three more years.
The Riot Games gift
Riot Korea wrote off the equivalent of $2.25M in unpaid LCK franchise fees in 2024, out of an initially estimated total of ~$6M owed.
Another driver of the turnaround was aggressive cost-cutting. Total payroll (staff + player salaries) went from $4.29M in 2022 to $2.94M in 2025 — a 32% reduction.
In parallel, 4BY4 injected an additional $1.70M in 2024 at the same share price as in 2023 — a signal that internally, no meaningful re-rating of the club's valuation has taken place. Over three years, the group has put roughly $6.2M on the table just to keep the club alive.
In the course of 2025, a new CEO, Kim Hae-chan, took the reins of SBXG. On January 22, 2026, the board formally approved the change of corporate name: SBXG Co., Ltd. becomes FearX Co., Ltd.
BNK FearX today runs on one of the leanest cost structures in the LCK, and is riding what is likely the strongest sporting momentum in its history.
The business model, however, remains fundamentally difficult to steer: a mid-tier LCK club can pull off the occasional deep run, but to truly compete with the giants of the league, much more will be required.
On the Rift, Diable and his roster are working wonders. In the books, FearX remains a club that stays afloat only because a listed parent company keeps hoping that, one day, the PC bangs will pay off — and that NEXX merchandise will take off.
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