“I think that VALORANT's done an extremely good job at being able to get good digital goods out there”- Josh "Sideshow" Wilkinson on the state of the esport

Josh “Sideshow” Wilkinson has become a name synonymous with the defining moments in VALORANT history, casting Grand Finals from Copenhagen to Toronto alongside Brennon “Bren” Hook. Yet outside of his role as a caster, Sideshow is one of the game’s biggest personalities as the face of VALORANT podcast Plat Chat, with in depth knowledge and immense passion for the game and industry as a whole.

In this exclusive interview with Adrian from THESPIKE at Champions Paris, Sideshow discusses VALORANT’s navigation through the “esports winter,” his evolution into the face of Plat Chat, personal journey within esports, as well as striking a healthy work-life balance.

Climbing out of the esports winter

Sideshow has witnessed the evolution of esports for the past ten years, having been involved in the industry from competing in Team Fortress 2 to casting in the Overwatch League. As someone with a wealth of experience and expertise in the industry, Sideshow has been vocal about the esports winter for the past several years and shares how the industry might progress after seemingly crawling out of this period.

From 2022, a period of financial downturn and market correction hit the esports industry, with a streak of esports companies reporting losses, minimizing operations or even shutting down entirely. This was reflected in VALORANT both in the tier 2 and tier 1 scenes. In tier 2, massive organizations like XSET, OpTic Gaming, and FaZe Clan announced departures from the scene after missing out on VCT partnership in 2023, reflecting an increasingly unsustainable tier 2 ecosystem. Meanwhile in tier 1, most North American players who were getting paid “upwards of $20,000 to $30,000 per month” in 2022 had their salaries scaled back closer to league minimum ($50,000 per year) in 2024.

Sideshow puts the causes of this downturn aptly: “The esports winter was mostly due to the fact that a lot of the esports organizations are buoyed up by venture capital investments. A lot of that is also contingent on how easy it is to borrow money, so the period of the boom was where you had very low interest rates overall. When those started to crawl up, and so borrowing became more expensive, people were looking to take cost-cutting measures.”

“The industry had been relying on the expectation that you would be able to sell streaming rights,” he explains, “and after Overwatch League had some limited success with being able to get streaming rights through Twitch, while YouTube stopped paying streamers exclusive deals in the West, those streaming rights deals don't really seem to have materialized.”

Rather than viewing it as an esports winter, it's more how previous expectations have had to be realigned.

VALORANT’s partnership system, brought in at the start of 2023, has faced criticism over the years. This is especially true when prominent tier two organizations announced their departure from VALORANT, most recently 2021 Champions winners Acend. Yet one of the benefits of this system, according to Sideshow, is the ability to introduce digital goods within VALORANT. To him, this has been an important way that Riot has navigated through this economic downturn, by “making decent partnership agreements so that organizations are not financially hamstrung by buying into the league, and making it a worthwhile investment by being able to get the fans to actually pay with money, which has always been a big problem in esports.”

I think that VALORANT's done an extremely good job at being able to get good digital goods out there, stuff that people want.

“Leo (Leo Faria) has talked about the redesign of how partnership works to try to incentivize investment from teams that are not locked in for years to try to get some of that tier two integration going. It seems to be something they're focused on for 2027, and that does seem like a good direction to go in. I’m not quite sure how they’re going to do that with digital goods, however. There's no real concrete answer. It's figuring out as you go.”

The face of Plat Chat VALORANT

Sideshow alongside some of the current VCT Americas talent such as Bren and Wyatt “Wyatt” River started Plat Chat VALORANT at the game’s inception five years ago, and has grown it into the esport’s leading podcast covering VCT weekly. Over the past year, it’s clear that Sideshow has evolved into the face of the podcast.

“It's mostly because I've always wanted, from the very beginning, to try to watch as much as I can, but I can't watch everything. I think people who do are a bit mental- even Connor "Sliggy" Blomfield can't watch literally everything, because China and Pacific are happening concurrently,” he jokes.

“I try to watch as much as I can, and that means I'm in a position to do the show more often than other people, because I've got more of a wide awareness of the scene than some others who might be specialized. But even then, I still host the show quite a lot instead of giving my analysis. You need a lot of bodies to cover that amount of matches that happen throughout the year. And I'm down to do it, because I think it's fun.”

A dynamic journey through esports

Asked about how he got to where he is from his background as a medical student, Sideshow explained how “there is a large element of luck to it. Some of it is just about being in the right place at the right time, and the effort you put in to be rewarded.”

Yet given these opportunities, he opened up about doing a tremendous amount of growing since then. “One of the things that I've really focused on is leaning heavily into practices that are good for me being more productive,” he said, “I think when I was at university, procrastination was key, so I went into esports because it was something that I had motivation to do, something that I really enjoyed."

"Now, I'm not driven by motivation and excitement every day I wake up working in esports. It's more about building habit, building routine, and finding value in all of the small spaces. I am somebody that likes to spread myself fairly wide and have a lot of different interests. So one day if I’m not feeling one of my interests, I can still find value in another and tease out that productivity. But it all takes time.”

“I think if I went back and told my 20-year-old self that, he'd tell me to shut up,” he jokes.

Striking a healthy work-life balance

While talents like Sideshow have traditionally worked entire Masters and Champions shows from start to finish, this year has seen a different approach, where there is an interchange of talent halfway into tournaments. While he has enjoyed his time co-streaming the early games of VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 - Valorant Champions at home, Sideshow explains that this is “a decision made by Riot to add in more people to these global events.”

“Normally the global events are run by just a select few people that get to be on the mic and you don't get to see other great casters that are coming up, like Mitch and Wyatt. Recently in EMEA they brought up Kairo and Hazza who I think are excellent too. We've been mixing in a lot more people at the beginning of these events, so I think that's a good thing generally.”

“It has offered me more time to be able to do other stuff as well. I made a very deliberate focus at the start of this year to dial off a little bit with Valorant stuff and not go as heavy on streaming everything constantly. That leaves me time to be able to do other things like be more healthy, cook properly, go to the gym, go outside, spend time with my wife. These things that are a requirement if you want to live a real life,” he laughs, “but I do have a lot of varied interests.”

Lately, Sideshow has been pursuing interests beyond all the VALORANT content that fills much of his life.

“One of the problems is the more hobbies you get, the more things that you're bad at, so I've been trying to pick up what I can and enjoying playing. Tennis, for example, is something I'm more focused on this year. I've been doing a lot more reading, a lot of stuff into politics and economics that I don't normally talk about on stream but it's a big interest of mine.”

I've been dabbling more in my interests while still keeping up with VALORANT enough to do my job at a competent level but not go complete bonkers.

Tune into Sideshow’s long-form content at Sideshow VALORANT, and catch his weekly appearances at Plat Chat VALORANT. Otherwise, catch him next season at VCT Americas as well as the Masters and Champions events at Santiago, London, and Shanghai respectively.

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