The inaugural Esports World Cup 2024 is scheduled to run from July 3 to August 25 2024 in Riyadh, an element of Saudi Arabias vision, for the year 2030. With a prize pool of $60 million the competition will showcase a total of 19 esports games, including the highly awaited Club Championship. However amidst all the anticipation and enthusiasm it is important to address the concerns raised about the events ties to the government and its potential impact, on human rights issues those related to womens rights and LGBT+ rights.
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Esports World Cup Club Championship
The Esports World Cup 2024 Club Championship can be described as a tournament that seeks to award the best 16 organizations with recognition. It has its own prize fund of $20 million exclusively for the participants of this championship. The winner of the two teams that shall be competing for a total of eight weeks shall be the Club Champion. But as for the particular rankings, and the distribution of the prize money, the details are still unclear.
This is in line with the Esports World Cup 2024 Foundations goals of promoting the formation of teams in various disciplines of esports. The EWC Club Programme has financially assisted 30 esports organisations under the program. The list of the companies that have joined the program was revealed on the 6th of May and some of the most popular companies that signed up are G2 Esports, FaZe Clan, and T1.
First of all, it is important to state that being enrolled in this program does not grant the team the right to compete in the Esports World Cup 2024 event.
Mobile Legend Bang Bang
The Esports World Cup 2024 is directly related to the MLBB official esports ecosystem since it is also a title that belongs to this franchise. The game will be introducing two tournaments, the Mid-Season Cup (MSC) which has been rebranded and the MLBB Women’s Invitational (MWI) in Saudi Arabia. This is the first time that these two tournaments will be held in any country that does not belong to the Southeast Asian region.
MSC 2024 will be held from June 28 to July 14 where 23 teams will compete for a grand prize of $3m (~£2. 4m). MWI – an esports championship excluding male competitors – will take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in August with a prize pool of $500,000.
Pubg Mobile
Agreeing to the organization understanding between Timi Studio and theEsports World Cup Establishment, the PUBG Mobile World Glass 2024 will be conducted in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This can be within the center of the season for the Amusement of the 2024 year.
28 teams from different regional leagues will have a chance to compete for the prize pool of $3m in the tournament that will take place in July 2018. The teams will be selected from the various regional events that will be held continuously.
PUBG: Battlegrounds
Over to PUBG’s PC counterpart, little information has been announced about PUBG: In this paper we will focus on the relation between Battlegrounds and the event. In the announcement of the game’s 2024 esports roadmap, KRAFTON has confirmed a mid-season global event in Riyadh this August which means that the publisher will be involved in the Esports World Cup 2024.
However, the roadmap does not link the tournament to the competitive path towards PGC as a calendar. The last issue that needs to be discussed is the mechanism of how the teams are going to be selected.
League of Legends
League of Legends developed by Riot Games, one of the biggest esports games in the world, will join the Esports World Cup 2024.
Till this date, the details have not been revealed but what has been confirmed is that the event will be organized by the Esports World Cup 2024 Foundation and Riot Games has come out to clarify that they will have no participation with the event. However, Riot Games as an organization did not participate in the tournament but it included it into the official schedule of esports so that teams could prepare and struggle for the championship.
Overwatch 2
As the Overwatch League ceased its operations in 2023, Overwatch is currently in a very strategic phase where the game is shifting to a more open system. Overwatch Champions Series, which was launched by the Saudi-owned ESL FACEIT Group with the cooperation of Blizzard, will act as a qualification event for the Esports World Cup 2024.
There are 16 Overwatch 2 teams that will participate in the event as has been disclosed. To date, some of the teams participating in the event include Team Falcons, Crazy Raccoon, From The Gamer, and YETI.
Honor of Kings
The game Honor of Kings is still in the process of its global release, but it is already a fixture at the Esports World Cup 2024.
The Honor of Kings Invitational Midseason is scheduled to take place in Riyadh, with the top 12 teams fighting for a piece of the $3m (~£2. 4m) prize.
Also, the publisher and developer, Level Infinite, which is owned by Tencent has entered into a partnership agreement with the Esports World Cup 2024 Foundation. As a part of this, both PUBG Mobile and Honor of Kings will be a part of the event for the next three years.
Free Fire
Free Fire is the first game on this list in which its Esports World 2024 event is connected with the official game’s global esports system. Selected teams will have the opportunity to participate in the FFWS through official Free Fire World Series competitions in various parts of the world. Furthermore, the winner of the competition will also be given a chance to compete in the FFWS Global Finals 2024.
The event is scheduled to begin from 10th of July and will continue till 14th of July with 18 teams battling it out for the $1m(~£796,000) prize pool.
Counter-Strike 2
The Counter-Strike 2 competition of the global gaming will be held between July 17th and 21st under the banner of Esports World Cup 2024. The stake is $1m to be distributed among 15 teams that will be assembled from different parts of the world. Two major Counter-Strike tournaments – Team Spirit (IEM Katowice 2024 champions) and Natus Vincere (PGL Major Copenhag are the winners who were selected by invitation and regional qualifying did make it to the event. Indeed, Esports World Cup’s Counter-Strike 2 competition will take place from July 17th-21th.”
Dota-2
The Riyadh Masters is making a return in 2024, as it had briefly been part of last year’s multi-title esports event, Gamers8 which was held in Saudi Arabia. There are 20 teams expected to compete when the tournament takes place in July to fight for some of its $5m (~£4.67m) prize money available at stake including qualifiers from specific regions around the globe with qualification attached to an existing ESL Pro Tour Leaderboard. Among the teams which are known to be participating include Team Liquid, Team Falcons and BetBoom Team.
EA FC 2024
Players participating in the EA FC 2024’s Esports World Cup 2024 game can qualify via competitions held at DreaHack Dallas or DreamHack Summer in Sweden. Apart from that, the best gamers will be invited directly into this championship by its organizers. The exact details concerning both the structure of these activities and such issues as money available for them are still unknown. EA Sports has mentioned that their event scheduled for August will not be among those run under the EA FC Pro system.
Fortnite
The next game on the list is Fortnite, but it will be a bit different from what most people expect regarding the Battle Royale game. The Esports World Cup 2024 Foundation plans to introduce an innovative ‘competitive UEFN (Unreal Editor for Fortnite) island experience’. It has not been revealed who exactly will be taking part in the competition or how it will be organized. Nonetheless, Epic Games is not affiliated with this tournament, which is therefore a third-party event held by the Es”.
Rainbow Six Siege
There is no mention of the event on the game’s esports roadmap, and thus it appears that Rainbow Six Siege will be having its own separate tournament during the Esports World Cup 2024. The format, teams and prize pool have not been disclosed yet.
Rocket League
The Esports World Cup 2024 will host another third-party tournament, outside the gaming ecosystem. Like in Rainbow Six Siege, there is no information about the format of the game, teams details, or prize money.
Starcraft II
The Starcraft II esports roadmap has been primarily influenced by The Esports World Cup 2024. “ESL declared that Riyadh tournament should be a championship of 2024 SC2 Pro Tour earlier in the year” (Anonymous). So now it means that it plays the role of Winter Olympics for the whole season. At any time gamers can participate in various competitions aiming at qualifying for Esports World Cup where he will have a chance to become the world champion. Its prize will be around one million dollars (approximately eight hundred thousand pounds) while sixteen players would be participating in it.
Rennsport
Rennsport is the exclusive racing simulator at the tournament which features a variety of them. By 2023, it had come together with ESL and formed ESL R1 for its initial season of Spring and Fall campaigns where there is a racing sim eSports league tailored for this game only. This year again sees another series of races; EFG has announced that they will continue with ESL R1 2024 Spring Season during which racers from all over will vie against each other over six rounds before making it into the twelfth slot at Esports World Cup 2024 finals. The next iteration of the event has comprised of same teams from its past editions plus a few.
Street Fighter 6
The first fighting game from two for Esports World Cup 2024 is Street Fighter 6. For the Capcom Pro Tour 2024, this game is in no way related to the tournament. For the event, the top six players of EVO Japan SF6, Menard, Lexx and Moke have qualified. The format and prize pool have not yet been disclosed.
Teamfight Tactics
Although the format, prize pool and other details have not been revealed, Teamfight Tactics is included in the Esports World Cup 2024. Similarly, like League of Legends, it has been made explicit by Riot Games that they will not produce the event, but however, players will be allowed to participate in it hence the tournament will be a third-party tournament.
Tekken 8
The final entry on this list is the fighting game called Tekken 8. The Tekken World Tour doesn’t officially enlist the Esports World Cup 2024 but players will be able to do so by winning various tournaments in the tour. Details indicate that the top six players at EVO Japan will participate, as made public inn satisfactory terms. Beside, Dreamhack Dallas will run an official qualifier for this game’s Esports World Cup Qualifier and also win a slot for the victor. Find the full l
Apex Legends
The Esports World Cup spotlights appeared to be complete upon confirming that Apex Legends was the last title. Unfortunately, so far the exact format for the upcoming tournaments in terms of teams, prize pool among other factors has not been revealed yet. Having done so, people started anticipating on seeing if such characters would appear among games played during that period because they wanted them involved too “for real”. On the other hand, Respawn denied having placed any characters or cosmetics restrictions for Esports World Cup on its message to Kotaku.
