Esports World Cup

The Esports World Cup (EWC) is an annual international esports tournament series run by the Esports World Cup Foundation, a nonprofit organization. It is considered the largest professional esports event in the world both financially and in terms of games, with US$62.5 million, encompassing individual tournament prize pools, rewards for teams that qualify to events, most valuable player awards, and the Club Championship, being awarded to esport teams and players during the 2024 edition and upwards of 25 titles being contested at EWC itself. The tournament itself takes place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from July to August each year.

The Esports World Cup has its origins in Gamers Without Borders (GWB), a charity esports tournament series run by the Saudi Arabian Federation for Electronic and Intellectual Sport (SAFEIS, with esports later being spun off to become the Saudi Esports Federation) that originally supported charities who played a part in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the SEF launched Gamers8, an eight-week gaming and esports festival held in Riyadh's Boulevard City, with Gamers Without Borders serving as a qualifying series in most titles to Gamers8. In 2023, Gamers8 played host to the final FIFAe World Cup held on the FIFA series of video games published by EA Sports, along with introducing the Club Awards, a US$5 million cross-game competition where the best-performing esport clubs across multiple titles were awarded prize money.

In September 2023, the EWC and its eponymous Foundation were formally established by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with the inaugural Esports World Cup held the following year as the successor to Gamers8. The tournament series dramatically increased in scope, with most of the major esports titles present at the event. In addition, the Club Awards were replaced with the Club Championship, a wider US$20 million cross-game competition that aggregates the individual game results of all participating organizations (known as "clubs" to the EWC) to crown a Club Champion. The inaugural edition was won by Saudi Arabia's Team Falcons. Esport clubs were also given financial incentives via the Club Support Program (later the Club Partner Program).

In 2025, the EWC introduced chess as part of its lineup, with Magnus Carlsen serving as the EWC's official chess ambassador, as part of an enlargement of the series to consist of a US$70 million+ prize pool.

The EWC has been criticized as being used as a sportswashing tool by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to distract the esports community from its numerous human rights violations; commentators drew attention to the country's stance on LGBTQ+ rights, women's rights, and its handling of dissent.