Esports World Cup Attracts Over One Million Visitors in Riyadh

The Esports World Cup tops 177 Million Hours watched as more than 1 Million Visitors attend the Esports and Gaming Festival in Riyadh. "After four short weeks, the Esports World Cup has already exceeded our highest expectations," said Ralf Reichert, CEO of the Esports World Cup Foundation.

The Esports World Cup Foundation (EWCF), the non-profit organisation behind the Esports World Cup, has announced a total of 177.5 million hours watched over the first four weeks. A total of $16.5 million of the event's $60 million prize pool has been distributed across nine of the 22 championships. Finally, the event's daily festival has attracted more than one million visitors during the first half of the landmark event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The festival venues alone have attracted 289,000 visitors, while the esports competitions have sold more than 60,000 tickets so far. The esports events are less than 3,000 tickets away from being sold out, with four weeks and 13 competitions to go.

"After four quick weeks, the Esports World Cup has already surpassed our highest expectations," said Ralf Reichert, CEO, Esports World Cup Foundation. "When we started this journey, our goal was to leapfrog the esports industry with a historic global event uniting the best games, players and Clubs, and reach fans beyond the core esports enthusiasts, while tapping into the 3.4 billion gamers around the world. I'm proud that we're well on our way to achieving that goal here in Riyadh with hundreds of millions of viewers at home, and over a million visiting onsite, shattering not only our expectations, but also a lot of 2024 esports records. The EWC has awarded more than $16 million in life-changing prize money so far, with millions more to come, including the ultimate prize - a share of $20 million across the Esports World Cup Club Championship at the end of August."

In its first four weeks, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) had the highest peak viewership of the event with nearly 2.4 million concurrent viewers, the largest number for any MLBB tournament in 2024, according to the organisers. "The game's popularity extended to the MLBB Women's Invitational at EWC, recording 2.5 million hours watched over its 34-hour total broadcast - with 265,117 peak viewers, it became the fourth most-watched event in women’s esports history. Mobile games in general have exceeded viewership expectations at the EWC, with Free Fire attracting over 441,000 peak concurrents," the EWCF wrote. "With 55 million hours watched, the Dota 2 competition was the most-watched tournament for the game this year, while the League of Legends competition was the largest third-party tournament for the game in the last decade, recording 53 million hours watched and 3.4 million peak viewers (including China)." On social media, the EWC accounts collectively generated more than 1 billion impressions, 270 million social video views and 58 million total social engagements. However, these impressive figures do not hide the fact that interest in the EWC varies greatly from region to region and that the event had little impact in the GSA area.

International football stars Neymar and Diogo Jota visited the EWC in week 3. "Being here at the inaugural Esports World Cup is a truly amazing experience," said Jota. "The organization and scale behind this event are truly impressive, even more than I anticipated. I've always believed in the potential of esports, even before starting my own team, and EWC is proof that this scene is evolving rapidly. This level of investment and infrastructure is exactly what esports needs to grow and reach a wider audience. I'm excited to see how EWC continues to evolve and push the boundaries of competitive gaming."

Esports World Cup Foundation: "Currently, Team Falcons sits atop the Esports World Cup Club Championship leaderboard with 3500 points, 2330 above second-place Team Liquid. The Club Championship, an innovative cross-game competitive format unique to the EWC featuring a dedicated prize pool of $20 million, rewards the top 16 clubs based on their overall performance. At the event's conclusion, the Club with the best performance across the 22 game championships will be crowned the world’s first Esports World Cup Club Champion."

The inaugural EWC concludes on 25 August as the first-ever Esports World Cup Club Champion is crowned and awarded its share of the $20 million Club Championship prize pool. This will be followed by the EWC Closing Ceremony, where clubs, players and fans will come together.

The second edition of the two-day New Global Sport Conference (NGSC) begins on 24 August. The list of speakers so far includes HRH Prince Faisal bin Bandar, Ralf Reichert, Magnus Carlsen, Toshimoto Mitomo, Greg Norman, Maya Rogers, RJ Cutler, Dr Songyee Yoon, Sir Leonard Blavatnik and Joe Marsh.

Never miss anything from the German, Swiss and Austrian games industry again: subscribe for free to our Daily newsletter and get all news straight to your inbox.