The Esports World Cup Club Programme announced its 30 teams last month. Eight teams were chosen from an applications process that saw over 150 entries from organizations around the globe, and 22 were directly invited by the Esports World Cup Foundation. I wanted to take a look at what teams have done in the Counter-Strike world both to secure that partnership and potentially with the money — as well as what it potentially means for the esport as a whole.
Let’s Get Some Terminology Out of the Way
The Esports World Cup is an eight-week esports tournament due to be held in Riyadh. It is run by the Esports World Cup Foundation with production handled by tournament organiser ESL. It is due to be an annual festival and replaces the Gamers8 event which was also held in Riyadh from 2021-22. (Gamers8 was also associated with the charity event Gamers Without Borders). ESWC is not linked to the Electronic Sports World Cup, an event that ran from 2003 to 2018, besides having purchased the rights to the name.
The Esports World Cup Foundation is a non-profit organization tasked with organizing the ESWC. The CEO is Ralf Reichert, founder of SK Gaming and former co-CEO of ESL FACEIT Group, who reports directly to Prince Faisal bin Bandar. In addition to being a member of the Saudi royal family, Prince Faisal is also the head of the Saudi Esports Federation, president of the International Esports Federation, and the Arab Esports Federation, as well as vice-president of the Global Esports Federation, and sitting on the Esports Leadership Group which has links to the International Olympic Committee.
ESL FACEIT Group, formed by the merger of ESL and FACEIT, is owned by the Savvy Games Group, a Saudi-backed gaming organization that specializes in such investments, with minority stakes in Nintendo, EA, Take-Two, Embracer Group, and Capcom. The Savvy Gaming Group is chaired by HRH Mohammad Bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
The ESWC Foundation and Savvy Games Group are backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which owns Newcastle United, the LIV golf circuit, and many other sporting investments. The PIF, also chaired by Bin Salman, is the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia and was created in 1971 to invest in projects on the country’s behalf. In addition to investing in domestic projects, the PIF also owns stakes in Uber, Accor, Blackstone, and the Russian Direct Investment Fund, among others.
Saudi Vision 2030 is a government initiative in Saudi Arabia designed to diversify their economy which is currently heavily reliant on oil exports. It was created in 2016 but efforts have gathered pace in recent years with large-scale cultural construction projects in Saudi Arabia as well as large investments in Western sports. This includes “mega-projects” NEOM and Qiddiya. NEOM is intended to be a clean energy-powered “mega-city”, while Qiddiya is intended as a global entertainment hub, including gaming facilities for top esports teams. NEOM was previously announced as a sponsor for a number of esports events including BLAST Premier, but this agreement was terminated following significant community backlash. Qiddiya is a partner of ESL FACEIT Group and is prominently featured in their recent broadcasts.
Got all that? It’s hard not to think that this is deliberately opaque and convoluted so that people don’t look into it further.
What is the Esports World Cup Club Programme?
Might as well let the ESWC Foundation sum it up:
“Clubs accepted into the programme that show competitive excellence, draw the most viewership, and generate social engagement leading up to and during the World Cup will be eligible for an annual six-figure payout.”
And also worthy of note:
“In 2024, a one-time stimulus is available to the teams that want to enter into new esports titles to compete in a cross-game tournament.”
These numbers are not publicly available but according to sources who spoke to Richard Lewis, this “one-time stimulus” is in the region of $100,000-$300,000 per game.
It was advertised as being open to 28 teams but the program was expanded to a total of 30 teams — eight from the applications program and 22 directly invited by the ESWC Foundation — because of the volume of applications. The total number of applications was in the triple digits.
Six-figure annual sums are nothing to sniff at, but in a world where title sponsorships are worth seven and even eight figures, it’s hardly “life-changing money”, the phrase that is endemic to the Esports World Cup’s marketing, with their total prize pool across all esports titles being $60m. The real benefit is the one-time stimulus, which helps organizations to acquire rosters in new esports to compete for the Esports World Cup Club Championship – a separate, $20m prize pool “Victor Ludorum” event for the ESWC as a whole. With the top organization taking home $4m all for themselves – no player cuts this time == the more teams you have, no doubt the better.
One thing that is notable about the ESWC Club Programme is that being a member does not guarantee you a spot at the event. Unlike the partnership deals such as BLAST and ESL which have been the norm in Counter-Strike for the last few years, teams for ESWC events are chosen through different criteria. In the case of Counter-Strike, they’d have to do that from next year anyway, with Valve’s 2025 tournament changes. For 2024, seven teams are invited based on the ESL Global World Ranking, Six teams qualify from regional qualifiers, and NaVi and Spirit are invited for winning IEM Katowice and the PGL Copenhagen Major respectively. Yes, this does mean there are 15 teams; no, I don’t know why either.
What’s all this got to do with CS anyway?
Counter-Strike makes a lot of sense as an esport to invest in if you happen to be the ESWC Foundation. Firstly there’s the ESL link – ESL’s rise came off the back of their numerous Counter-Strike tournaments including the Intel Extreme Masters series and the Intel Grand Slam. So of course you want CS2 at your event. It’s also just one of the biggest esports in the world, period.
But also there’s no franchising – ESL and BLAST’s sweetheart deals aside, the Valve part of the circuit is open and from next year, such TO/organization relationships are heavily restricted. Also, Valve is extremely permissive with tournament licenses, in case the flood of tournaments sponsored by tenuously legal betting companies didn’t prove that already. Valve has yet to comment on the ESWC Club Programme and how it fits in with their tournament changes, but presumably, they must be OK with it. They’re notoriously reluctant to revoke tournament licenses, too — and obviously they haven’t yet.
Which is to say if you were a team owner and you wanted to pick up a team with little-to-no long-term obligation, Counter-Strike is a pretty good bet. Even at the worst, you’ll likely be playing officials in those lower-tier betting-sponsored tournaments on a daily basis, and at best, you might even be the organization that manages a fairytale run to the Major and with it the seven-figure sticker money. No bidding process for spots in the top leagues, no bureaucracy, and certainly no fit and proper persons test.
So naturally the ESWC features Counter-Strike, even if their 15-team format could be called “unique” if you were charitable, and “silly” if you’re not.
Why do teams need the money?
Those working on the current Saudi gaming investments must scarcely believe their luck at the timing. The market contraction around esports, commonly referred to as the “esports winter”, has resulted in the loss of sponsorships and staff cutbacks for many organizations — which struggle to be profitable at the best of times — right as Saudi Arabia has large sums of money they want to invest in entertainment.
From a Counter-Strike perspective, the so-called “partner leagues” are being ended, forcibly, by Valve. These arrangements were controversial in the community because they conveyed guaranteed invitations to certain big teams – which led to stinging criticism of teams who struggled competitively yet retained their invites, such as Evil Geniuses. It’s important to remember though that they also featured revenue-sharing arrangements in exchange for marketing from the teams. It is probably not a coincidence that many of the partner teams are included in the ESWC program.
G2, Liquid, FaZe, Vitality, and Natus Vincere were all part of both ESL and BLAST’s partnership programs; Fnatic (ESL) and OG (BLAST) had one each. Cloud9 joined BLAST last year (after Evil Geniuses’ exit), and Virtus.Pro and Team Falcons are both BLAST “affiliates” for this season, a one-year program that sees them get invites to BLAST Groups, but no revenue-sharing. The cost of those spots has not been made public, but BLAST did say they expected them to sell for a “minimum” of €350,000 each.
Most of those teams are already backed by significant financial muscle. Those first five have already built “superteams” within Counter-Strike, and will no doubt do so again. Virtus.Pro recently signed electr0nic for reportedly low seven figures – that was just one player. A six-figure annual payout is nice but it’s not going to be the be-all-and-end-all.
Polar Bears in Arlington Texas
Not all the teams in the program are quite so entrenched in the Counter-Strike scene.
Guild Esports, best known for having David Beckham as a co-owner slash influencer, signed Bad News Eagles. The Kosovar side famous for their upsets against FaZe at the Major seemed like a sure-fire bet, but the team struggled to find any impact in Counter-Strike 2 and has recently disbanded. Guild has instead opted to focus on sim-racing and mobile games, joining Mobile Legends Bang Bang along with Saudi organization R8 Esports. Guild has been heavily invested in the event, with CEO Jasmine Skee attending the New Global Sport Conference in 2023, where the Esports World Cup was announced.
Did you know that Gen.G has a Counter-Strike team again? The organization entered Counter-Strike in 2020 as part of Flashpoint and achieved some strong results including wins at Dreamhack Open Anaheim and ESL Road to Rio North America, but left at the end of the year after losing and subsequently failing to replace s0m and daps, presumably influenced by the uncertainty of the Flashpoint circuit as a whole. The team they picked up in February is of a somewhat different caliber, a Chinese roster finishing 7th-8th in ESEA Open Asia and yet to play an official on HLTV.
Speaking of s0m and daps, NRG came back to Counter-Strike with a North American team last November – two weeks after Guild signed the Bad News Eagles. Featuring former players from Liquid, Complexity, and Evil Geniuses, the squad has not really lived up to expectations – currently ranked 6th in North America. Their biggest success was winning charity event David’s Cup and qualifying for the BLAST Fall Showdown, only to then have to forfeit their place in order to compete in Valve’s Major closed qualifier. Their hope for a change of fortunes rests with nitr0, freshly returned from VALORANT and reunited with oSee — but on an aging roster that surely must be running out of chances.
Fnatic and OG are both partnered with one of the big TOs – ESL for Fnatic and BLAST for OG – and both have struggled in recent years. Fnatic’s signing of BlameF, which came shortly after the ESWC Club Programme was announced, signified something of a shift in strategy: a blockbuster signing from a team that had previously been seen as picking up the best of lower-tier talent. OG has done much of the same, even utilizing some of the same players (former Fnatic rifler FASHR and Fnatic Rising AWPer Regali have both played for OG in the last 12 months).
While Fnatic has re-affirmed its commitment to Counter-Strike, OG’s presence is a bit more uncertain right now. They have just lost star rifler HeavyGod to Cloud9, and have not solidified a replacement – they will play BLAST Fall Groups with Thomas formerly of OG. With BLAST’s partnerships ending, and OG struggling to find any success outside of that circuit, they could opt to cut their losses and run.
What does this mean for Counter-Strike?
A lot more tournaments in Saudi Arabia, for starters. Even though Gamers8 only held a Counter-Strike tournament for the first time in 2023, a lot of graft behind the scenes has put key players in positions of power. As mentioned, the IESF World Championships for 2024 — ironically closer to the “Esports World Cup” concept than the tournament with that name — will take place in Riyadh in November. The inaugural Olympics Esports Championships will also take place in Riyadh in 2025 — not a huge surprise given Prince Faisal’s connections mentioned earlier.
ESL’s deal with Gaming Malta to host the ESL Pro League is up at the end of season 20, with no word yet on a renewal. The future of Pro League is itself is speculated to be somewhat up in the air due to Valve’s cancellation of team partnerships (and low viewing figures for the most recent season), but I’m not the first person to suggest Saudi Arabia would be a potential destination. Savvy Gaming Group would no doubt love it, and ESL wouldn’t have to worry about a dead crowd for the event which is almost exclusively held in a studio environment.
Adding fuel to the fire, The Esports Advocate recently revealed details of the Qiddiya City Club Programme, a series of partnerships with tournament organizers and professional esports teams to entice them to bring their operations to the mega-city. Teams already in the existing EWC program are expected to receive priority. So while I’d still not expect to see teams bootcamping medium-to-long term in Saudi Arabia within the next 2-3 years – the potential disadvantage from not being able to scrim the world’s best teams, who are predominantly EU-based, is just too great – it does seem like that may happen within a decade. It would be an interesting reversal of the current status quo that saw Falcons’ “superteam” bootcamp in Copenhagen.
More events in Saudi Arabia means more conversation about its suitability to host events. Last year Israeli players had to be given 24-hour security to ensure their safety while in the country. There’s also significant scrutiny of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, with the country ranked the 9th worst in the world on the V-Dem Institute’s human rights index. The Esports World Cup is funded by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, on multiple levels — which makes it more than an event that happens to be held in Saudi Arabia.
In terms of the wider ecosystem, the switch to Valve rankings as the only invite criteria* will on paper benefit those already established in those rankings. This may be why teams like Karmine Corp and Tundra, who were rumored to be entering Counter-Strike, have got cold feet — there are only so many places available at “the top”. The amounts on offer to the ESWC teams are not insignificant – imagine 20-30 full-time staff depending on regional salaries — but they aren’t going to centralize the transfer market in the same way that the ESL and BLAST partnership deals did with their tournament invitations.
That said you will likely see some new teams entering, and a few old names returning – much like TSM did last year.
And it seems ESL is here to stay, even if Valve is cutting out the Louvre Agreement, their signature partnership deal. Valve granted ESL a license to run up a series of merchandise designs for Counter-Strike’s 25th anniversary. Even if they’re still waiting for a Major in Counter-Strike 2, ESL is still clearly highly trusted by Valve. Any hope that Valve might frown upon the Savvy Games Group, or ESL skirting around the rules when it comes to TO/team partnerships, may be misplaced.
The truth is that change in Counter-Strike has to come from the top down — precisely why Valve has caused such a stir with their tournament invite changes. The financial weight of the Public Investment Fund is too great to expect even the combined weight of other esports tournament organizers — who frequently operate on thin financial margins – to attempt to stop the Saudi spread. Watch this space.
