Featured image: Microsoft Copilot
The Esports World Cup, the world’s largest multi title esports event held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has successfully ended with a record of 500 million viewers across all countries, and closed out with Team Falcons taking home the first Esports World Cup Club Championship. This has been marked as the biggest weekend in esports history, as it also showcased the 2024 Esports Awards and the 2024 New Global Sport Conference.
In a span of 8 weeks, there has been 250 million hours of watch time recorded, ranking the event as the most watched tournament of 2024. The total number of attendees of the festival summed up to approximately two million , and the peak figure of 3.5 million were tuned in to the League of Legends where T1 defeated Top Esports.
Team Falcons received a life-changing sum of $7 million in prize money at the closing ceremony and the Esports World Cup Club Championship Trophy. This was presented to the CEO Mossad “Msdossary” Al-Dossary by the Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia HRH Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud. The Global Director of Esports and Operations of Team Falcons, Grant Rousseau, was interviewed by CNN’s Becky Anderson where he spoke about what this meant to him, his journey into esports and what this means for the esports community. He has also spoken on how to start an esports team and strategies to employ in the episode “The Playbook for Running a Winning Esports Organization”, which happened in the Season 3 Episode 5 of the Gamers Change Lives Podcast.
The Esports World Cup brought together 1500 of the world’s best esports athletes in games such as Dota2, League of Legends and Counter-Strike 2 from over 100 countries. The total prize money was $60 million with $20 million set aside for the Club Championship. The teams that followed up were Team Liquid, Team BDS, Team Vitality and T1, in that order, as they each took home a good amount of the prize money.
The event is set to return to Riyadh in July and August 2025, which is expected to break this year’s records, therefore making Riyadh the center for esports worldwide.
Esports has helped create jobs for lots of people. Interested in knowing about the business side of esports? Listen to the Gamers Change Lives Podcast! We get experienced guests from all around the world featuring.
Written by Jeffrey Osei-Agyeman
