Esports Worldcup Budget Retrospective

The Esports World Cup handed out $75 million this year, roughly what Wimbledon pays, except spread across 2,000 players, 24 games and seven weeks. Over the same summer, The International came in around $3.4 million; in 2021 it was $40 million. The money hasn’t disappeared, it has just changed hands, from fans buying Battle Passes to investors and sovereign funds writing cheques. It isn’t a reach problem. The 2025 Worlds final had 6.8 million people watching at once, while February’s Super Bowl peaked at 137.8 million, almost all of them in a single country. The gap is still wide, but it has been closing for years. What stuck with me was something else. When the situation in the Middle East ruled out Riyadh, the organisers moved the entire event to Paris in a matter of weeks rather than cancel it. Rebuilding seven weeks of competition for 2,000 players on that timeline isn’t something you do for the balance sheet alone.