The Esports World Cup (EWC) 2024 began on July 3, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The eight-week tournament, which started on July 3 and ended on August 25, featured over 200 teams and 1500 players from all around the world. ECW 2024 has a total pool prize of $60 million, the largest combined prize in the history of esports, and includes a wide range of popular game titles.
The tournament recorded 3.5 million peak viewers, which was more than the previous numbers of the esporting tournament before. With these record-breaking numbers, would the first Esports World Cup be considered a success?
In this article, we will explore every important detail about EWC 2024, from its viewership to the financial impacts to the future projections.
An Overview of Esports World Cup 2024 & the Major Highlights
The Esports World Cup 2024 gave gamers all around the world the chance to contest in the world’s largest esports tournament. This esports event featured some of the world’s top clubs and esports professional players in 23 tournaments across 22 competitive esports titles.
This annual tournament series was a brainchild of the Esports World Cup Foundation (EWCF), a nonprofit organization funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. This foundation succeeded the Saudi Esports Federation (SEF), which was responsible for hosting the Gamers8 esports festival in 2022 and 2023.
In terms of viewership, the EWC recorded more than 500 million viewers. These viewers spent over 250 million hours consuming content. Not only that, but 3.5 million viewers also watched the League of Legends final at EWC 2024, making it the most-watched game in esports history. These numbers of viewers also position the EWC 2024 as the most-watched esports tournament this year.
When it comes to prizes, EWC 2024 had the largest combined prize pool of over $60 million. This combined prize includes the individual tournament prize pools, team rewards for teams that qualify for events, awards like the most valuable player, and more.
A chart by EsportsChart also shows that EWC 2024 is one of the top eSport series of 2024 using the prize pool as a benchmark.
EWC’s 2024 prize pool beats the previous record of $45 million, which was awarded at Gamers8: The Land of Heroes—an esports competition that was held the previous year.
Viewership and Engagement Highlights of the Esports World Cup 2024
When it comes to viewership, EWC 2024 has impressive numbers and engagement. According to Esports Charts, the ECW 2024 recorded 120M hours watched over the eight weeks of the competition.
Looking at this report, EWC was the fourth most-watched esports series of 2024. It ranks behind the MLBB Professional League, LCK, and Valorant Champions Tour 2024.
In eight weeks, EWC recorded more than 500 million viewers, who consumed over 250 million hours of content. This tournament also reached its highest peak concurrent viewership of 3.5 million during the League of Legends Grand Final where superstar Lee “Faker” Sang-hook guided his team T1, the South Korean Giants, to a championship over their rival Top Esports.
Aside from the online visitors, the Esports World Cup also attracted over 1 million visitors during the first half of the tournament, who attended the event on-site at the 645,000 square foot complex, Boulevard City in Riyadh.
The EWC also reported high engagement from esports fans across social media. Its accounts collectively recorded over 1 billion impressions, 270 million social video views, and 58 million total social engagements at large.
In the third week, the EWC hosted international football heroes Neymar and Diogo Jota. Their visit to the tournaments exemplifies the intersection between traditional sports and esports.
Competition Highlights
The Esports World Cup 2024 was packed with many thrilling moments from top-tier esports players & and teams. Below, we’ve highlighted some of the major happenings during the EWC 2024 tournament
- Team Falcons emerged as the first EWC 2024 Club Champions. The team earned a total of 5665 points, thereby flooring their closest rival, Team Liquid (who had 3,000 points). One of their major performances was their Dota 2 team that took third place at Riyadh Masters x Esports World Cup. Their team had a stellar performance in their lower-bracket semifinal, where they won against Tundra in a 2–0 blitz.
- At age 35, Xiao Hai, an FGC vet, demonstrates that age is just a number as he defeats younger competitors and claims victory in Street Fighter 6.
- The longest Apex Legends match in history came to a close after seven hours. This match, involving multiple teams, came to a close after 13 games, with Alliance emerging as the winner.
- Faker, a prominent figure in the League of Legends scene, led his team T1 to victory to win the EWC League of Legends (LOL) championship. T1 won against Top Esports with a decisive 3–1 score in the finals.
- M0nesy demonstrated his skills as one of the top players in Counter-Strike 2 (CS2). Despite his team G2 not winning the EWC CS2 Grand Finals against NAVI, he left with an impression, especially during Map 1. He was in a 1v3 situation where he played impressively and executed a wall-bang kill with an AWP before picking up a rifle.
Future Prospects of EWC
The EWC is set to return to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in July and August 2025. The EWCF plans to expand the tournament, making it better than its predecessor. The foundation is also aiming to enhance financial incentives for esports players and teams participating in the Esports World Cup (EWC).
Saudi Arabia is also investing in developing infrastructure to support esports events going forward. This plan includes building venues and other facilities that can host large tournaments.
It’s an odd way to see if a sport is performing well, but if you look at all major successful sports globally, it’s true, they all have a large engagement with a betting audience. It shows that fans aren’t only engaged with the entertainment, but they have enough dynamic variance to speculate on and get excited about. These are all healthy signs for a sport. Any esports fans looking to get involved in this side of the industry should first familiarize themselves with how everything functions and make sure to consult guides from reputable sources. CasinoTopsOnline offers one such guide written by industry veteran Robin Storm, and it would be a good place to start—https://www.casinotopsonline.com/gambling-guide.
Financial Impact of EWC 2024
The Esports World Cup 2024 has made a tremendous financial impact on the esports industry. The tournament boasted a total pool prize exceeding $60 million, making it the largest prize in esports history. Additionally, the EWC 2024 also allocated $20 million to the Club Championship to the top 16 clubs based on their overall performance throughout the tournament.
The prize money in this esports competition was also distributed across various categories. For example, each of the 21 game championships in this tournament has a total pool prize of over $33 million. There are the MVP Awards as well. These awards compensated players who performed exceptionally in each competition a sum of $50,000. In addition, there’s more than $7 million available for teams competing in qualifiers that lead up to the main events.
The EWC 2024 also attracted major sponsorship from high-profile endorsements from companies like Mastercard, PepsiCo, and Amazon.