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Riyadh offers record prize pool at Esports World Cup

By Pramod Kumar
The 2025 Esports World Cup in Riyadh includes 24 games, adding chess and shooting games such as Crossfire and Valorant Esports World Cup/X
The 2025 Esports World Cup in Riyadh includes 24 games, adding chess and shooting games such as Crossfire and Valorant

Riyadh will host the Esports World Cup this summer, offering a record prize pool of more than $70 million as the kingdom aims to become a global gaming centre.

The tournament, which will run from July 7 through August 24, includes 24 games this season, adding chess and shooting games such as Crossfire, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves and Valorant.

The total prize pool is up by $10 million from last summer.

In February Saudi Arabia announced plans to host the first Olympic Esports Games in 2027 under a 12-year deal with the International Olympic Committee.

These events are part of Vision 2030 economic diversification plan, with the kingdom investing across multiple international sports events.

Eight of the world’s top-ranked 10 chess players have signed up, with chess grandmasters Magnus Carlsen and Arjun Erigaisi competing at the tournament this year, Esports World Cup Foundation CEO Ralf Reichert told Reuters.

The 2024 event attracted more than 500 million online viewers and 2.6 million visitors to Riyadh’s Boulevard City.

In an exclusive interview with AGBI in September 2024, Prince Faisal bin Bandar Al Saud, president of the Arab Esports Federation, said that the road to profitability was neither straightforward nor quick.

Saudi Arabia has so far channeled $38 billion into the esports sector through its Public Investment Fund (PIF) subsidiary Savvy Games Group.

Last month, PIF-owned Scopely purchased Niantic Labs’ video game division, the maker of Pokémon Go, for $3.5 billion.

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