With the end of the Esports World Cup in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, this week, organizers announced final viewership numbers for the eight-week, multi-title esports competition. The Esports World Cup Foundation claims that the event drew more than 500M viewers who consumed over 250M hours of content across 21 different games, “making it the most-watched tournament of 2024.” The League of Legends portion of the event saw peak viewership of 3.5M during its grand final, according to organizers. The Esports World Cup Foundation also claimed that over 2M people attended the event in person during the eight-week span between July 2 – Aug. 24.
At its closing ceremony on Sunday (which was also tied into the Esports Awards and the New Sport Global Conference), HRH Crown Prince and Saudi Arabia Prime Minister Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud presented the Esports World Cup Club Championship Trophy to Team Falcons Chairman and Co-Founder Mosaad AlDossary. As the top-performing team in the club-based championship, Falcons took home $7M. Team Liquid earned $4M, Team BDS took home $2M, Team Vitality secured a $1.5M prize, and T1 earned $1.25M. The Esports World Cup awarded more than $60M in prize money across its eight-week competition, with $20M dedicated to the Club Championship.
“The Esports World Cup has underscored the transformative impact of esports and the pivotal role that this incomparable industry now plays in cultures and societies all around the world – its inclusive and empowering nature is something truly unique, said HRH Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Sultan, Chairman of the Saudi Esports Federation, in a release. For eight successive weeks, this unparalleled event has brought the entire international gaming community together like never before – inviting all to participate in this milestone moment in esports history. We could not be more delighted with what’s transpired this summer – it’s a historic moment in time that Saudi Arabia and the world will always remember fondly.”
The Esports World Cup Foundation also said that the Esports World Cup would return to Riyadh in 2025 during the summer.
The Esports Advocate asked the Esports World Cup Foundation for specific numbers and their sources of data prior to the publication of this story, but it did not respond, as of this writing. We assume that the final number includes viewership from China and Chinese streaming platforms such as Huya, Douyin (China’s version of TikTok, also owned by ByteDance), and Douyu. We also assume that the numbers include views from YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Twitch, Kick, AfreecaTV, and a number of other platforms tracked by its partner, Esports Charts. It was recently noted that the Saudi Arabian government has an investment in Twitter, unearthed by a court case in the United States against Twitter owner Elon Musk.
The Esports World Cup is a multi-week, multi-discipline esports competition that ran from July 3 – Aug. 25, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and was funded by a grant from the Saudi Arabian government. Competitions were facilitated by ESL FACEIT Group, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Savvy Games Group. Savvy is owned by the Saudi government’s Public Investment Fund and its Chairman of the board is Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler HRH Crown Prince MBS. EFG is home to tournament organizer ESL, Esports Engine, competition platform FACEIT, and esports and gaming festival company DreamHack.