Chinese esports organization Hero Esports (formerly VSPO) announced this week that its multi-title esports tournament, the Asian Champions League (ACL) will feature a ￥15M RMB ($2.04M USD) total prize pool. The company also confirmed that ACL will be a part of DreamHack Shanghai in May, as reported first by The Esports Advocate earlier this month before Hero Esports’ official announcement. This is also the first time DreamHack has come to China. The ACL will include competitions for Dota 2, Counter-Strike...

European esports organization OG Esports announced the appointment of Daniel Sanders as its new Chief Executive Officer. Sanders has previously held leadership positions at Red Bull (head of esports and gaming marketing, UK) and Tencent Games (senior global marketing lead). Sanders—a former British professional rugby player—launched his career in esports as a player and manager at Dignitas. He joined OG Esports in 2023 as Chief Commercial Officer before ascending to the CEO role. Under Sanders’ leadership, OG aims to reinvigorate...

Sources close to ESL FACEIT Group and Hero Esports confirmed to The Esports Advocate this week that a major DreamHack event is set to take place in Shanghai, China, in May. It will be the first time that DreamHack has been hosted in China, as well as in Asia since 1994. An official announcement is expected soon, according to our sources. In addition, sources confirmed to TEA that the Chinese esports company Hero Esports, formerly VSPO, will be the operator...

Blizzard Entertainment and NetEase-owned Thunder Fire Group announced this week that Overwatch 2 will officially return to Mainland China on Feb. 19. A China server will start technical tests on Jan. 8., according to an announcement.  Overwatch 2 becomes the third Blizzard games title to return to China following the World of WarCraft and Hearthstone. In addition, Blizzard also announced that the Overwatch Mainland China will become the fourth independent region in the Overwatch Champions Series (OWCS) ecosystem, alongside North...

From Nov.21 to Dec. 1, China’s Valorant esports operator TJ Sports—the joint venture of Tencent and Riot Games—hosted its first Valorant Radiant Asia Invitational (VRAI) in Chengdu, China. Held in the Quantum Media VSPO Esports Center, over 800 attendees witnessed Indonesian esports organization Paper Rex win the competition against Japanese esports organization DetonatioN FocusMe (DFM) in the final. During the competition, The Esports Advocate spoke to Eric Feng, vice president of TJ Sports and head of Valorant Champions Tour (VCT)...

Chinese esports organization Invictus Gaming (IG) announced on Saturday that the company has completed a restructuring that includes new investments. The strategic investment was led by the Chinese live streaming platform Huya and the multi-channel network (MCN) company Young Sports. Sources close to IG told The Esports Advocate that the investment from Huya and Young Sports was in the multi-million dollar range. In addition, IG founder Sicong Wang, the only son of Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin, will continue to be...

Zhang Yijia, general manager of Tencent Interactive Entertainment TiMi Studio Group L1 Esports Center and chief brand officer of Honor of Kings, was forced to resign from the company—multiple sources close to Tencent told The Esports Advocate that the resignation was related to supplier corruption. “Tencent's internal email about Zhang Yijia mentioned supplier corruption,” a source close to Tencent TiMi Studio Group confirmed with TEA. Yijia is a big name in the Tencent Esports ecosystem: he was a key founder...

The South Korea division of Chinese hot pot chain Haidilao announced on Sunday that it had signed a partnership deal with esports organization T1 Entertainment & Sports' (T1) League of Legends team.  Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The partnership includes T1 merchandise giveaways and gift cards at Haidilao Korea restaurants, social media engagement between T1 and Haidilao Korea Instagram accounts, as well as the right to use T1 League of Legends players images, including T1 iconic esports...

Chinese esports operator VSPO held a press conference in Shanghai on Tuesday and announced that it will host the Esports Asian Champions League in China in 2025. Dino Ying; the CEO and founder of VSPO; Danny Tang, CFO of VSPO, Huang Simian, vice minister of the publicity department of Shanghai; and HRH Prince Faisal, founder of the Saudi Esports Federation, vice president of the Global Esports Federation, and president of the International Esports Federation, and Shanghai authorities attended the press...

TiMi Studio Group, a wholly owned game studio of Chinese game publisher Tencent announced Friday that it would host the King Pro League (KPL) Grand Finals from Oct. 2 - Nov. 16 and that the Grand Finals will be held at Beijing Worker’s Stadium in Beijing, China. The play-off stage and breakout stage will be held in Changsha and Hangzhou, respectively. The Beijing Worker's Stadium has a seating capacity (depending on configuration) of 68,000, according to StadiumDB.com. The competition will...