FIFAe, the esports division of global football governing body FIFA, is looking for esports companies to help develop technologies for football esports and gaming.

Specifically, FIFAe is looking for companies in the industry to help develop technologies that can track the biometric data of esports athletes and translate it into live graphics for broadcasts.

This is not the first time that FIFAe has looked to utilise biometric technology for its esports broadcasts. Service provider Mix Effect Media has previously worked with the company to create a graphic that displays players’ heartbeats during FIFAe events, such as the 2023 finals. 

FIFAe’s new ‘innovation challenge’ will, therefore. focus on expanding this offering. As such developing technologies to measure biometrics such as eye movement, brain waves and reaction time have been mentioned by FIFAe. 

Interested companies can apply for the change via Inside FIFA’s website. Moreover, the esports division has noted that solutions and proposals from companies must be fully self-funded.

According to FIFAe, developing a new type of technology for FIFA esports events will help ‘enrich the viewer’s overall experience’ by showcasing how much pressure can be created in high-performance situations for an esports player. 

Moreover, the challenge aims to enhance the broadcast and viewing experiences of its football esports events, which FIFAe notes is goal three of FIFA’s Strategic Objectives of the Global Game 2023-2027.

Following its split from EA, the football governing body’s esports division has expanded into various games such as Football Manager, eFootball and Rocket League. This included hosting its FIFAe World Cup 2024 event in Rocket League last December. 

In November 2024, FIFA and game developer Mythical Games also unveiled FIFA Rivals, a new mobile football game set to come out later this year. Launching on Mythical’s platform, FIFA Rivals will be an arcade-style game that allows its players to build a football club.

Esports has a vast ecosystem that spans across a variety of games, each with its own unique structures and calendars. As such, fans of multiple esports are treated to major tournaments and events throughout the entirety of the year.

To help navigate esports’ hectic calendar, Esports Insider has created a month-by-month list of events that are taking place in 2025. These competitions range from annual World Championships to major leagues that cover entire regions. 

This list will be updated periodically as more major esports events and dates are announced. First published: 13/01/25.

League of Legends and VALORANT kick off esports’ competitive calendar with their international respective leagues all commencing. However, the first month of 2025 also concludes Apex Legends’ latest season as the 2024 ALGS Championship heads to Japan.

February sees some of the best teams across Rainbow Six Siege, VALORANT and Counter-Strike 2 collide with the Six Invitational 2025, VALORANT Masters Bangkok 2025 and PGL Cluj-Napoca 2025 all taking place, respectively. Meanwhile, Fortnite’s esports ecosystem takes centre stage across the world with its online Major 1 Grand Finals.

League of Legends’ esports ecosystem will debut its new tournament, First Stand, in March. Meanwhile, Capcom Cup 11, Street Fighter 6’s biggest event of the year, and Rocket League’s RLCS 2025 Birmingham Major stand out within a very busy month in esports.

Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 largely dominate April 2025, with the likes of PGL Bucharest, BLAST Rivals Spring 2025, IEM Spring, ESL One Raleigh and PGL Wallachia Season 4 all starting in the month. Call of Duty League’s Stage 3 Major and ESL Snapdragon Pro Series: Mobile Masters 2025 are other stand-out events in April.

Counter-Strike 2 continues to dominate the 2025 esports calendar with four significant events happening in May alone. Notably, this includes ESL Impact League Season 7, Counter-Strike 2’s women’s-only esports competition.

June is jam-packed with international events. VALORANT, Counter-Strike, Rocket League and League of Legends will host notable global competitions to find the best teams in their respective games at 2025’s mid-way point.

July marks the start of the 2025 Esports World Cup, a multi-title esports tournament in Saudi Arabia. As such, a range of major esports events will be scheduled throughout the month. As of right now, the biggest events announced are the PUBG Mobile World Cup 2025 and its new Chess competition.

Alongside the continuation of the Esports World Cup, August will see titles such as Pokemon UNITE and GeoGuessr conclude their respective esports ecosystems.

September sees various Counter-Strike 2 competitions commence, including the ESL Pro League and the StarLadder StarSeries. However, headlining this month is the RLCS 2025 World Championship, which has yet to reveal its location.

So far, very little has been announced for October. However, the 2025 League of Legends World Championship, one of esports’ biggest events of the year, is set to be held in China with PGL hosting another significant Counter-Strike 2 tournament in Serbia.

November sees the conclusion of PUBG Mobile’s esports ecosystem, whilst Rainbow Six, Dota 2 and Counter-Strike 2 all host notable competitions.

Written by: Tom Daniels & Olivia Richman

The Rocket League World Championship and Fortnite Global Championship will take place in Lyon, France in 2025.

Both events — operated by tournament organiser BLAST — will occur across back-to-back weekends in September.

Fortnite’s season-ending event will be held from September 6th to 7th, 2025, at the LDLC Arena in Lyon. Rocket League’s largest tournament will take place a week later, from September 9th to 14th, 2025.

The 2025 Fortnite Global Championship will feature 33 teams competing for a share of a $2m (~£1.6m) prize pool. The qualification process requires teams to achieve high placements at its three Major competitions taking place throughout the year.

Rocket League’s World Championship sees 20 teams from around the world playing for its $1.2m (~£965,188) prize pool. France has seen plenty of success in the car football game with seven former world champions hailing from the country.

This is not the first time that BLAST has hosted FNCS (Fortnite Championship Series) and RLCS’ (Rocket League Champion Series) biggest events of the year in the same location. 2024’s tournaments took place at the Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas.

The Fortnite pair of Peter ‘Peterbot ‘ Kata and Miguel ‘Pollo’ Moreno claimed first place in 2024, securing £400,000 (~£321,900).

Last year’s Rocket League World Championship was won by Swiss esports organisation Team BDS which defeated G2 Esports in the Grand Finals to win $300,000 (~£241,419).

In recent years, France has expanded its involvement in hosting esports events after revealing plans to launch a national ecosystem in 2023.

Since then, the country has hosted a Counter-Strike Major in Paris and the LEC Season Finals in Montpellier.

In addition to Rocket League and Fortnite World Championships, 2025 will see the Evolution Championship Series (EVO) host an event in Nice in October, marking the first time the tournament organiser has hosted an EVO event in Europe. Moreover, VALORANT Champions 2025 will be hosted in Paris.

2025 is the first year that the RLCS is using a new format. The tournament circuit will consist of two major events, the addition of a one-versus-one format, and a $5m (~£4.02m) prize pool split across the entirety of the season.

UK gaming and esports organisation Endpoint has partnered with TikTok to launch Endpoint Live, a new creator network designed to help live streamers grow their audience growth and strengthen monetisation.

As part of the Endpoint Live creator community, creators may keep 100% of the revenue earned on TikTok LIVE and gain access to guidance and growth opportunities. This includes 1:1 creator management, quarterly networking events and brand activations.

The initiative is divided into three tiers, providing additional benefits for committed members with a larger, more established following. For instance, tier-two creators may access Endpoint’s headquarters and studio, while tier-one streamers also receive career management support and the offer to become an Endpoint Group Ambassador.

“We are thrilled to announce the launch of Endpoint LIVE, our new creator network in partnership with TikTok,” said Endpoint Co-owner and COO Peter Thompson. “This platform is designed to empower creators by providing them with the tools, resources, and support needed to thrive on TikTok LIVE and as a creator.

“By leveraging our state-of-the-art facilities and the expertise of our dedicated staff, Endpoint is committed to adding real value to creators’ experiences. Our goal is to build a community where creators can grow together and unlock new opportunities.”

Endpoint’s existing creator team has already joined the new network. Moreover, the organisation has signed a group of Rocket League streamers to broadcast and compete in the Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS), the game’s tier-1 league.

Creators of all sizes and experience levels are eligible to join as long as they are at least 18 years old and committed to streaming for at least 15 hours per month. Further details as well as the application form, can be found on the Endpoint Live webpage.

Founded in 2017, the Endpoint Group is a collection of UK-based gaming, esports, media and technology brands, such as creative agency Loadout Media and esports bootcamp facility provider Pracrooms. Last April, the organisation also launched a console repair service in the UK with its long-standing partner CeX, a second-hand electronics company.

Endpoint’s esports rosters currently compete in Counter-Strike 2, Quake and Rocket League, attending regional and global stages, including several ESL Premiership CS events as well as the Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) Fall Split Major during the 2021-22 season.

The Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) has announced that its second Major in 2025 will be held in Raleigh, North Carolina, from June 26th to 19th.

The event, which will be hosted at the Lenovo Centre, will feature 16 top Rocket League teams and a prize pool of $351,000 (~£288,000).

The RLCS has regularly held significant international events in the United States. However, this is the first time a Major has been held in Raleigh. Previous RLCS Major locations include Los Angeles, Boston and Fort Worth.

Qualifiers for the RLCS Raleigh Major will run from April 18th until June 1st.

The main event broadcast will then kick off on June 26th, with the Lenovo Centre opening its doors to the public on June 28th and 29th. Rocket League fans can purchase Raleigh Major tickets during the official presale on January 20th or through its regular ticket sale that starts two days later.

In addition to prize money, participating teams will earn crucial RLCS points which can help secure qualification for the Rocket League World Championship.

The largest international Rocket League competition of the year will be played out on September 9th-14th. Last year’s edition recorded nearly 427,000 peak viewers, according to esports data platform Esports Charts.

Following the 2024 World Championship, RLCS revealed significant changes to the 2025 RLCS season. This year’s competitive calendar is divided into two splits, each concluded by a Major. The updated format features additional 1v1s as well as a $5m (~£4.1m) combined prize pool. Moreover, the World Championship has been expanded from 16 to 20 teams.

With the first RLCS split underway, Rocket League teams are already looking to qualify for the season’s first Major. Kicking off on March 27th, the tournament will take place at the bp pulse LIVE venue in Birmingham, UK.

Rocket League will also be featured again at the Esports World Cup multi-title esports festival this year. These updates were announced despite recent discussions about the sustainability of the Rocket League esports following the departure of some organisations from the scene.

Similarly to 2023, this year in esports has had its highs and lows. However, no matter the scene, a dotted line has always been signed as a myriad of esports partnerships are born. 

Layoffs, closures and questions surrounding esports’ sustainability have plagued the industry. Yet, despite these conversations, companies have expanded. Organisations are finding new ways to make revenue and non-endemic brands are still teaming up with esports teams to bolster revenue opportunities.

2024 has seen high-profile partnerships and sponsorships, with some of the biggest brands in the world getting involved in esports. From supermarkets to drinks brands and even one of the biggest sporting bodies in the world, esports has seen investment from all sectors. 

In line with this, Esports Insider has compiled some of the biggest and most notable partnerships from the last year in one article.

A partnership can be big for many reasons; maybe because it brings a mainstream brand into esports or it has a specific purpose that people can get behind. For French esports organisation Team Vitality, this partnership has both.

The organisation renewed its partnerships with four companies at the beginning of 2024, one of which was supermarket chain ALDI. The partnership was centred around Team Vitality’s League of Legends women’s roster, Rising Bees, to help grow the team’s appeal and audience outside its home country.

In October, the two brands unveiled a further collaboration focusing on toxicity towards women in gaming and specifically how to combat it whilst promoting diversity in esports. The collaboration resulted in a video titled ‘Des Failles dans La Faille‘ (Rifts in the Rift in English) which featured Rising Bees players and other figures discussing their experiences with misogyny in gaming and esports.

The company first became a partner of the organisation in 2021 and focused its efforts on the Rising Bees since its inception in 2023, but this year has increased its collaboration with Team Vitality including the co-created video.

In a year when fewer major brands were unwilling to invest in esports, Pepsi’s involvement with MAD Lions KOi was refreshing.  

In August Spanish esports organisation MAD Lions KOI, owned by Overactive Media and soon to be renamed Movistar KOI, announced a partnership with beverage brand Pepsi. 

Towards the end of the League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) campaign, Pepsi became the organisation’s official beverage sponsor and as such featured on MAD Lions KOI’s front jerseys for the prestigious competition. Luckily for Pepsi, MAD Lions’ achieved an incredible feat in qualifying for Worlds and as such the beverage brand was displayed at the event which later became the most-viewed esports event of all time.

Alongside the partnership with MAD Lions KOI, Pepsi also partnered with The Esports World Cup, a multi-title esports event organised by the Esports World Cup Foundation.

Global football governing body FIFA announced two major partnerships in June which reshaped the future of the FIFAe World Cup and many of its other events. 

The first announcement detailed that the FIFAe World Cup will make its return, with national teams now competing in the vehicle football game Rocket League due to a partnership between FIFA and Psyonix. Given that FIFA no longer has an official game to its name, with Electronic Arts now donning the EA FC moniker, this was the first major sign of FIFA’s esports priorities.  

The second announcement was a partnership with British game developer Sports Interactive to launch the FIFAe World Cup of Football Manager. Whilst Rocket League is an already established esport title, the expansion to the more niche Football Manager, displayed FIFAe’s willingness to expand into the unknown of football esports.

LCS is no stranger to large partnerships, but for its final season, the brand went out with a bang. This is the last major partnership for the LCS, with the competition being replaced in 2025 with the LTA.

The League Championship Series (LCS), Riot Games‘ franchised North American League of Legends competition, announced a partnership with American multinational conglomerate AT&T in February. 

The deal saw AT&T hosting a segment in the broadcast that was meant to be a ‘peak behind the curtain’ and focused on behind-the-scenes content when matches were taking place. This included clips of real-time audio from the matches. 

The company was also named the primary sponsor of the LCS Fan Fest and had its logo integrated into the broadcast and at the event, with it featuring on the headsets of players, referees and commentators.

Potentially the most controversial entry on the list, esports industry awards show Esports Awards announced a three-year partnership with Saudi Arabia-backed multi-title esports tournament Esports World Cup (EWC).

This resulted in the first of two Esports Awards ceremonies being held during EWC in August in Riyadh. The partnership garnered criticism due to Saudi Arabia’s stance on women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights and censorship. Moreover, several notable industry stakeholders withdrew from the Esports Awards panel following the partnership’s announcement. 

At the time of the announcement Esports Awards CEO assured that EWC will have no control over the award nominations or the adjudication process and that Esports Awards will remain an “independently owned and operated entity.”

Multi–title esports competitions are all the rage in recent memory, whether it’s the Esports World Cup held in Riyadh, FIFAe’s football-focused World Cup or esports being featured at the Asian Games.

In 2024 another brand entered the conversation as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) partnered with the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of Saudi Arabia to launch the inaugural Olympic Esports Games 2025. 

This is the biggest attempt from the IOC to create a multi-title esports competition, complete with its own esports commission. As part of this deal, the 2025 games will be hosted in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The specifics of the partnership are just as large, with the collaboration between the IOC and the Saudi NOC announced for the next 12 years.

The partnership is driven by Saudi Arabia’s social and economic transformation under Vision 2030.

Movember is an annual international event that aims to raise awareness and funding for men’s mental and physical health issues. It has a long-standing connection in esports with various organisations running campaigns and raising money for the charity involved. 

This year tournament organiser BLAST and German esports organisation Berlin International Gaming (BIG) were among a list of companies that launched notable campaigns. 

BIG launched its campaign alongside L’Oréal Men Expert and Movember called #GROWBIG. The collaboration was aimed at a younger male audience and focused on mental health as well as prostate cancer and testicular cancer awareness and prevention.

BLAST partnered with the men’s health charity Movember and made the charity the official mental health partner of BLAST Premier. This deal included activations focused on men’s mental health at the BLAST Premier World Final 2024.

Anime and esports have created an almost synonymous relationship of the year. So it’s no surprise to see that in June, Brazilian esports organisation FURIA announced a partnership with American streaming service Crunchyroll centred around the anime series My Hero Academia.

The two brands worked together to create a merchandise line inspired by FURIA and the My Hero Academia which launched later in the year. The collaboration was presented by Red Bull Ladeira Abaixo, the Brazilian version of the Red Bull Soapbox race, where FURIA fielded a car with My Hero Academia branding.

Apparel collections have been all the rage this year as FURIA also partnered with Champion later in the year, whilst other esports brands, such as 100 Thieves, G2 Esports and OpTic have done similar deals to create clothing lines and exclusive apparel packages. 

The Esports World Cup has announced Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and Rocket League as the latest slew of titles to join the lineup for its 2025 edition in Riyadh.

For the second year running Mobile Legends: Bang Bang will host its Mid Season Cup and Women’s Invitational at the Esports World Cup. Meanwhile, Rocket League’s tournament has yet to be revealed.

MLBB and Rocket League join an evergrowing list of games that have already been announced for the event. This includes the likes of EA FC 25, Call of Duty, Dota 2 and Counter-Strike 2, with more titles likely announced.

Last year’s Rocket League event at the EWC 2024 saw 16 teams compete for a prize pool of $500,000 (~£395,000). Team BDS claimed a large chunk of the prize pool, securing $200,000 by defeating Team Falcons in the Grand Finals.

Recently, there have been discussions questioning the sustainability of Rocket League esports, with some organisations departing the scene. For 2025, developer Psyonix has increased its total event prize pool to $5m, alongside launching other initiatives to build a sustainable competitive ecosystem for the title.

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang was one of Esports World Cup’s most popular games last year, with the 2024 Mid-Season Cup garnering a peak of 2.38m viewers. The event, which was won by Selangor Red Giants, featured a $3m (~£2.4m) prize pool.

Last year’s MLBB Women’s Invitational saw women’s teams from 12 countries compete for its $550,000 (~£428,647) prize pool. The event reached a peak viewership of 265,117 viewers, making it the sixth most-watched women’s esports event ever. Both MSC and MWI are set to return for the 2025 edition of the event.

On MLBB’s Esports World Cup return in 2025, Ray Ng, Head of Esports Ecosystem at MOONTON Games, commented: “2024 marked the first time that the MSC and MWI ventured outside of Southeast Asia – a milestone moment for MLBB esports. The return of both tournaments to the EWC next year reflects the global status of the MLBB brand.

“I am especially excited for MWI; it was the first women’s tournament at the inaugural EWC, but we have plans to expand it even further – to include even more teams next year!”

In other news, the Esports World Cup Foundation, the organiser of the event, recently expanded its partner programme to 40 organisations to attract more teams from China, Southeast Asia, Latin America and MENA.

Nevertheless, due to the Esports World Cup Foundation’s ties to the Saudi Arabian government, the multi-title event has attracted criticism concerning the country’s stance on women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights.

At its core, competition is the most important part of the esports ecosystem. Across a vast number of games, there are tournaments that range from grassroots to international events.

The goal of these events is to find out who the best players are in their discipline, whilst also engaging with the game’s fans and, from a business perspective, marketing the title as a result. 

However, one area that has always fascinated fans when it comes to events, particularly larger esports competitions, is the topic of prize pools. In some cases, there are also correlations made by the community between the size of the prize pool and the quality of the event. Million-dollar events garner media attention, often having notable sponsors and attracting major organisations to compete.

As 2024 comes to a close, most game publishers and tournament organisers have already unveiled their plans for 2025.

PGL Wallachia (Dota 2) will have three seasons in 2025, each with a $1m prize pool. Meanwhile, the Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) announced that its 2025 season will have a $5m prize pool. Fortnite, Halo, YaLLa Compass (Counter-Strike) and many others have showcased how much money can be won by players next year. 

Announcing big prize pools has become a major part of the marketing push for many tournament organisers. Multi-title esports event, the Esports World Cup, heavily promoted its $60m total prize pool, split across 21 games and its overall club championship. 

Whether it’s fair or not, prize pools are also used by the esports community as an indicator of an esports ecosystem’s health. When prize pools are increased, there is more optimism. When the prize pool is lowered or delayed there are concerns over the esports ecosystem’s health — hence the emergence of payment solutions like Payment Labs.

Prize money in the industry fluctuates heavily game-by-game, with each title operating its competitive calendar in completely different ways. There are also countless grassroots events within esports that take place online and in-person which have minor prize pools that consist of money or sometimes other incentives.  

One of the most touted esports events that is synonymous with its prize pool is Dota 2’s The International (TI). At its peak, the event generated a record-breaking $40m prize pool in 2021, in large part due to huge funding from in-game item sales to fans. Dota 2’s biggest event of the year is largely crowd-funded, with every TI starting with a base $1.6m prize pool. 

However, TI’s prize pool dropped to just $2.8m in 2023 as a result of changes of less interest from fans in the in-game items Valve offered — though Dota 2 still tops the charts for the highest overall esports title prize pot.

On a positive note, the Counter-Strike scene has largely remained the same when it comes to prize pools from 2023 to 2024. So far, Counter-Strike 2 has generated $19m in prize money and there are still events such as the Shanghai Major that have yet to be accounted for.

According to Esports Charts, the top five most lucrative titles in 2024 so far are Dota 2 ($21m), Honor of Kings ($20m), Counter-Strike ($19m), PUBG Mobile ($16m) and Fortnite ($12m).

Another crucial topic that has risen in discussion is the esports prize payment problem, whereby teams and players are experiencing delays when it comes to receiving prize money. This in itself puts a stain on the reputation of such a growing industry, hence why companies, such as Payment Labs, are looking to solve this issue. 

It’s abundantly obvious that there is still a lot of prize money circulating across the esports ecosystem. However, when these payments aren’t delivered on time, it causes significant damage to a tournament operator’s reputation. 

Unfortunately, payment delays for prize pools in esports are still an ongoing issue. Some notable examples for payment delays in recent years include Galaxy Racer’s 2023 HER Galaxy event, Nerd Street’s VALORANT competitions in 2022, and Women’s Car Ball fiasco. There are also many other cases of grassroots event organisers being unable to pay staff and contractors alongside players.

Han Park, the CEO of global payments platform Payment Labs, highlighted three pain points when breaking down the esports prize pool payment problem – the trust issue, the process issue and a lack of education. 

Park explained that the trust issue often stems from the net terms on payments in business practices related to running events or receiving funding from publishers and sponsors. “While the announced prize money is often secured and guaranteed, the business process of paying on net terms on invoices for prize money may be months past the competition itself which makes it look like a delay on payments.”

These net terms could be delivered “net 60 days, net 90 days, some are even net 180 days, which is half a year. The event is already done, within the time frame,” Park stated.

The issue is that these proceeds provided by sponsors or publishers, are in some cases used to fund the cost of the event as well as the prize pool. This means that it’s vital for all parties involved to deliver their net terms on time, with complications causing delays that could affect the event as a whole and its prize pool. To ensure that the trust factor between tournament organisers and competitors remains strong, Payment Labs uses a system in which a specific account is created between Payment Labs and the tournament organiser specifically for prize pools.

Park added: “We guarantee that as long as our customer, which is usually the publisher or tournament organiser, announces that prize money we expect them to fund that account. So our payment flow starts with them funding this account specifically for prize money.”

The second issue is the complicated process of paying out players. “You’re paying a lot of individuals in one batch to try to get all the prize money out…The process itself for each of the individuals may be challenging,” said Park.

Park highlighted that this issue is more of a problem when competitions feature new players, as regular returning names are already a part of the tournament’s payment process. 

“It’s all the new winners as new games come out, or there’s new superstars rising that come from the amateur scene, they’re getting paid for the first time, and that’s where a lot of the work is. The process itself takes time.”

The third point that Park highlighted is that payee education is also an important part in ensuring payment transactions are smooth. There is an onus on competitors to educate themselves on the steps needed to get paid by different entities in esports, including what information is needed by the tournament organiser and the player being aware of their country’s tax laws when it comes to prize winnings.

The education factor also applies to tournament organisers, which also have to take into account the legalities of paying out players, oftentimes which are based across the world. Park particularly noted grassroots esports scenes as a pain point when it comes to education about payments. 

“They [grassroots organisations] know how to run the competitions, but they don’t understand the business and administrative side of doing these types of events. It’s more complicated than they think. They have to put all the legal compliance and financial controls in to do it properly.”

Payment Labs aims to make esports payments simple, for players and tournament organisers. Alongside its prize pool account system, the company looks to streamline the payments process by also handling player transactions. According to Park, the company’s system uses the required information from registered players to pass them through compliance in order to pay them quickly. Since the company specialises in the esports sector, it is also equipped to handle legal hurdles that can occur when dealing with prize money from esports competitions. 

“We know esports is challenging for a lot of financial institutions because they don’t know it,” concluded Park.

“Because we’re a fintech company and we work with multitudes of financial partners, we have passed their compliance and we’ve fought the battle for esports already. We understand it. We do it on behalf of all our customers, so our customers don’t have to fight that battle each time.”

For a full conversation discussing esports’ payment dilemma check out Esports Insider’s latest episode of The Industry with Payment Labs’ CEO Han Park.   

Global football governing body FIFA has announced that the finals of its upcoming esports event, the FIFAe Finals 2024, will take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The finals, which will take place between December 5th and 12th, will feature tournaments in Rocket Legue and eFootball at the BLVD Riyadh City.

The tournament will be open to the public with the organisers encouraging walk-in visitors. The prize pool for the Rocket League event is $250,000 (£198,750), whilst the eFootball mobile and console prizes are $100,000 (£79,500) each.

The Saudi Esports Federation (SEF) has also been announced as the event’s presenting partner. This is not the first time the national body has partnered up with a tournament as this summer Moonton Games announced that the SEF had partnered up with it’s Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) tournament, MPL MENA.

The event is the first of its kind to feature Rocket League after the game was named as the official game of the FIFAe World Cup in June 2024. The absence of the EA FC series of games (formerly known as FIFA), a staple of the FIFA World Cup, is because the agreement between FIFA and Electronic Arts has been dissolved, and FIFA no longer has the naming rights to the football sim.

In an effort to continue organising events without the globally popular EA FC, FIFA has also held a Football Manager FIFAe World Cup during its Next Gen event in Liverpool. Alongside Rocket League and Football Manager, FIFA decided to include eFootball, EA FC’s direct competitor, as a main game in Liverpool, and now also in Riyadh.

Turki Alfawzan, CEO of the Saudi Esports Federation said: “As we continue to strengthen Saudi Arabia’s position as a global leader in esports, hosting the FIFAe Finals 2024 is a proud moment for us.

“This event not only highlights the Kingdom’s commitment to the esports ecosystem but also provides an unparalleled opportunity for players from across the world to showcase their talent and passion on a global stage. We’re excited to witness the next chapter of esports history unfold right here in Riyadh.”

French esports organisation Karmine Corp (KC) has recorded a new viewership record during the fourth edition of its flagship community event, KCX4.

According to data platform Esports Charts, the event saw 174,136 people tune in during the League of Legends show match between Karmine Corp and MAD Lions KOI.

The event also recorded over 150,000 peak viewers for its VALORANT and Rocket League show matches. Other match-ups that occurred included a League of Legends academy match-up and a VALORANT Game Changers match between Karmine Corp and MAD Lions KOI.

The League of Legends show match beat KCX’s previous viewership record from its last edition, which peaked at 167,679. 

Taking place at the La Defense Arena in Paris, the event featured the induction of the League of Legends players Lucas ‘SAKEN’ Fayard and Lucas ‘Cabochard’ Simon-Meslet members into the team’s Hall of Fame, Club Legends. The event also announced its new VALORANT team and the participation of the organisation’s staff and players during the opening ceremony.

Additionally, the team shared some goals for the upcoming year, including the development of young talents in both League of Legends and VALORANT and an upcoming collaboration between the team and football-theme anime Blue Lock. Finally, the organisation launched the Blue Heart Project, a charitable initiative in partnership with Epic Foundation to support associations positively impacting French young generations.

Founded in 2020 by popular streamers Kamel ‘Kameto’ Kebir and Zouhair ‘Kotei’ Darji, Karmine Corp is one of the most popular European esports organisations, particularly within the French esports ecosystem.

Earlier this year, KC unveiled its esports arena located in Evry, France, with a maximum capacity of 3,000 people. The team aims to use the stadium to host live matches and viewing parties.

The team also counts on several strategic partners, including telecom operator Orange, tyre manufacturer Michelin, energy drink Red Bull, hardware brand Logitech G, French bank CIC and communication solution SONIX, among others.