The $70 Million Dollar Moment: 2025 Esports World Cup, by the Numbers!
Greetings Gamers!
Riyadh’s 2025 Esports World Cup is commanding more attention, more games, and more prize money than any gaming event to date. With over $70.5 million in total prizes, 26 competitive titles, and global participation across genres, the EWC is massive this year. What kicked off on July 8th and is culminating to a head here as we approach August 24th, is a spread of titles and tournaments from household names like League of Legends, to insanely popular mobile titles like Free Fire, the EWC this year has been nothing short of action packed for esports!
There are still more games to be played and more tournament upsets to happen, but this is what has gone down so far, and by the numbers:
Show Me the Money!
The total prize pool stands at $70.45 million, already exceeding the previous esports record, far surpassing The International (DOTA), Fortnite World Cup, and LoL Worlds totals.
Funds are structured across categories:
- $38 million dedicated to individual game championships
- $27 million allocated to the Club Championship for top-performing organizations
- $450,000 reserved for MVP awards
- $5 million or more designated for qualifying events
Early Victors
The event features 26 tournaments across 25 esports titles, including debut events like Chess, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, Crossfire, and Valorant. There have been 11 games that have already commenced and completed their finals including, League of Legends, Apex, Dota 2, and CoD: BLoPs 6, among others!
Early winners include:
Valorant: Team Heretics emerged as champions after a reverse sweep over Fnatic (3–2), with MVP honors to Mert “Wo0t” Alkan.
League of Legends: Gen.G captured the title in a tight 3–2 win over AG.AL, with MVP awarded to Kim “Kiin” Gi‑in.
Other concluded events from earlier weeks include Apex Legends (won by VK Gaming), Fatal Fury (Goichi “GO1” Kishida), Dota 2 (Team Spirit), Mobile Legends Women’s Invitational (Team Vitality), among others!
Event Format
Different tourney formats are a real thing; but this one being at such a scale is an interesting endeavor. Rather than a single finals weekend, the EWC is structured as a season-long festival:
- Group stages followed by regional qualifiers
- Title-specific playoffs and finals
- Over 2000 players, 200 organizations, and more than 30 professional teams competing across genres and formats
What’s Next?
The event remains active through August 24, with highlights still pending in key titles such as:
- PUBG Mobile World Cup (Finals begin late July, $3M prize pool)
- Chess (July 29–Aug 1), #LETSGOLIQUID!!
- Balanced finishes for Counter-Strike 2, Rocket League, Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, and Crossfire during the final week of competition.
- Continuing this blueprint for event scale and diversity across titles, platforms, and geographies. As competition continues in August, the $70 million moment makes clear that the future of esports is multi-dimensional, global, and increasingly genre‑agnostic.
What do you think about the EWC? What do you think the EWC does for esports as a whole? The talk of the trend is that esports is going downward, but with these numbers, is that really the case? Let us know what you think in the comments! Final Question: If you could be a pro-gamer in any of these games, which one would you choose?
