It's finally here! The inaugural Esports World Cup 2024 kicked off earlier on July 3 with its opening ceremony. It witnessed the likes of Tyler1 and Danny Aarons co-hosting the festivities while star content creators like xQc, LIRIK, TimTheTatman, and shroud were part of the co-casting line-up.
As a result, the live stream of the Esports World Cup 2024: Opening Show recorded 196.8K Peak Viewers, 411.8K Hours Watched, and 164.7K Average Viewers over three hours of airtime. Moreover, this celebration of the start of the world's largest gaming festival at Boulevard City in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, saw the unveiling of the event's official trophy for the Club Championship winner.
What made the event extra special for viewers was the presence of star League of Legends creator Tyler1, who recently became a father. Notorious for his dislike for traveling, his fans were over the moon to find out he'd be doing the Opening Show, which would also have contributed to the audience reach it got as he is a renowned name globally.
In total, 50 channels live broadcast this opening show, with other popular online stars part of the co-streaming list including summit1g, sypherpk, gaules, and Typical Gamer. It found space on five live-streaming services, including the ever-improving TikTok, which finished as the third-most popular platform among viewers.
Among those names to co-cast the event, xQc was the most-watched channel, even beating the official EWC channel by 24%. He was also the most popular streamer to live broadcast the opening show of this cross-event spectacle, with fellow Canadian and former esports pro shroud finishing second.
Thanks to the Esports World Cup 2024, the West Asian nation's capital has also been transformed into an epicenter of esports fandom and gaming culture that will host an exultant festival throughout the event. Visiting attendees can check out numerous gaming activations, community tournaments, pop culture celebrations, concerts, and international experiences as they soak in the atmosphere when the world's esports fan communities converge on Boulevard City to celebrate their shared love of gaming.
Ralf Reichert, CEO of the Esports World Cup Foundation, said:
"The Esports World Cup is a major moment in esports history. It's a historic culmination of two universal languages, gaming, and sports, to unite the global community across games, leapfrog the esports industry and drive growth across the entire ecosystem. I'm immensely proud that we've created new possibilities for our sport and am very excited to watch elite esports clubs and players compete across the world's best games for life-changing prizes and crown the first Esports World Cup Club Champion."
Brief details about the Esports World Cup 2024
The EWC 2024 will run for eight weeks, finishing on August 25, and witness over 1,500 players from 60+ nations representing the best esports clubs from across the globe competing for never-seen-before prizes in 22 tournaments across 21 world-renowned games. It aims to unite the global gaming community and deliver premier competition in a unique format at an unprecedented scale. The game lineup consists of popular titles like League of Legends, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Call of Duty, Counter-Strike, Dota 2, and EA Sports FC 24.
The Esports World Cup 2024 has set aside $60 million+ in prize money, making it the largest prize pool in esports history. From this unprecedented amount, $20 million is reserved for the Club Championship, an innovative cross-game competitive format unique to the event that rewards the top 16 clubs based on their overall performance.
Come the end of this celebration of gaming, the club with the best performance across various game championships will be crowned the world's first Esports World Cup Club Champion.
So much at stake has meant a lot of hype around this collection of tournaments, which has attracted an outstanding collection of global companies. The Esports World Cup Foundation has so far inked deals with (in alphabetic order) Adidas, Amazon, Aramco, Axe, Barn's Coffee, Clear, Dr. Sulaiman Al Habib Medical Group, Honor, KitKat, LG, Mastercard, Mentos, PepsiCo, Qiddiya City, Sony, stc, and TikTok as key partners.
The first competition in the EWC 2024, MLBB Mid Season Cup 2024, got underway with its Wildcard stage on June 28. After three days of action, Malaysia's HomeBois sealed the final spot in the Group Stage, which began on July 3.
