The Elite Of Esports Is Heading To Riyadh: Meet The Nine Teams Invited To The Championship’s Final Match
Bruce Dias 
The Esports World Cup 2024 organizers for CS2 have announced the list of teams that received invitations to the championship. It was published on X. To place bets on the upcoming tournament, which will take place in Saudi Arabia this summer, you can visit the Melbet Sri Lanka website.
Saudi Arabia Plans To Become A Global Esports Hub.
For several consecutive years, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been organizing large-scale esports competitions under the brands Gamers8 and Riyadh Masters, allocating multi-million-dollar budgets for this purpose. In 2023, the combined prize pool of Gamers8 across multiple esports disciplines amounted to $45 million, with $15 million allocated to the most popular discipline, Dota 2. For comparison, in the same year, the prize pool of The International tournament, which is held by the developer of Dota 2 and is traditionally considered the culmination of each competitive season, was only $3.4 million.
On October 23, 2023, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia announced the launch of the World Championship in esports, which will replace the tournaments of the Gamers8 series. The World Championship will be the first competition of its scale in history, which will determine the overall standings across multiple major disciplines simultaneously.
At The Moment, There Are Already 9 Known Participants.
The organizers of the esports world championship have revealed the names of seven elite teams invited to participate in the prestigious tournament, which will commence on July 17 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. These teams earned their invitations through their performances in the ESL rankings, joining Spirit and Natus Vincere, teams that previously qualified by winning IEM Katowice and PGL Major Copenhagen, respectively.
FaZe, recognized as the best team in the world, leads the list of invitees, which predominantly consists of European giants. Alongside FaZe, the tournament will feature G2 and Vitality, notable for their performances in the Major playoffs, as well as Virtus.Pro and MOUZ, rounding out the top five European teams slated to participate. Representing America, FURIA and Complexity received two available invitations.
Alongside the nine invited teams, six winners from regional qualifiers in different regions will join: Europe, North America, South America, Oceania, Asia, and the Middle East. The qualifiers will take place online on April 18-20, so we’ll soon find out who will secure the remaining slots and spots in Saudi Arabia.
It is now known that the championship’s prize pool will amount to $400,000. This sum may disappoint both participants and fans: Arabs, who aim to turn their country into an esports hub, surely expected a more generous budget. However, this may be merely a test tournament, and if it garners significant interest, the subsequent prize pools may reach seven figures.
The Upcoming Esports Tournament Is The First Step In Riyadh’s New Economic Strategy
The competitions will be held annually in Riyadh starting in the summer of 2024, as stated in a statement by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.
Clubs will compete in games of various genres to become the ultimate champion of the Esports World Cup, as outlined in the statement.
Sports, esports, and gaming have become part of the transformation plan of the Crown Prince, known as “Vision 2030,” under which the government directs hundreds of billions of dollars towards diversifying the kingdom’s economy and reducing its reliance on oil.
Last year, the Saudi company Savvy Games Group, owned by the sovereign wealth fund PIF, announced that it would invest 142 billion riyals ($37.8 billion) in initiatives aimed at turning Saudi Arabia into a global hub for the gaming business.
According to the plan, the kingdom aims to establish 250 gaming companies, creating 39,000 jobs, and increase the sector’s contribution to Saudi Arabia’s GDP to 50 billion riyals by 2030.
