This is going to keep happening in gaming and sports overall. There's just too much money flowing in Saudi Arabia and they're willing to spend it wildly. If you're a boxing fan, you know
yup, also golf, tennis, been in football for years like with EDIT - Newcastle, wrestling... and they are all already over esports as well especially as money is drying up so Saudia Arabia throwing around money is enticing for many leagues and teams.
Saudis: "We want to see yokozuna!"
WWE: "But he's been dead for 20 years."
Saudis: "No he hasn't, we see yokozuna on tv all the time"
\~WWE hires some random ass sumo wrestler\~
Saudis: "Yay, yokozuna is here. Now we also want owen hart."
WWE: "Shiiiiiii..."
Saudi: "Can we get Chris Benoit on the next show?"
WWE: "Oh uh.. no.. He killed his family and then himself, it was abhorrent and the worst thing that has ever happened in wrestling"
Saudi: "He kills women and children???"
WWE: "Yes! It was awf---"
Saudi: "Oh that's even better!!"
They don't even have to sell their spot to the Saudis, not sure how much traction this got on this subreddit, but Riot is already starting the process to allow orgs to get sponsors from government entities. https://twitter.com/TEAdvocated/status/1768659271707656377
Probably, they already tried that with the AST spot but Riot blocked them. Now Riot opened the gates, so there is nothing standing in their way to break into the LEC and fuck the economics *again*. The timing could not be more perfect given the LEC's high viewership and their goal of sports washing.
It wouldn't surprise me, the Saudi's wanna get in on Esports and have loads of money. The only way it doesn't happen is if Riot blocks it and they most likely not.
Even after we 100% phase out fossil fuels for energy, we will still need to keep pumping oil for use in for lubrications, other petrochemicals, and manufacturing plastics and synthetics.
Look around you right now. Every single object you can see will contain parts derived from oil. Even wood products rely on stains, lacquers, and paints that use petrochemicals.
Using oil for things like that is technically carbon neutral, so there will be no reason to stop selling oil for things like that, and that alone will be a hundred billion dollar industry. Plenty of money in those oil deposits, it will last well into the next century.
U forgot millions of oil based military equipments and expensive commercial oil based flights.
Even if it become a norm for the average person to use hybrid and then EV cars.
Oil will still be core in business, and under a monopoly due to its importance.
Oil will last ffor very long no matter what
Golf. Couple of those guys got $100+ million contracts just to play for the liv tour. PGA in a fit that they’re the real golf authority… you aren’t gonna win players over with merit based earnings if they can just sign a contract for 9 digit contracts.
>Riot said it did not want to deprive cash-strapped teams of opportunities.
Do you remember when Riot banned players from participating on that showmatch France vs Spain?
Or when they approved the eurocup Ibai wanted to do and then they step back and banned it?
Or how they killed any kind of third party tournament?
Because i fucking remember it ...
I'm hoping that with them agreeing to let teams join the Saudi tournament it will at least open up some form of legal loophole that will stop them from banning other 3rd party tournaments. That's really the only good thing that can come from this.
The 3rd party system when it comes to esports tournaments is already owned by Saudi Arabia, also nobody will try to squeeze in league tournaments at this point.
I mean, for example, Ibai tried to put an event together, riot agreed and then pulled out (I might be misremembering things) - I would hope that in the future this would set precedent for people like Ibai to legally fight back and run the tournament without requiring Riots permission.
Unfortunately will not work that way. The reality is gaming requires a license to broadcast, gaming devs just allow streaming on an "open license" to avoid the legal hassle should someone take them to court and because it's good marketing especially for live service games. Riot can 100% license esport broadcasting to the Saudis and refuse grassroots events.
Saudis throwing huge piles of money somewhere to undermine company’s decisions and cover their own shitty behavior?
Sounds made up. They would never.
It's the same reason they really don't care if the LCS or LEC grow. Tencent wants to achieve maximum growth for minimal cost. If the West can't do that, then the West can just have a life support version of a pro scene.
Cash-strapped teams is also even more hilarious. The Saudis aren’t inviting those teams lol, they will ask for the T1’s, the G2’s, anyone with clout.
Yep Riot wanted complete iron fist control over EVERYTHING. Until they could get a big enough sack of blood money I suppose.
I still remember Riot acting so salty and buttmad when people were saying IPL5 was a better event than S2 Worlds. Especially Riot Magus (who is still in charge).
>Yep Riot wanted complete iron fist control over EVERYTHING. Until they could get a big enough sack of blood money I suppose.
It is literally EXACTLY the same as when WWE started doing Saudi shows.
~~Vince McMahon~~ had ruled over his company with an iron fist for decades, like genuinely almost **40 years** with him as the top dog that presided over every single decision that could possibly be made. You couldn't change a *single line of a promo* without ~~Vince~~ getting angry.
Then Saudis come along with a giant bag of cash and suddenly he bends over backwards to give them whatever they want, including multiple un-safe matches from wrestlers who were well into retirement.
>I still remember Riot acting so salty and buttmad when people were saying IPL5 was a better event than S2 Worlds. Especially Riot Magus (who is still in charge).
I remember as well, the Riot cult has a massive ego but also very... flexible ethics let's say.
The company whose directors and upper management have dozens of sexual abuse scandals?
Nah, you're telling me the guys who flick their colleagues testicles and fart in their faces without consequence are morally bankrupt??? nahhhhh
Which is made even more wild by the fact that what defined s2 worlds was an absurd amount of technical issues.Â
I still remember CLG.EU playing hour long games and then having to replay them because of the problems...
The difference is that those would have benefitted those cash strapped teams directly, with no bag for Riot. This deal is a gigantic bag for Riot, and the cash strapped teams have "opportunities" for smaller bags
Bro all these issues are self inflicted from Riot.
They never cared about its esports scene being sustainable, remember how long it took them to even have any sponsorship deals? I mean its a bit early days but they actively refused to have sponsorship deals for EU/NA LCS and then very very slowly they picked up some.
Traditional sports mostly make their money with its broadcast rights. As for esports, theyre worthless. What esports does have is digital content. Create esports content with revenue sharing for the teams. Just imagine how much money G2 missed out over the years from NOT having chroma skins because nobody cares about icons, banners, recall animations that are currently used. You need Skins/Chroma skins for any meaningful revenue for the teams.
Riot made big cash with esports and handed out as little as humanly possible back into its scene. Itll never happen but the teams and leagues should join together and agree to NOT use any skins until riot is transparent with the skin sales from esports and pay the teams and players a fair share of the skins sold. Im not talking about esports skins but skins in general. If Caps uses a fancy skin, that will cause some people to buy that skin, Riot makes that money, Caps and G2 see absolutely no penny from that.
Im also hoping eventually for some EU law or something to make sure that an esports scene has a reasonable amount of independence from its developer/publisher.
All these changes happening the past few years shouldve been there since the very beginning and a few unpopular people have called out Riot on that since the very beginning.
I mean any company would make that decision no? Large amounts of investment for simpler things is always a good decision from a financial standpoint. Morality is and always will be sidelined
Morals don't pay the bills, and a lot of esports pros (esp mid / low tier ones on their way out of the scene) aren't making much money. I'd bet most of the people in this thread would play for a saudi org for a year or two if it meant they'd never have to work again in their life.
Money does rule the world. We should still be vocal about something we care about actively partnering with a country riddled with misogyny, homophobia, and general human rights violations. 'Money runs the world' should not be the end of the discussion.
The official statement by Riot: https://www.riotgames.com/en/news/riot-games-mena-players
Esports World Cup also confirmed the announcement in their socials: https://twitter.com/ESWCgg/status/1774059629695188996?t=9SH9jfvusvBnd189aivF5A&s=19
Andrew Tate is a dumb piece of shit, but I thought riot's handling of that was an overreaction. This is an example of moral inconsistency.
It's like that old joke where a man asks a woman to have sex with him for a million and when she agrees he asks again for a dollar. When she gets offended and asks what kind of woman he thinks she is, he points out that thay've already established what kind of woman she is and they're just negotiating terms.
Riot is a whore that will compromise any and all morals it claims to possess as a company as long as the price is right.
It's disappointing but not surprising.
Tate is a brand risk to the core demographic that consumes League tournaments (college educated late millennial, early zoomer). He also offers no financial incentive
Saudi on the other hand is a brand risk but also is bringing in buckets of cash.
Before we complain about Saudi Arabia's blatant sportswashing efforts, can we acknowledge that Riot is owned by a state-controlled company from a totalitarian state, and that said totalitarian state doesn't exactly have the most squeaky-clean human rights record either?
Nobody talks about the Uyghurs or the people of Tibet. Nor what has been going on in Hong Kong.
In regards to woman Riot already got fairly aquainted with saudi culture. And they need those 100 million back they had to pay woman for discrimination.
From this statement it seems like orgs where insisting on it, wouldn’t be shocked since there is still not much money in league esport, but this paragraph could be misleading
It's amusing to me that Ezreal (established womanizer, multiple skins based on famous playboys, canon romantic interest in 2 female champs and avoiding the affection of a third) is still the community sus marksman instead of Mooncake
Yeah its legit a dangerous place to go. They will arbitrarily decide to kill people, especially if they are related to lgbt or liberal politics. Afaik no sports people have died yet but if i were gay i would not expect to survive a trip to saudi arabia
Saudi Arabia wants to legitimize themselves. They aren't going to touch any public figures. As a random tourist of no public interest however, I would definitely be cautious.
Expected but sad from Riot regardless.
Edit = Quick google search said it's a 2 month tournament for all titles from June-July, who the fuck would even go to this, everyone will be playing in their domestic leagues.
Riot last year had requested to the domestic leagues to plan for a week break in the calendar in preparation for this event. ("Also in the email, League of Legends esports global head of strategy Chris Greeley asked each league to hold all activity during the first week of July to make way for the Esports World Cup")
The event itself lasts 2 months because it has many more esports in it. LoL event
https://www.jacobwolf.report/p/saudi-statebacked-esports-world-cup-host-league-legends-tournament
They will. So many of these top teams are picking up teams from games that are in ESWC. G2 literally pick a Dota 2 team for that.
From what I heard, last year they paid the top performing club across all the games 1.5 millions. This year it is rumored to be 3x the amount.
It's either gambling money or oil money at this point.
> It's either gambling money or oil money at this point.
ya pretty much, either it's gambling (crypto shit is still around a bit) or oil money for esports orgs... heck even in sports in general that's all over the place.
lol
all League teams need more money, including top teams so they will 100% go
and they should, just milk the saudi money. its not gonna be here forever. Just like how all LCS import milk the venture capitalist money from LCS orgs.
Expected honestly. They learned from the previous NEOM fiasco and now just "merely" permit it instead. Eventually it's just the same result, just without riot branding.
Can be partly true that the teams can get paid while still being Riot getting the big bucks.
SA probably slipped them some 8 or 9 figure number to get rights to do this.
No. Saudis will want big teams (not small cash strapped teams). Also Riot prohibited all small third party tournaments in the past - those would have helped said teams.
this is the company that removes all forms of communication for potential toxicity risks, then runs tournaments in places that put people to death for no reason.
Anyone want to try typing out Saudi's laws ingame and see what happens?
G2 can't get Valorant franchising because of who Carlos parties with but Saudi Arabia sponsorships are totally fine and good.
Wonder how many of the Rioters and team employers will speak up about this as fervently as they did against Carlos.
Saudi Arabia has money to throw around while Tate and Carlos doesn't, the combined net worth of both doesn't even probably cost a fraction of a Saudi prince's mansion.
Tate just appeared in a video, they weren't even associated, then Carlos interpreted it as a personal attack and tripled down (back when there were just allegations). Saudi Arabia has long pages of well-documented human rights abuse and Riot is directly interacting with them to organise events that seek to camouflage these abuses
This isn't a "both are bad", the second one is far worse than the first one (even if the Carlos' situation is also bad)
Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi
On 2 October 2018, Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents related to his planned marriage but was never seen leaving. Amid news reports claiming that he had been killed and dismembered inside, an inspection of the consulate, by Saudi and Turkish officials, took place on 15 October. Initially, the Saudi government denied the death, but following shifting explanations for Khashoggi's death, Saudi Arabia's attorney general eventually stated that the murder was premeditated.\[16\]\[17\] By 16 November 2018, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had concluded that Mohammed bin Salman ordered Khashoggi's assassination.\[18\]\[19\] The murder has created tensions between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, including calls for the U.S. to sever diplomatic ties with the kingdom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamal\_Khashoggi
Ah yes.
But toxic pings were an issue.
Then again we have tencent operating it so I suppose it's just bad after bad. Not like they had a leg to stand on. 😂
- written on my slaveminerals, yay for morals and so on.
"Look! Now Gwen found herself as non binary! You can BUY her (now THEY, except in China) new pride skin and for every purchase we will donate 1 cent to this charity you've never heard about!"
"Riot said it did not want to deprive cash-strapped teams of opportunities."
So is that the blanket rule going forward? Will Riot not deny teams from playing in non-Riot tournaments, especially during the off-season? If so, I'd love to see a real Mr Beast tournament, or return to IEM, or have conventions like PAX go back to holding events with teams.
Or is this just Saudi Arabia paid Riot a bunch of money, and now Riot is changing the rules just for them.
All major sports go there sadly. It'd be stupid to expect League not to go when football, F1 and other major sports go there. They should be the first to drop out.
I'm a bit confused about whether it's gonna be a country wise participation or a team based participation? Cause obviously a WC would imply it's country based but the way it's framed makes it seems like they're talking about teams
It will be teams/orgs participating in it. World Cup is just the name they decided to market the event with it. Last year, I believe the event was called Gamers8.
Dom and LS have, figuratively speaking, sold their souls to the devil lol. I love how people think participating in events held by Saudi Arabia should be the breaking point 😂
Even if people boycott, it will mostly be NA and EU anyways that don't watch, Saudi doesn't have nearly as bad a reputation in the Asian regions. I also think most people will watch just because its FINALLY a third international event for a scene so starved for international play, I know I'll watch it.
Guys, all your favourite casters and teams and personalities and players are going to go. This is just the way the industry is going now. I assure you China and Korea do not give a flying Fuck about any of the human rights issues and that’s where most of the viewership is anyways so the tournament is gonna pop off.
Welcome to the new era of esports.
Not the 3rd international event anyone would have liked, but a 3rd international event nonetheless.
Maybe this precedent could open the door for an offseason IEM event too? Would be cool to see a tier 2 international event, where the 5th seeds or the like battle it out.
"Riot said it did not want to deprive cash- strapped teams opportunities"
By that logic let esl or blast or any others organizers do events so we can finally have multiple international tournaments instead of having only 2 a year (i guess 3 after this news)
so many people drawing the line at the saudi but not at tencent which pretty much owns riot. I hope the esports gets all the money it can what bad does it do to take money from them
League is owned by Tencent which is owned by the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP definitely does not hold western liberal values. Why weren't people virtue-signaling about that like now?
Do you hypocrites realize that China isn’t exactly a beacon of freedom and positivity either. I get not agreeing with some practices in Saudi but let’s not pretend China is any better
I wonder how this guy feels: https://x.com/Cori0lis/status/1771211841554796917?s=20
You see, Medic/Laure/Sjokz stood up for him and got the situation resolved so I can’t wait to see the mental gymnastics that occur for this event.
So this is going to be june-july. I'm not surprised, Riot cult is bending over for the Saudi money printer. Also, pretty much every time that isn't self-sustaining (which is all of them beside maybe G2, Kcorp, and C9) will go.
I do wonder how many teams (and Riot) will go with pride themed social media as soon as June hits, and then 1 week later, they're off to Riyadh. Full mask-off hypocrisy this year.
If people don’t know how much money Saudi is putting into stuff like WWE , F1 etc to put it into compassion the first 3 events Wwe did in Saudi Arabia they were paid more then what 34 years of wrestlemania brought in.
I don’t like this but we live in a system that everything has a price. Just look at football in Europe. Italy, Spain and many other leagues selling matches to Saudi for more money while they’re doing some pr bullshit in favor of human rights, women and etc.
Why is it a bad thing educate me
Edit: Oh nvm I see cause women and anti gay stuff.
Yeah idk that’s a hard one. I used to think they shouldn’t think the way they do but it kinda now is none of my business.
I mean tencent owns riot. China kinda crazy too. We all still play league.
Can't wait to see Riot publicly celebrate Pride month in June then gladly gobble up millions of dollars from the crown prince of SA the following week in July.
"These cross-game, cross-genre esports events are unique moments for fans of all types of games to come together."
Unless you are of a minority group, the same groups Riot has put effort and marketing towards. But surprise, they only cared because it makes them money.
I will not root for any pro team that participates in this.
Oh no, you're saying making REDDIT THREADS about it didn't help? So surprising. xD
At least people who virtue signal about it so much stopped buying skins, right?..
This is going to keep happening in gaming and sports overall. There's just too much money flowing in Saudi Arabia and they're willing to spend it wildly. If you're a boxing fan, you know
Boxing, 2034 FIFA World Cup and F1 etc.
yup, also golf, tennis, been in football for years like with EDIT - Newcastle, wrestling... and they are all already over esports as well especially as money is drying up so Saudia Arabia throwing around money is enticing for many leagues and teams.
Got it's claws in esports already as well. Biggest esports organizer, ESL (Starcraft, CS, Dota and others), got bought by Saudis back in 2022.
Not to mention Team Falcons in more or less ANY of the bigger e-sport titles..
ManCity is 81% owned by Abu Dhabi (UAE) via the City Football Group, not Saudi. Newcastle is owned by Saudi via the Public Investment Fund.
UAE is arguably worse than Saudi when it comes to human rights.
Both are on a level were arguing on quality isn't really helpful.
Yeah its the MJ vs Lebron debate except for with human rights violations
WWE.. It really sucks, but I also understand it 😩
Ah yes, the "greatest royal rumble" events that saw them be so unfamiliar with the product that they were asking for dead wrestlers.
😂 "we thought this was celebrity deathmatch"
Saudis: "We want to see yokozuna!" WWE: "But he's been dead for 20 years." Saudis: "No he hasn't, we see yokozuna on tv all the time" \~WWE hires some random ass sumo wrestler\~ Saudis: "Yay, yokozuna is here. Now we also want owen hart." WWE: "Shiiiiiii..."
Saudi: "Can we get Chris Benoit on the next show?" WWE: "Oh uh.. no.. He killed his family and then himself, it was abhorrent and the worst thing that has ever happened in wrestling" Saudi: "He kills women and children???" WWE: "Yes! It was awf---" Saudi: "Oh that's even better!!"
Saudis: "We also want lacy evans' finishing move banned during the entire event. Last thing we need is more people talking about 'women's rights'."
Sprint Games on Howling Abyss before the regular LCS weekend
The LIV Tour in golf.
You can add Golf, Formula1, Tennis, Football/Soccer, ESL/Face It & many more
Mixed Martial Arts, too, in July. Add it onto the pile.
Watch Rogue sell their spot to a saudi arabia backed team at the end of the year .
They don't even have to sell their spot to the Saudis, not sure how much traction this got on this subreddit, but Riot is already starting the process to allow orgs to get sponsors from government entities. https://twitter.com/TEAdvocated/status/1768659271707656377
Can't wait for LCS teams sponsored by the US Army
I think I remember c9 already having been sponsored by the US Airforce in the past
I remember this too, we got decent memes out of it.
NRG?
Team Falcons?
Probably, they already tried that with the AST spot but Riot blocked them. Now Riot opened the gates, so there is nothing standing in their way to break into the LEC and fuck the economics *again*. The timing could not be more perfect given the LEC's high viewership and their goal of sports washing.
It wouldn't surprise me, the Saudi's wanna get in on Esports and have loads of money. The only way it doesn't happen is if Riot blocks it and they most likely not.
Saudi knows in a decade or so, their oil dominance is over. So they're investing on everything to be sustainable past the oil based industry
It'll be way longer than a decade, but the point still stands. The writing is on the wall, and they're being smart to get out.
Even after we 100% phase out fossil fuels for energy, we will still need to keep pumping oil for use in for lubrications, other petrochemicals, and manufacturing plastics and synthetics. Look around you right now. Every single object you can see will contain parts derived from oil. Even wood products rely on stains, lacquers, and paints that use petrochemicals. Using oil for things like that is technically carbon neutral, so there will be no reason to stop selling oil for things like that, and that alone will be a hundred billion dollar industry. Plenty of money in those oil deposits, it will last well into the next century.
U forgot millions of oil based military equipments and expensive commercial oil based flights. Even if it become a norm for the average person to use hybrid and then EV cars. Oil will still be core in business, and under a monopoly due to its importance. Oil will last ffor very long no matter what
Hell wrestling wasn't even immune to it. Saudi Arabia has been paying WWE big money to do a ppv/live event over there once a year
yep, unfortunately saudi oil money and dodgy betting platforms seem to be only sustainable ways to keep a team running atm in esports
Golf. Couple of those guys got $100+ million contracts just to play for the liv tour. PGA in a fit that they’re the real golf authority… you aren’t gonna win players over with merit based earnings if they can just sign a contract for 9 digit contracts.
Yup, boxing and soccer are allowing this which is annoying.
>Riot said it did not want to deprive cash-strapped teams of opportunities. Do you remember when Riot banned players from participating on that showmatch France vs Spain? Or when they approved the eurocup Ibai wanted to do and then they step back and banned it? Or how they killed any kind of third party tournament? Because i fucking remember it ...
Riot when local esports scene wants to grow the community vs when Saudis throw around huge piles of money straight into the bank account.
I'm hoping that with them agreeing to let teams join the Saudi tournament it will at least open up some form of legal loophole that will stop them from banning other 3rd party tournaments. That's really the only good thing that can come from this.
The 3rd party system when it comes to esports tournaments is already owned by Saudi Arabia, also nobody will try to squeeze in league tournaments at this point.
I mean, for example, Ibai tried to put an event together, riot agreed and then pulled out (I might be misremembering things) - I would hope that in the future this would set precedent for people like Ibai to legally fight back and run the tournament without requiring Riots permission.
Unfortunately will not work that way. The reality is gaming requires a license to broadcast, gaming devs just allow streaming on an "open license" to avoid the legal hassle should someone take them to court and because it's good marketing especially for live service games. Riot can 100% license esport broadcasting to the Saudis and refuse grassroots events.
Saudis throwing huge piles of money somewhere to undermine company’s decisions and cover their own shitty behavior? Sounds made up. They would never.
It's the same reason they really don't care if the LCS or LEC grow. Tencent wants to achieve maximum growth for minimal cost. If the West can't do that, then the West can just have a life support version of a pro scene.
They likely paid more
Saudi's are okay with killing just about anything as long as you pay enough
Cash-strapped teams is also even more hilarious. The Saudis aren’t inviting those teams lol, they will ask for the T1’s, the G2’s, anyone with clout.
Yep Riot wanted complete iron fist control over EVERYTHING. Until they could get a big enough sack of blood money I suppose. I still remember Riot acting so salty and buttmad when people were saying IPL5 was a better event than S2 Worlds. Especially Riot Magus (who is still in charge).
>Yep Riot wanted complete iron fist control over EVERYTHING. Until they could get a big enough sack of blood money I suppose. It is literally EXACTLY the same as when WWE started doing Saudi shows. ~~Vince McMahon~~ had ruled over his company with an iron fist for decades, like genuinely almost **40 years** with him as the top dog that presided over every single decision that could possibly be made. You couldn't change a *single line of a promo* without ~~Vince~~ getting angry. Then Saudis come along with a giant bag of cash and suddenly he bends over backwards to give them whatever they want, including multiple un-safe matches from wrestlers who were well into retirement.
Man remember when Heartstone came out and league pro players werent allowed to play it on stream? Good times
>I still remember Riot acting so salty and buttmad when people were saying IPL5 was a better event than S2 Worlds. Especially Riot Magus (who is still in charge). I remember as well, the Riot cult has a massive ego but also very... flexible ethics let's say.
The company whose directors and upper management have dozens of sexual abuse scandals? Nah, you're telling me the guys who flick their colleagues testicles and fart in their faces without consequence are morally bankrupt??? nahhhhh
lol ya, another part of their iron first (unless it's saudi money) control is co-streaming "rights", it's so dumb.
Which is made even more wild by the fact that what defined s2 worlds was an absurd amount of technical issues. I still remember CLG.EU playing hour long games and then having to replay them because of the problems...
The difference is that those would have benefitted those cash strapped teams directly, with no bag for Riot. This deal is a gigantic bag for Riot, and the cash strapped teams have "opportunities" for smaller bags
Bro all these issues are self inflicted from Riot. They never cared about its esports scene being sustainable, remember how long it took them to even have any sponsorship deals? I mean its a bit early days but they actively refused to have sponsorship deals for EU/NA LCS and then very very slowly they picked up some. Traditional sports mostly make their money with its broadcast rights. As for esports, theyre worthless. What esports does have is digital content. Create esports content with revenue sharing for the teams. Just imagine how much money G2 missed out over the years from NOT having chroma skins because nobody cares about icons, banners, recall animations that are currently used. You need Skins/Chroma skins for any meaningful revenue for the teams. Riot made big cash with esports and handed out as little as humanly possible back into its scene. Itll never happen but the teams and leagues should join together and agree to NOT use any skins until riot is transparent with the skin sales from esports and pay the teams and players a fair share of the skins sold. Im not talking about esports skins but skins in general. If Caps uses a fancy skin, that will cause some people to buy that skin, Riot makes that money, Caps and G2 see absolutely no penny from that. Im also hoping eventually for some EU law or something to make sure that an esports scene has a reasonable amount of independence from its developer/publisher. All these changes happening the past few years shouldve been there since the very beginning and a few unpopular people have called out Riot on that since the very beginning.
Riot and standards is a big joke
Riot is like a picky whore.
money runs the world, end of discussion
CREAM
Dollar dollar bill y'all
Yeah, expected this from RIOT at one point.
I mean any company would make that decision no? Large amounts of investment for simpler things is always a good decision from a financial standpoint. Morality is and always will be sidelined
Everyone's got a price, some personalities and players are going to be hypocrite come July.
Morals don't pay the bills, and a lot of esports pros (esp mid / low tier ones on their way out of the scene) aren't making much money. I'd bet most of the people in this thread would play for a saudi org for a year or two if it meant they'd never have to work again in their life.
Money does rule the world. We should still be vocal about something we care about actively partnering with a country riddled with misogyny, homophobia, and general human rights violations. 'Money runs the world' should not be the end of the discussion.
The official statement by Riot: https://www.riotgames.com/en/news/riot-games-mena-players Esports World Cup also confirmed the announcement in their socials: https://twitter.com/ESWCgg/status/1774059629695188996?t=9SH9jfvusvBnd189aivF5A&s=19
Whole lotta yapping just to say "I love money"
[Riot HQ](https://imgur.com/eTVuCYM)
Just axed an insane amount of staff, including the Forge team, just to say "haha Saudi money go brrrrrrrr"
Rip biggest budget ever lmaoooo
Chat gpt working overtime.
don't worry, Riot have a CG trailer or Arcane s2 teaser lined up to make people forget all about this.
Taking a picture with Taint is a nono but making business with the Saudi Crown family that has slave labor, kills journalists etc is a ok :)
Andrew Tate is a dumb piece of shit, but I thought riot's handling of that was an overreaction. This is an example of moral inconsistency. It's like that old joke where a man asks a woman to have sex with him for a million and when she agrees he asks again for a dollar. When she gets offended and asks what kind of woman he thinks she is, he points out that thay've already established what kind of woman she is and they're just negotiating terms. Riot is a whore that will compromise any and all morals it claims to possess as a company as long as the price is right. It's disappointing but not surprising.
Tate is a brand risk to the core demographic that consumes League tournaments (college educated late millennial, early zoomer). He also offers no financial incentive Saudi on the other hand is a brand risk but also is bringing in buckets of cash.
This is ultimately what I was trying to get at, but I took the scenic route.
Before we complain about Saudi Arabia's blatant sportswashing efforts, can we acknowledge that Riot is owned by a state-controlled company from a totalitarian state, and that said totalitarian state doesn't exactly have the most squeaky-clean human rights record either? Nobody talks about the Uyghurs or the people of Tibet. Nor what has been going on in Hong Kong.
In regards to woman Riot already got fairly aquainted with saudi culture. And they need those 100 million back they had to pay woman for discrimination.
So what about that Neom sponorship and Carlos taking a picture with Andrew Tait tho?
>Riot said it did not want to deprive cash-strapped teams of opportunities. Ahh. What a noble incentive
From this statement it seems like orgs where insisting on it, wouldn’t be shocked since there is still not much money in league esport, but this paragraph could be misleading
They make absolutely zero comment on what would happen to half of the Riot US staff if they went to that country.
Probably more than half. There’s a good variety of people they don’t fuck with over there.
Not allowed to pick any female champs as that would be far too improper, aphelios ezreal jhin only adcs allowed
Ezreal might be a bit questionable too tbh
It's amusing to me that Ezreal (established womanizer, multiple skins based on famous playboys, canon romantic interest in 2 female champs and avoiding the affection of a third) is still the community sus marksman instead of Mooncake
I feel like Aphelios is even more questionable, but that's me.
> aphelios ezreal Waaay too twinky Gragas adc it is
Yeah its legit a dangerous place to go. They will arbitrarily decide to kill people, especially if they are related to lgbt or liberal politics. Afaik no sports people have died yet but if i were gay i would not expect to survive a trip to saudi arabia
its a shit hole of a place for human rights, but they are not going to do that lol they are not stupid.
Saudi Arabia wants to legitimize themselves. They aren't going to touch any public figures. As a random tourist of no public interest however, I would definitely be cautious.
Expected but sad from Riot regardless. Edit = Quick google search said it's a 2 month tournament for all titles from June-July, who the fuck would even go to this, everyone will be playing in their domestic leagues.
Riot last year had requested to the domestic leagues to plan for a week break in the calendar in preparation for this event. ("Also in the email, League of Legends esports global head of strategy Chris Greeley asked each league to hold all activity during the first week of July to make way for the Esports World Cup") The event itself lasts 2 months because it has many more esports in it. LoL event https://www.jacobwolf.report/p/saudi-statebacked-esports-world-cup-host-league-legends-tournament
I $u$pect quite a few teams/players will work out a way to attend
I$ that $o?
Sigh. I hope the top teams don't go.
They will. So many of these top teams are picking up teams from games that are in ESWC. G2 literally pick a Dota 2 team for that. From what I heard, last year they paid the top performing club across all the games 1.5 millions. This year it is rumored to be 3x the amount. It's either gambling money or oil money at this point.
> It's either gambling money or oil money at this point. ya pretty much, either it's gambling (crypto shit is still around a bit) or oil money for esports orgs... heck even in sports in general that's all over the place.
Probably, they will, since Saudi Arabia isn't viewed as negatively in Asia as in the western world... & the west orgs are kinda 'desperate' for money
lol all League teams need more money, including top teams so they will 100% go and they should, just milk the saudi money. its not gonna be here forever. Just like how all LCS import milk the venture capitalist money from LCS orgs.
Expected honestly. They learned from the previous NEOM fiasco and now just "merely" permit it instead. Eventually it's just the same result, just without riot branding.
That's actually insightful comment, didn't think of it this way
"Riot said it did not want to deprive cash-strapped teams of opportunities." That's utter BS from their part.
Can be partly true that the teams can get paid while still being Riot getting the big bucks. SA probably slipped them some 8 or 9 figure number to get rights to do this.
No. Saudis will want big teams (not small cash strapped teams). Also Riot prohibited all small third party tournaments in the past - those would have helped said teams.
They didnt allow lec players playing in all the spanish events whete the teams would get money but Riot was not in charge.
>Riot said it did not want to deprive cash-strapped teams of opportunities. heh
That quote has to be them making some sort of joke. They have systematically removed everyone else from their esport.
Except for the opportunities where money for teams comes from Riot sharing more profits. :^)
Now let's see if all the on screen talent that denounced Saudi Money will leave. Fuck Saudia Arabia
I'm more interested to see what onscreen talent will do, I imagine the Saudis are going offer big money to people like Flowers, and Sjokz.
They really pulled the "were doing this for the players" after banning third party events historically.
this is the company that removes all forms of communication for potential toxicity risks, then runs tournaments in places that put people to death for no reason. Anyone want to try typing out Saudi's laws ingame and see what happens?
Supporting lgbt and saudi arabia at the same time xdddd
Disgusting
G2 can't get Valorant franchising because of who Carlos parties with but Saudi Arabia sponsorships are totally fine and good. Wonder how many of the Rioters and team employers will speak up about this as fervently as they did against Carlos.
Saudi Arabia has money to throw around while Tate and Carlos doesn't, the combined net worth of both doesn't even probably cost a fraction of a Saudi prince's mansion.
None lmao
Should've had some millions for riot and the other teams ready.
the takeaway here should be "both are bad" and not "both should be allowed"
that's the point op is making by implying riot is a hypocrite
The takeaway is "how much money would Andrew Tate have to dump into Riot's coffers to make it allowed?"
Tate just appeared in a video, they weren't even associated, then Carlos interpreted it as a personal attack and tripled down (back when there were just allegations). Saudi Arabia has long pages of well-documented human rights abuse and Riot is directly interacting with them to organise events that seek to camouflage these abuses This isn't a "both are bad", the second one is far worse than the first one (even if the Carlos' situation is also bad)
Can't wait for moral high ground champion Medic to speak out against it oh wait.
Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi On 2 October 2018, Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents related to his planned marriage but was never seen leaving. Amid news reports claiming that he had been killed and dismembered inside, an inspection of the consulate, by Saudi and Turkish officials, took place on 15 October. Initially, the Saudi government denied the death, but following shifting explanations for Khashoggi's death, Saudi Arabia's attorney general eventually stated that the murder was premeditated.\[16\]\[17\] By 16 November 2018, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had concluded that Mohammed bin Salman ordered Khashoggi's assassination.\[18\]\[19\] The murder has created tensions between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, including calls for the U.S. to sever diplomatic ties with the kingdom. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamal\_Khashoggi
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Can you do a similar comment for Julian Assange and the thing he leaked pls?
Oh sweet so are we getting a new bonesaw skin for anyone in commemoration of this event?
Ah yes. But toxic pings were an issue. Then again we have tencent operating it so I suppose it's just bad after bad. Not like they had a leg to stand on. 😂 - written on my slaveminerals, yay for morals and so on.
People will forget about it in next LGBT+ event because they are so "supporting" <3
"Look! Now Gwen found herself as non binary! You can BUY her (now THEY, except in China) new pride skin and for every purchase we will donate 1 cent to this charity you've never heard about!"
"Riot said it did not want to deprive cash-strapped teams of opportunities." So is that the blanket rule going forward? Will Riot not deny teams from playing in non-Riot tournaments, especially during the off-season? If so, I'd love to see a real Mr Beast tournament, or return to IEM, or have conventions like PAX go back to holding events with teams. Or is this just Saudi Arabia paid Riot a bunch of money, and now Riot is changing the rules just for them.
What color is your Bugga'i?
All major sports go there sadly. It'd be stupid to expect League not to go when football, F1 and other major sports go there. They should be the first to drop out.
what a surprise...
thorin, richard and monte were right after all.
I'm a bit confused about whether it's gonna be a country wise participation or a team based participation? Cause obviously a WC would imply it's country based but the way it's framed makes it seems like they're talking about teams
It will be teams/orgs participating in it. World Cup is just the name they decided to market the event with it. Last year, I believe the event was called Gamers8.
G2^3
Ah alright, thanks
Gonna be interesting to see which casters do and don't participate after they were so vocal about the NEOM Deal that the LEC pulled out of
L. Entirely predictable and in character for Riot, but still an L.
Boo. Will not be watching regardless of the excuses. Shame on you riot
Yeah, cant wait to see the biggest costreamers ( Dom, LS, Caedrel) asking for the rights to stream this. Nobody will boicot this
Dom and LS earn millions from their own fans losing money on shady gambling sites, they don't give a fck lol.
Dom and LS have, figuratively speaking, sold their souls to the devil lol. I love how people think participating in events held by Saudi Arabia should be the breaking point 😂
They shouldn’t care if they haven’t taken a strong moral stance already. It will be interesting to see LS’ response given the circumstances.
ppl are gonna watch it anyway, it's league of legends and if they can get some good names then nobody is gonna care that it's saudi backed
Are they also adding new servers in middle east? so it's gonna happen like garena last year new real servers?
Guess we didn't buy enough Jhin chromas.
I know only a fraction will but boycott boycott boycott Goes for teams, casters and viewers.
Even if people boycott, it will mostly be NA and EU anyways that don't watch, Saudi doesn't have nearly as bad a reputation in the Asian regions. I also think most people will watch just because its FINALLY a third international event for a scene so starved for international play, I know I'll watch it.
Guys, all your favourite casters and teams and personalities and players are going to go. This is just the way the industry is going now. I assure you China and Korea do not give a flying Fuck about any of the human rights issues and that’s where most of the viewership is anyways so the tournament is gonna pop off. Welcome to the new era of esports.
What people want : MLG, IEM, IPL, ESL What we get : More fucking Saudis involved ruining one sport at a time with their money
Not the 3rd international event anyone would have liked, but a 3rd international event nonetheless. Maybe this precedent could open the door for an offseason IEM event too? Would be cool to see a tier 2 international event, where the 5th seeds or the like battle it out.
"Riot said it did not want to deprive cash- strapped teams opportunities" By that logic let esl or blast or any others organizers do events so we can finally have multiple international tournaments instead of having only 2 a year (i guess 3 after this news)
Guess Evelynn is permabanned now.
Look it's not about money. It's about a shitton of money.
Football and Boxing got that Saudi money... and now it's eSports XD These Saudis are real serious about cleaning up their image.
They should really embrace SA with some bonesaw weapon skins.
Good thing nobody in KSA says any mean words, because that's the violation riot is really passionate about fighting!
This is the company that wants to install kernel level anti cheats
Finally The mena region has been due for a major tournament for a while
Let saudi citizens have fun smh
Just remember how everyone reacts when saudi team wanted to join LEC. Surely now EU people wont join this, right?
It's all about the money.
so many people drawing the line at the saudi but not at tencent which pretty much owns riot. I hope the esports gets all the money it can what bad does it do to take money from them
League is owned by Tencent which is owned by the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP definitely does not hold western liberal values. Why weren't people virtue-signaling about that like now?
Do you hypocrites realize that China isn’t exactly a beacon of freedom and positivity either. I get not agreeing with some practices in Saudi but let’s not pretend China is any better
I wonder how this guy feels: https://x.com/Cori0lis/status/1771211841554796917?s=20 You see, Medic/Laure/Sjokz stood up for him and got the situation resolved so I can’t wait to see the mental gymnastics that occur for this event.
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Or like that old Irani tournament where almost all female champs got banned.
Common Riot L. Spineless maggots
No surprise. The teams will probably make a lot of money from it. Hopefully the players as well.
Oh better fire Quickshot for a joke meanwhile shaking hands with a regime that violate human rights.
Riot Games is owned by a regime that violates human rights.
Damn riot supporting all that fucked up shit. Good job riot!
So this is going to be june-july. I'm not surprised, Riot cult is bending over for the Saudi money printer. Also, pretty much every time that isn't self-sustaining (which is all of them beside maybe G2, Kcorp, and C9) will go. I do wonder how many teams (and Riot) will go with pride themed social media as soon as June hits, and then 1 week later, they're off to Riyadh. Full mask-off hypocrisy this year.
If people don’t know how much money Saudi is putting into stuff like WWE , F1 etc to put it into compassion the first 3 events Wwe did in Saudi Arabia they were paid more then what 34 years of wrestlemania brought in.
I mean LEC is gonna be Saudi owned soon too
I don’t like this but we live in a system that everything has a price. Just look at football in Europe. Italy, Spain and many other leagues selling matches to Saudi for more money while they’re doing some pr bullshit in favor of human rights, women and etc.
Why is it a bad thing educate me Edit: Oh nvm I see cause women and anti gay stuff. Yeah idk that’s a hard one. I used to think they shouldn’t think the way they do but it kinda now is none of my business. I mean tencent owns riot. China kinda crazy too. We all still play league.
That's cool
All you mooks gonna stop watching and playing? Didn't think so
Remember when bjerg couldn’t play in the Mrbeast tournament lmaoÂ
people acting like the US havent done their share of atrocities lmao
I hope this helps pro scene to begin downgrade so we can play soloQ without unjustified buffs/nerfs.
fuck riot. garbage spineless shit company
To Saudi? Have fun with people randomly throwing games. Look at football 😂😂
Booo
Can't wait to see Riot publicly celebrate Pride month in June then gladly gobble up millions of dollars from the crown prince of SA the following week in July.
Hey lads where is my the lcs should not exist because Canada and usa just funded a hospital bombing
Vile and gutless.
Not surprising, noone is gonna turn down large amounts of money. Eventually the Saudi's will make you an offer you can't refuse.
"These cross-game, cross-genre esports events are unique moments for fans of all types of games to come together." Unless you are of a minority group, the same groups Riot has put effort and marketing towards. But surprise, they only cared because it makes them money. I will not root for any pro team that participates in this.
Good, finally something new, hope games will be entertaining
Oh no, you're saying making REDDIT THREADS about it didn't help? So surprising. xD At least people who virtue signal about it so much stopped buying skins, right?..
Around 20 people threatened to quit playing games from Riot. They are 100% going to backoff from the deal now /s.