In 2024, Saudi Arabia launched an esports tournament that did not exist the year before, with a prize pool larger than any in the history of competitive gaming.
Two years later, that tournament has become the biggest event of its kind in the world, watched by more people than most traditional sporting championships, and valuable enough that it is now being taken on the road. This summer, for the first time, the Esports World Cup will be held outside Riyadh. It is going to Paris.
For an event so closely identified with Saudi Arabia, the move might look at first glance like a setback. Look closer and the opposite is true. The Esports World Cup is going global precisely because Saudi Arabia succeeded in building something the rest of the world now wants to host.
The Announcement
The Esports Foundation confirmed this week that the third edition of the Esports World Cup will take place in Paris from July 6 to August 23, 2026. It marks the first time the tournament has been staged anywhere other than the Saudi capital since its launch.
The decision was announced following a meeting between Esports Foundation CEO Ralf Reichert and French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysée Palace, and Macron publicly thanked Saudi Arabia for its trust in bringing the event to France.
The 2026 edition will retain everything that has made the tournament a phenomenon. More than 2,000 players and 200 clubs from over 100 countries will compete across 24 games in 25 tournaments, contesting a record prize pool in excess of 75 million US dollars, the largest in esports history. The scale is unchanged. Only the postcode has moved.
The Esports Foundation framed the decision as the acceleration of a long-held ambition rather than a departure. From the beginning, the stated vision for the Esports World Cup was to become a genuinely global platform, rotating between major world cities over time in the way that the Olympics or a football World Cup does. The current regional situation in the Middle East prompted the Foundation to bring that international rotation forward earlier than originally planned. Paris, with its infrastructure, accessibility, and history of hosting major sporting events, was selected as the first international host.
Why This Is Not a Loss for Riyadh
The most important fact about the Esports World Cup is one that often gets lost in coverage of where it is played: the event is owned by Saudi Arabia regardless of its location.
The Esports Foundation is a non-profit organisation funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund at the centre of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 economic strategy. The tournament was conceived in Riyadh, built with Saudi capital, and developed as part of a deliberate national strategy to make Saudi Arabia a global hub for gaming and esports. When the Esports World Cup is held in Paris, it remains a Saudi-created, Saudi-funded, Saudi-governed institution that has chosen to stage its annual flagship abroad. The intellectual property, the structure, and the long-term direction all remain in Saudi hands.
Reichert was direct on this point. Riyadh, he said, is the home of the Esports World Cup and one of the world’s leading hubs for the sport, powered by a passionate community and a long-term commitment to competitive gaming. Paris, in his framing, is the first international chapter in the event’s history, not a relocation of its base. The Foundation has also confirmed the intention to return the Esports World Cup to Riyadh in 2027.
There is also a more immediate point. Saudi Arabia is not losing its place on the 2026 esports calendar at all. The Esports Nations Cup, the Foundation’s separate national-team competition, remains scheduled to take place in Riyadh in November 2026. Saudi Arabia will host major international esports competition this year as planned. What is moving is the single summer flagship, and it is moving temporarily.
The Numbers That Explain Why Paris Wanted It
To understand why a city like Paris would actively pursue an event Saudi Arabia built, it helps to look at what the Esports World Cup has become.
In 2025, the tournament reached more than 750 million viewers worldwide and generated over 350 million hours watched. Peak concurrent viewership approached eight million people watching simultaneously. The event was delivered across 28 platforms through 97 broadcast partners and more than 800 channels in 35 languages, reaching audiences in 140 countries. The 2025 edition drew more than three million fans to Riyadh in person, alongside over 2,500 players and support staff.
These are not the numbers of a niche enthusiast event. They place the Esports World Cup among the most-watched recurring competitions in the world, and they explain why hosting it is now a genuine prize for a global capital. When Macron called the opportunity a first that honours France, he was not being diplomatic. He was responding to the commercial and cultural reality that the Esports World Cup has become an event major cities compete to host.
That is the achievement that the Paris move actually demonstrates. Two years ago, the Esports World Cup did not exist. Today it is valuable enough that the President of France personally welcomed it to his country. Saudi Arabia did not just enter the esports industry. It created one of its largest single properties from scratch.
The Bigger Strategy
The Esports World Cup sits within a much wider Saudi push into gaming. Through Savvy Games Group, another PIF-backed entity, Saudi Arabia has invested tens of billions of dollars into game development studios, publishers, and esports organisations worldwide. The Kingdom has acquired major stakes in global gaming companies and has positioned itself as one of the most significant single sources of capital in the entire industry. The goal, stated repeatedly in Vision 2030 documentation, is to make Saudi Arabia a leading global player in a sector that appeals directly to the country’s young, digitally native population.
An international rotation strategy fits this ambition rather than undercutting it. An esports event that travels the world, while remaining Saudi-owned, extends Saudi influence in the industry into new markets and audiences. It builds the tournament into a globally recognised brand rather than a single-city spectacle. If the Esports World Cup is to become the genuinely global institution its founders describe, being hosted in multiple world capitals over time is not a compromise of that vision. It is the realisation of it.
What Comes Next
The specific Paris venue and final qualifier details are expected to be confirmed over the coming weeks. Clubs, teams, players, and ticket holders are being contacted directly about the change. The competitive structure, the prize pool, and the roster of games remain as planned.
For Saudi Arabia, the year ahead still includes hosting the Esports Nations Cup in Riyadh in November, the continued global expansion of its gaming investments through Savvy and PIF, and the confirmed return of the Esports World Cup to its home city in 2027. The summer flagship is taking a year abroad. The enterprise behind it, and the strategy that created it, remains firmly rooted in Riyadh.
The story of the Esports World Cup in 2026 is not that Saudi Arabia lost an event. It is that the Kingdom built one big enough to belong to the world.
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