Overview
- Organisers moved the Esports World Cup from Riyadh to Paris and opened the seven‑week festival on July 6 with logistics and schedules finalised for the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles.
- The event keeps an overall prize pool above $75 million and fields more than 2,000 players from over 200 clubs across 25 tournaments and 24 game titles.
- France Télévisions began airing a daily highlights show and the Dota 2 bracket is running at the Paris Expo with 24 teams competing for about $2 million between July 7 and July 19.
- Under France’s PSAN/AMF rules licensed crypto firms may sponsor the festival and place branding but they are barred from on‑site token activations or betting promotions, and companies including Coinbase and Bitget plus Polymarket prediction markets are active around matches.
- The Esports Foundation remains based in Saudi Arabia and plans a Riyadh return in 2027, leaving organisers to manage cross‑border prize payments, broadcast partnerships and the wider test of whether the World Cup can sustain scale while rotating internationally.