Esports World Cup CGO: “We want to make esports go mainstream”
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The Esports World Cup kicked off Tuesday, July 8th in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with a prize pool of $70 million across 25 tournaments from 24 games.
The figure marks an increase on last year’s $62.5 million and the competition has already drawn millions of viewers across the world.
We sat down with Esports World Cup Foundation chief games officer Fabian Scheuermann to discuss the current state of the esports industry, the opportunities for the MENA region in competitive gaming, and how esports can become more self-sustaining.
PocketGamer.biz: Could you introduce yourself and tell us what your role is at the Esports World Cup Foundation?
Fabian Scheuermann: I am the chief games officer (CGO) at the Esports World Cup Foundation. My role is to build our publisher partnerships, which entails ensuring that what we are doing here is building a platform in the best interest of the publishers, the players and the ecosystem behind each and every game.
How do you build those relationships with those partners? How do you choose which games are represented at the Esports World Cup?
The three critical factors we look at are: which are the biggest and most important esports games there are with an existing ecosystem, how much the publisher in general supports the ecosystem, and how much of the key KPIs they have, which is viewership and a live audience that we can bring here.
If you look at 2025, we have brought all of the major esports competitions to the Esports World Cup. We are pretty happy with the outcome on how we’ve built it in the past few years.
How exciting is the MENA region for you?
For us it is the epicentre of esports. If you look at the wider MENA region, it’s a very young population overall that are very vividly playing, especially mobile games.
If you look at the Kingdom specifically they are also the first nation to actually have a national gaming and esports strategy, and this as it’s so deeply ingrained within their ambitions. Of course, we as the Esports World Cup Foundation, and the Esports World Cup itself, have become a centre and heart piece out of that.
“If you look at the wider MENA region, it’s a very young population overall that are very vividly playing.”
Fabian Scheuermann
Through this we can actually grow and leapfrog the overall esports and games industry. You can see it in the partnerships we’ve been building, not only with the publishers, but also across the entire esports ecosystem with the players who come here and the fans who follow the tournament.
Could that even lead to collaboration with other countries within the Middle East?
Absolutely, if you look at the regions, they are definitely looking to collaborate more and they have always been collaborating with each other. But it’s the Esports World Cup. To be truly globally relevant, we will work very closely with other countries who are eager to dive deeper into the esports and games industry to come here and to build global collaborations.
What opportunities are there that other markets may not have?
I would speak here mostly for the Kingdom itself, if you look at the population here, it is extremely young. 67% are younger than 35 and you can see it out on the street, they’re playing games. It’s just part of their lifestyle.
And with the national gaming and esports strategy, this really helped grow this ecosystem further and further. It’s not only ingrained in their daily life, but even within school.
It has become part of the educational system that they have here. They’re playing in school and this helps build the next generation of pro players.
What lessons have you learned from last year’s EWC and how did that influence this year’s edition?
In general, our vision is to really create a platform for the wider games and esports audiences globally. That does not only entail the club championship titles and the tournaments we do here, but also the festival. If we look at both of those factors, bringing the best games and the best players with life-changing prize money, this is our true vision and that’s what we want to grow from.
A lot of those learnings are: we need to close in three or four more titles, as we’ve done with Valorant, Fatal Fury, Crossfire, and we want to become more global. With Crossfire you’ll see we’re reaching out more towards the Asian audiences to cultivate a truly global Esports World Cup.
“Our vision is to really create a platform for the wider games and esports audiences globally.”
Fabian Scheuermann
And also, if you look at the club programme there, we’ve added a lot of Asian and Chinese teams to ensure that we are balancing our global presence and interest.
Those learnings we will continue to focus on and maybe there will be more games, maybe we will grow the club championship programme, but fulfilling our vision is the key here.
What are your long-term plans for the Esports World Cup?
The Esports World Cup is there to really leapfrog the industry not only in esports, but also in gaming and establish the Kingdom as a hub for this innovation. If we look at the Esports World Cup, we are the platform at the heart of the national gaming and esports strategy to grow that.
Everything we’re doing is to serve and enhance the wider global esports ecosystem. What that means is that there might be new games coming where we will try to work together with publishers to ensure that we are better representing their communities year-over-year.
We want to make esports go mainstream to the wider games audiences and even beyond that as a global sport. That is the ultimate vision.
Are there any inspirations or learnings you’re taking from other international tournaments to help shape the EWC?
The answer to the question is twofold. Firstly, if we want to be closer to the esports audiences, we need to really stay true to them. Looking at the tournaments that we’ve done this year, 11 of those tournaments are co-hosted. That’s what we can learn from their events to make sure that we bring their brand and our brand closer together.
However if I look at how we become more mainstream, we don’t look at esports events but actual sporting events. The best example there is Wimbledon because that’s more than just a tennis event, it is a social event where people come together and have their own festival. With strawberries and cream and everything else around.
“If you look at the potential user base or the existing user base, mobile is just much bigger than PC and console.”
Fabian Scheuermann
It’s very accessible for the wider audiences but at the same time you can also follow the tournaments in the centre. This is exactly what we’re doing here, not just for a single sport but for 24, and potentially more in the years to come. Hopefully we can build this legacy a little bit faster than Wimbledon.
Out of all the different platforms (mobile, PC and console), which do you feel has the most potential to grow?
Clearly for me, the answer is mobile games. If you look at the potential user base or the existing user base, it’s just much bigger than PC and console. How many people can we reach and how many of those players can we turn into esports fans? There are no larger player bases than in mobile games. This goes for both the established and emerging markets.
Other figures from across the games and entertainment industries aren’t convinced by esports, citing that it can’t be self-sustainable. How can esports grow to be self-sustainable, and how are you helping that?
The answer to that is multi-layered. If you look at traditional sports, which is what we do, in order to push esports mainstream, we need to compare the sustainability of esports with the sustainability of traditional sports.
Looking at traditional sports, it is very often only sustainable because of the local governments funding it. For example, football in the UK, football in Germany, the NFL with their collegiate support system. All of that is government funded or through government subsidies.
This needs to happen with esports as well to make it sustainable, it can’t just sustain itself through sponsorships and revenue it earns. It needs to grow into an actual sport which means you need to have government subsidies elevating the sport.
In order to reach that, we need to push esports to become mainstream together which is what we’re doing. Together with the publishers together, with the ecosystem and the stakeholders, we are professionalising the ecosystem.
The Esports World Cup is committed to working long-term with publishers to make sure that they create financial aid for the players and the teams.
How do you feel about the future of esports locally and internationally?
Locally, I think the right initiatives are there. We need to follow through, which will take a little bit of time to reach its full potential, but we are laying the foundation by building this platform and growing it with the ecosystem and stakeholders
“We need to push esports to become mainstream together.”
Fabian Scheuermann
Globally, we need to overcome hurdles and need to grow together. I’m talking particularly about publishers’ teams, players within those teams and the tournament organisers, who need to get together and help leapfrog this industry from where it is right now and grow beyond our current ceiling.
Governments will hopefully, in the mid-term, help enable us to break through the ceiling and grow beyond that in order for esports to be recognised as a global sport.
Learn more about the games industry in the MENA region at Pocket Gamer Connects Aqaba on November 8th to 9th.
