40 of the best players in the world compete in a tournament for a large prize money – but hardly anyone notices

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The e-sports year in League of Legends is actually clearly regulated: There are two major tournaments, the MSI and the Worlds. But in 2024, a third international tournament took place: At the Esports World Cup, the EWC, 8 of the best LoL teams in the world competed against each other. There was prize money of 1 million US dollars.

What kind of tournament is this?

  • The Esports World Cup is an event in Saudi Arabia with a total prize pool of $62.5 million. The LoL tournament was played for $1 million. The winner received $400,000.
  • There were 8 teams competing, 2 from each of the major regions. They were the biggest teams in the world: T1 with Faker, G2 with Caps, Gen G. with Chovy. Exactly the teams that normally compete in a world championship.
  • It was a pure knockout tournament. The 8 teams started with the quarterfinals in a best-of-3 format. The winners went into a best-of-3 final. The actual final was played as a best-of-5.

    • But the tournament was not convincing compared to Worlds and the MSI.

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    Who won this? The world champions T1 won the tournament, beating Top Esports in the final.

    Top Esports looked almost invincible on the way to the final; they had won their first two games 2-0, while T1 had lost one of their three games.

    In the finals, it looked like the Chinese team TES with Knight was clearly on the road to victory when they swept T1 off the Rift in just 23 minutes in the first game. But Faker and his men came back and won 3 games in a row to take the title.

    The bot laner of tournament winner T1: Gumayusi.

    This is how it went for the other teams: The West teams Team Liquid (USA) and G2 shared 3rd and 4th place.

    FlyQuest and Fnatic, as well as Bilibili Gaming and Gen G. were knocked out in the first round. But there was a lot of bad luck involved, because the two Asian teams that were actually so strong met the eventual finalists from Asia in the first round. While the western teams played against each other in a crossover match in the first round: G2 defeated FlyQuest, Team Liquid eliminated Fnatic.

    Lowest viewership at a LoL final since 2018.

    What were the audience numbers? It was OK on its own, but disappointing compared to other LoL events. The event had an average of 565,093 viewers. At its peak, T1 had 1.1 million viewers watching the final.

    But compared to the Worlds and the MSI, this was disappointing. The final was the “least watched final” since the MSI 2018.

    What were the problems? DotEsports counts on:

  • Riot Games did not promote the event
  • Because the World Cup took place in Saudi Arabia, the event had an unfortunate time zone for many LoL fans
  • The tournament format with pure elimination matches is “out of date”

    • One can also assume that one or two fans did not like the fact that the event was taking place in Saudi Arabia. Although the state, in which homosexuality is punishable, had set a sign of relaxation before the event: LoL: At an e-sports tournament in Saudi Arabia for a fabulous prize money, a team is now allowed to wear Pride jerseys

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