“My heart breaks me”

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Jona “Just Johnny” Schmitt has been one of the leading German Caster for League of Legends for years. In a number of tweets, he criticized Riot Games’s decision to bind to Saudi Arabia for 3 years. Your games League of Legends, Team Fight Tactics and Valorant will take place there as tournaments as part of the ESPORT World Cup. In 2020, such a decision at LOL triggered an uprising, today it remains calm.

That is Riot Games’s decision: In the past, such news caused unrest in the community. This year it was almost without reaction. Riot Games announced on February 10 (via Riotgames):

League of Legends, Team Fight Tactics and Valorant will be part of the ESPORT World Cup. The Cup will be given the license for the games for the next 3 years and will also advertise the competitions.

As a reason, one states that you had good experiences with the competition last year and received positive feedback from teams. The prize money in particular seems to taste associations and players.

Riot recognizes in a subordinate clause that there might be trouble:

We know that some of you do not like our decision to work with the EWC in this way, and we respect that.

Disclaimer: Webedia, the parent company of Meinmmo, is also active in Saudi Arabia and maintains the Saudigamer.com portal there.

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E-Sport World Cup under the patronage of Prince Mohammed bin Salman

What is the EWC for an event? The ESPORTS World Cup (EWC) is an event in Saudi Arabia. It takes place in Riyadh. In 2024, 23 events were played in 22 games. It was about prize money of $ 62.5 million.

The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, his royal sovereign Mohammed bin Salman, carried out the victory ceremony on August 25 (via Saudi-Press Agency).

Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, is considered a strong man in Saudi Arabia, but is critically seen in terms of human rights. The CIA assumes that Bin Salman ordered the murder of his critic, Jamal Khashoggi (via Washington Post).

If you want to find out more about him, we recommend this article on Tagesschau.de:
Modernizer and Despot

My fucking heart breaks me

What does Johnny say? The German Caster Just Johnny says in a number of tweets on February 14:

I know it is Valentine’s Day, but I love the eSport and it breaks my fucking heart that it is completely sold to Saudi Arabia. I worked in an eSport for a third of my life and another domino is falling in the wrong direction every day.

He states that money was negligently handled in E-Sport and now everyone would have given up the fight. E-sport has potential to have a connecting effect, one has to speak against it again and again if e-sports changes in the wrong direction.

What is the problem? The eSports World Cup takes place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It is a political issue, similar to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The values ​​in Saudi Arabia, such as women or homosexuals are dealt with there, cannot be combined with the values, the western e-sports teams or Riot Games otherwise maintain and propagate.

Saudi Arabia is very interested in establishing itself as an e-sports center in order to boost tourism and upgrade the country’s image. One speaks of sports wazing, of the attempt by a regime, to get a better image through sport or e-sports events.

It is therefore a difficult question for professional athletes and teams whether they take part in the events. Ultimately, it boils down to a decision:

  • I take the money and prestige such tournaments with me and support a system that I actually do not want to support in its values
  • I stay away from the events and stand against it. I stay true to myself, although I have nothing of it

    • In 2020 there were so loud protests that cooperation with Saudi Arabia was canceled

    Why is that particularly tragic in that case? In 2020, the European league in LOL, the LEC, wanted to work together with a large project in Saudi Arabia. But at that time, the Casters protested their own employees, so loudly that Riot Games canceled the cooperation in just 14 hours.

    In 2024 there was a LOL event in Saudi Arabia, with the top stars from League of Legends and a high prize money, but that was hardly interested because it was not advertised.

    In 2025, Riot Games will now finally get in and cooperate with Saudi Arabia in the long term. The resistance has fallen.

    First comes the eating, then morality

    That is behind it: Justjohnny is right with his sad analysis. E-sport is now so bad that Riot Games and the teams “consciously” engage in this deal, which they might have rejected in better times from moral considerations. Just as you have driven your rules back over gambling.

    The sentence “first comes the eating, then morality.”

    This is also due to the fact that the e-sports bubble has burst and that the thick advertising money in LOL does not end up with the e-sports teams, but at the content creators.

    The fact that no more protests come against such decisions results from the fact that Riot Games systematically devalued the company’s internal Caster, which had still protested in 2020, relying on external Caster, i.e. Twitch streams.

    Ultimately, Riot Games managed to quietly normalize that you will work with Saudi Arabia. What triggered a huge cry 5 years ago is now normal. Justjohnny breaks his “fucking heart”, but it is hardly an issue in the community-probably also because worldwide is so much in turmoil that there is hardly any strength for such permanent conflicts.

    In a news from July 2024: LOL: LOL: at an e-sports tournament in Saudi Arabia for a fairytale prize money, we saw that Saudi Arabia is willing to steer a while and respond to western values. Wear jerseys

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