Saudi Arabia has entered e-sports with a bang.
The state’s investment fund, Public Investment Fund, or PIF, has acquired a large number of e-sports tournament organizers in a short period of time. Last year, the fund bought the world’s largest tournament organizer ESL and gaming platform Faceit in a billion-dollar transaction. The company cluster was even more complete a couple of weeks ago, when PIF bought one of ESL’s biggest competitors (you move to another service)of Vindex.
The fund has already been active in acquiring sports teams and tournaments in the past. For example, the purchase of Newcastle United, which plays in the football Premier League, and the organization of the Saudi-led LIV golf tour with large prize pools are clearly measures by which Saudi Arabia seeks to renew the image of the country.
This weekend, the F1 series race will be held in the country, which has also received some criticism.
Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Helsinki Hannu Juusola sees the multi-billion deals of e-sports tournament organizers as part of the same whole of sportswashing, with which Saudi Arabia tries to shape public images.
– It’s about soft power, i.e. an effort to fade the image of the state, which is conservative and strongly religious, Juusola estimates.
In addition to the image policy, the aim is also to reform the structure of the country’s economy. According to Juusola, the oil-rich country attracts tourists with sports events and foreign investments in, for example, the country’s infrastructure, so that the country’s economy is not forever dependent on natural resources alone.
When the representatives of the tournament organizers have been asked about the moral contradictions of Saudi ownership and the role of companies as a means of sports laundering, they have tried to turn the attention to the development of Saudi Arabia as a society and the positive impact of sports. According to Juusola, this is true, but only partially.
– The state is modernizing and social freedoms are being increased, for example women are allowed to drive cars and the country wants tourists and pop concerts. The impression can therefore be the same for an individual tourist as, for example, in Dubai.
Juusola states that dissidents and critics of the system actually have less room to maneuver in Saudi Arabia than before and democratic development is going backwards.
– The political leadership liberalizes the system, but at the same time fears that it will lead to growing political criticism of the system and suppress dissenters. The same was seen in Russia in connection with the Sochi Games and the World Cup football, Juusola states.
Juusola estimates that moral questions related to sports will become even more important in the future. However, the boundaries are blurred: there are already contradictions between different sports in whether, for example, Russian athletes are excluded from international competitions or whether they are allowed to compete as neutral athletes. The choices of race organizers have also often gone into the gray area.
– The fact is that the vast majority of sports events are organized in democratically problematic countries. This is a much broader question, Juusola states.
As part of soft influence, tournaments are also exported to Saudi Arabia. The first Riyadh Masters million tournament was held in the country’s capital Riyadh last summer, and this year the city will host the final event of ESL’s Dota 2 professional tour. There is a huge amount of money being distributed in the tournament, a total of 15 million dollars.
In Hannu Juusola’s opinion, this is also the biggest factor that allows Saudi Arabia to continue to influence the field of sports. Money talks.
– Saudi Arabia has a huge amount of wealth accumulated over decades and it is also used to shape the image.
The tournament was postponed, but acquisitions are not just canceled like that
Ethical and moral questions are more recent in e-sports than, for example, in the Olympics. The sports community has not welcomed Saudi Arabia with open arms either: for example, the move of League of Legends’ European League finals to Saudi Arabia in 2020 caused such an uproar that the tournament was moved elsewhere.
Saudi Arabia, which overshadows tournament organizers, ensures with multi-billion dollar deals that tournaments are actually organized in the country. The situation is difficult for e-athletes, because raising the country’s human rights violations and other problems while in the country can even be a security threat for the athletes.
For example, F1 drivers were pressured to keep quiet last year when the drivers wanted to leave the country after a missile hit near the race track.
The companies acquired by Savvy Gaming Group already have a strong position in the tournament fields of certain e-sports. For example, the professional league of the Halo game series is completely outsourced to Esports Engine, and not the Finnish superstar of the StarCraft 2 game Jonah “Serral” At war have the option to avoid participating in ESL World Tour tournaments.
In Juusola’s opinion, it is unreasonable to make demands on individual athletes that they should take a stand on, for example, Saudi Arabia’s social problems or boycott tournaments.
– An athlete can be subject to harsh criticism for playing sports in a country with human rights violations. At the same time, weapons are being imported from Finland. I don’t think that’s fair, Juusola states.
– I personally value athletes who put themselves in a difficult position and fight for moral choices. However, I don’t want to be the first to judge an athlete who plays in Saudi Arabia.
The e-sports audience now has to get used to the new reality, where tournament organizers try to draw attention away from the human rights problems of their owners and tournaments are taken to oil countries that engage in image politics.
If this goes against your own sense of morality, in practice the only way to influence things is to not look. Juusola estimates that in the short term, Saudi money speaks strongly, but in the long run, public pressure may make tournament organizers, teams and sports organizations think about their own role.
– E-sports is a new thing and its fan base may be more morally aware than, for example, football or athletics. It may be that consumer boycotts really matter.