The business of sports tech, in brief.
The Esports World Cup (EWC) returned in 2026 with a life-changing $75 million prize pool, spread across 25 tournaments and a cross-title Club Championship. However, even the magnitude of an event like the EWC cannot guarantee that every competition will attract the same attention. Mobile Legends…
If you thought the fighting game community was going to have a quiet, peaceful weekend during the Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls open beta, you clearly do not know the FGC. Between massive regional controversies before the servers even opened, unprecedented player numbers, stuttering PC performance…
Fighting games have been around since the late 90s, with tournaments following shortly. Like other esports scenes, this one is undergoing constant evolution. Fighting game tournaments are also unique in that, unlike other esports such as VALORANT or League of Legends, every tournament features a…
There is one frustrating downside to having too many hobbies: you miss things. I missed the massive Supernova Super Smash Bros. tournament last year for Monterey Car Week, and sadly won’t make it for the same reason this year. This has meant missing the Combo Contest, my favorite event of all time…
On Jul. 28, 2026, Valve released a Dota 2 hotfix addressing a critical Meepo exploit that allowed players to duplicate items and generate practically infinite amounts of gold during matches. After the exploit was identified, Meepo was temporarily removed from the Dota 2 hero pool, preventing…
The benefit of winning matches comes with the glory of playing more high-stakes matches and the opportunity to grow. In 2025, Gaimin Gladiators became the first North American team to make it to the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang international final at the Esports World Cup Women’s Invitational. The…
France-based esports organization Team Vitality fields one of the most successful rosters in the history of competitive gaming. And it’s not what you might expect. Team Vitality’s women’s Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) team just won its fourth championship title at the Esports World Cup (EWC)…
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is not the first game that slips off the tongue when you ask a Western esports fan to name one of the world’s largest competitive titles. The mobile MOBA, however, consistently draws some of the largest viewership numbers in esports. MLBB’s M7 World Championship reached a…
Let’s be uncomfortably honest for a minute. There’s definitely a kind of person that pops into your head when you hear “top Tekken player.” And that person may not look like Jeannail “Cuddle_Core” Carter. But that’s okay, she isn’t here to cater to anybody nor seek their validation. She is here to…
This week, as ever, there were more developments in the legal battles against prediction markets. But data released from Riot Games and GRID suggest they are fighting a losing battle. Fans want to predict the outcome of events and will undoubtedly find a way to do just that. More than 1.7 million…
The LEC returns today with the 2026 Summer Split getting underway in Paris, France. There will be a nine-week run between now and the finals in September, and from there, we’ll see which three European teams head to the League of Legends World Championships. This week, we’re introducing something a…
Integrity in esports remains a hot topic of conversation among fans and industry stakeholders looking to ensure the world’s biggest events are contested on a level playing field. The world’s best teams frequently compete on stages surrounded by supporters cheering on their favorite players. Despite…
Team Vitality Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) player Vivi “Vivian” Indrawaty changed her life and her family’s by banking on her esports career. The Indonesian athlete comes from a rural household, where she struggled with insecurity and fear of judgment about her living situation throughout her…
Snap Inc. and the Esports Foundation have announced Snap’s activations at the Esports World Cup 2026 in Paris, running July 6 through August 23. For the first time, Snap’s CamKit
The Esports World Cup‘s third edition landed in Paris this year, following a last-minute relocation due to geopolitical tensions. The Esports Foundation faced an unenviable task: moving 25 tournaments, thousands of competitors, and all the infrastructure behind them to a new country and city in a…
There’s a lot of buzz in the Counter-Strike community right now, and it has to do with Major stickers. Valve recently changed how Major sticker sales work at IEM Cologne 2026, ditching the capsule system we’ve used for decades in favor of a token shop where you just buy the sticker you want for a ……
Let’s be honest with ourselves for a second: the era of esports organizations begging mainstream corporate giants for a lifeline is getting a little tired. For years, the industry playbook was simple: throw money at non-endemic brands, slap a Mastercard, Coinbase, or Mercedes-Benz logo on a jersey…
If you look at the top tier of competitive gaming, it feels like a total team sport monopoly. The biggest heavyweights in the industry pull in staggering numbers, and almost every single one of them relies on a full squad to get the job done. Take a look at the viewership metrics. League of Legends…
I am going to say something that might get me kicked out of a few Discord servers, but somebody has to say it. The esports community has officially entered its witch hunt era when it comes to artificial intelligence. Every single time a game developer or an esports organization posts an image, half…
SNK is absolutely on one right now. They just pulled back the curtain on Season 3 of Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, and the release schedule is relentless. We are getting a brand-new character dropped every single month for a straight half-year, starting with Rick Strowd. The developers’ strategy…
