In recent years, esports have grown into a massive industry, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and expected to reach around 640 million viewers by 2026. Short for electronic sports, it involves players or teams gaming against each other to win and secure the (usually monetary) prize. Matches are conducted in a tournament-style fashion, with standardized rules and restrictions to ensure the highest standards.
Enjoying steady growth for the past decade, esports has quickly become a force impacting everything from youth habits and culture to diplomacy and local economies. Universities now offer esports-focused programs and even scholarships, governments are starting to use it as a tool for cultural influence and power, and millions of youngsters now bond with their peers over their shared interest in gaming.
Now an integral part of many young people’s lives, the public perception of esports as an industry has greatly shifted over the past few years, with most now seeing it as a legitimate profession or career. While some leagues are organized by game companies themselves (e.g., the League of Legends World Championship, organized by Riot Games), others are hosted by independent organizations and usually feature multiple games.
Esports tournaments are massive drivers of international and local tourism alike, contributing to increased profits for hotels, Airbnbs, and other accommodation or transportation businesses. Creating temporary jobs for thousands of people is often the reason for local investments related to infrastructure and continuously contribute to advances in the tech sector.
The prize pools of some of the biggest esports tournaments in the world are astronomical, often reaching tens of millions of dollars. Brands fight for their right to advertise their products during the biggest events, whether it’s to promote a famous drink, a popular clothing brand, or a lucrative casino bonus.
According to some of the latest online metrics, the top three esports games offered total prize pools of $60+ million combined in 2025 alone. 1 in 5 esports followers lives in the Asia Pacific region, with China and the Philippines making up 40% of viewers combined. While year-over-year growth in sponsorships continues to decline, the industry was still able to maintain a 7% sponsorship increase in 2025. With the top five teams having earned $13.5 million combined in 2025 alone, the numbers suggest the appetite for esports is as big as ever.
In fact, many esports fans have been calling for esports to be added to the list of sports hosted by the Olympic Games. However, multiple issues continue to prevent this from happening, including the lack of a single international federation to govern esports, as well as the issue of violence in games (e.g., Counter-Strike). The latter is particularly troublesome: Two of the four most popular esports games are shooter games (Counter-Strike 2, Valorant), while the other two are multiplayer battle-style games (League of Legends, Dota 2). With games of similar genres “not aligned with the Olympic values”, fans worry that an Olympic event without the legendary games would feel very incomplete.
In June 2023, the inaugural Olympic Esports Week hosted by the IOC took place, which included in-person live finals of the 2023 Olympic Esports Series. Drawing 20,000+ visitors over four days, the event proved to be a success overall, with the main criticism coming from the above-mentioned limited game coverage, covering only 10 games/sports:
• Archery – Tic Tac Bow
• Baseball – WBSC eBaseball: Power Pros
• Chess – Chess.com
• Cycling – Zwift
• Dance – Just Dance
• Motorsport – Gran Turismo 7
• Sailing Inshore – Virtual Regatta
• Shooting – Fortnite
• Taekwondo – Virtual Taekwondo
• Tennis – Tennis Clash
Following the event, the IOC announced a new partnership with Saudi Arabia, set to bring a brand-new event aimed at replacing the Olympic Esports Series: the Olympic Esports Games. Held every two years between the Winter and Summer Olympics, the event promised a spectacle like never before, starting in 2027.
Olympic Esports Games: Coming (not so) soon
Towards the end of 2025, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee (SOPC), and the Esports World Cup Foundation (EWCF) announced the conclusion of their partnership to host the inaugural Olympic Esports Games in Saudi Arabia in 2027. The decision, presented as a mutual agreement, caught many off guard, having come only a year after the parties signed a 12-year agreement that included hosting the inaugural Olympic Esports Games in Saudi Arabia – an unprecedented event in the history of esports.
Following the announcement, Saudi Arabia’s Esports World Cup said in a statement: “EWCF will continue to focus on building on the success of the Esports World Cup, the world’s largest gaming and esports festival, and launching the inaugural Esports Nations Cup in November 2026, a landmark event celebrating national pride, global competition, and community connection.”
As for the IOC, the committee’s goal is to come up with a new approach that “will be a chance to better fit the Olympic Esports Games to the long-term ambitions of the Olympic Movement and to spread the opportunities presented by the Olympic Esports Games more widely, with the objective of having the inaugural Games as soon as possible.”
The Olympic Sports Games initiative, signed by the parties in July 2024, created a massive wave of excitement among the wider esports circle when it was first announced, with crowds seeing the Games as a tremendous opportunity to further close the gap between traditional sports and esports.
In the months before the “breakup”, it had become clear that tensions between the parties were escalating. In August 2025, months before the 12-year agreement was publicly ended, the Esports World Cup Foundation (EWCF) announced a brand-new event, the Esports Nations Cup (ENC), where nations compete against each other for the glory of representing their country on the main stage.
Co-developed with the publishers and video game companies like Electronic Arts, Krafton, Tencent, and Ubisoft, players are expected to compete in both team and single-player formats, with teams ranging from all regions of the world, including North America, South America, Europe, MENA, Africa, Asia, and SEA & Oceania.
The event is set to take place in November 2026 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and will be hosted by different nations on a 2-year rotation basis afterwards. As for the inaugural Olympic Esports Games, esports enthusiasts eagerly waiting for the first-ever Olympic Esports Games will have to wait a bit longer than expected. Given how big business esports have become, however, chances are it won’t take long before the long-awaited event is officially unveiled.