The broadcast talent line-up for the League of Legends Esports World Cup in Saudi Arabia has been announced, and community reaction to this has been mixed.
The annual Esports World Cup, first announced last year, will see its inaugural event take place this summer 2024 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
While many owners of esports organisations have welcomed Saudi’s interest and investments in esports, especially amidst the ‘esports winter‘, several in the esports community have felt conflicted by it due to Saudi’s human rights record and the idea of sportswashing.
This division is extending to broadcast talent announcements like today’s, with some on Twitter and Reddit welcoming the line-up, and some calling them out for being a part of the Esports World Cup.
Talent at the LoL Esports World Cup 2024 includes:
- Kangas (stage host, USA, known for LCS and NACL work)
- Dgon (desk host, USA, known for LCS work)
- Aux (analyst, UK, known for LCK and previously LPL work)
- Valdes (caster, USA, known for LCK work)
- Joushi (caster, USA, known for NACL work)
- Atlus (caster, Australia, known for LCK work)
- Wolf (caster, USA, known for LCK work)
- Kitty (interviewer, Australia/China, known for LPL work)
- Giniro (content host, Morocco/Netherlands, known for LEC and also Valorant work)
League of Legends is one of several games that are a part of the Esports World Cup. It will have a $1m prize pool, with $60m up for grabs across all the games.
In addition to this, former LEC caster Quickshot has been announced as ‘the primary host for the Esports World Cup on a total of 19 different games on the supplementary stream’.
He was let go from Riot last year, with some speculating it was to do with a now-deleted Twitter video of him dancing, saying ‘go for the hitler, come on’.
Some were quick to highlight Quickshot’s previous condemnation of Riot’s proposed sponsorship deal with Saudi mega city Neom, which was terminated within days following uproar from casters and the wider League community.
4 years ago he was close to walking out of the lec, now he gets that money cause he's broke because he got dropped by the lec. And tbh, at that point you should maybe think about another job if you can't survive without taking blood money pic.twitter.com/suB6XxtVrV
— Lucas (@s4ns4r4) June 27, 2024
It seems that some who are criticising talent are doing so based on previous comments talent have made around the Esports World Cup or Saudi’s involvement in esports, or women in esports.
Some criticised them for virtue signalling, or making hypocritical comments, or changing their mind over time.
For example:
Related article: Navigating through Saudi Arabia’s continued rise in esports and why it’s okay to feel conflicted – opinion
As another example, Joushi previously called out Team Liquid’s stance on their involvement in the World Cup, saying:
Then later posted this tweet ahead of the Esports World Cup casters announcement, leading to some calling him out in the responses and quote tweets:
Kangas said he understands how this will ‘be disappointing to many of my followers’, said he’ll give part of his rate away to charity and ‘won’t endorse on broadcast anything that degrades the value and rights of any human’.
Many praised Chronicler for being one of the only LCK English casters who’s not a part of this Esports World Cup talent line-up.
Chronicler has previously said he will never work at any event thats directly tied to the Saudi government (nor any other government that is actively violating human rights on a systematic scale) and that he hopes this event is a one-off, that doesn’t become a constant in League Esports.
Others also praised the majority of regular LEC and LCS broadcast talent for not being involved.
Announcements from the various talent involved were met with a mixture of disappointment and excitement from Twitter users.
DonJake, UK League of Legends funnyman and the co-owner of London-based esports organisation Ruddy Esports, highlighted how similar the talent announcements were:
This is somewhat reminiscent of how several esports personalities promoted the Esports World Cup last year.
As stated, reaction overall to the casters announcement today was mixed. Here are a few examples:
The news comes a month after the teams competing in the League of Legends Esports World Cup were announced. These are listed below.
League of Legends Esports World Cup teams
- Team Liquid (LCS, North America)
- FlyQuest (LCS,North America)
- G2 Esports (LEC, Europe)
- Fnatic (LEC, Europe)
- T1 (LCK, South Korea)
- Gen.G (LCK, South Korea)
- BLG (LPL, China)
- Top Esports (LPL, China)
Fnatic, headquartered in London, are one of three UK-based esports organisations included in the Esports World Cup Foundation (EWCF) Club Support Program, which means they can receive six-figure funding to enter into new esports titles.
And they have entered more games, with Fnatic moving into TFT, Overwatch and Street Fighter esports ahead of the Esports World Cup.
Esports World Cup co-streaming announced
Elsewhere, some of the information around the World Cup’s co-streams has seemingly been announced, with UK Siege caster Fluke calling out the hypocrisy of the following statement:
Esports World Cup announces LG and Pepsi as latest partners
Lastly, the news comes as the Esports World Cup Foundation has announced it has joined forces with Pepsi for a strategic partnership.
‘As a strategic founding partner committing to a multi-year deal, Pepsi will further build on its commitment to helping unite the realms of sports, entertainment, and esports.’
Pepsi and the EWCF will work together to provide fans with activations like the Rockstar Bar, where they can get a selection of drinks and spend time in between matches in the karaoke box.
In addition, in a press release Pepsi was announced as the naming partner of a venue for Team Falcons. However, an update was sent out afterwards, saying the venue for the Falcons mentioned in the release was incorrect, and that the naming of the Falcons’ venue is still to be confirmed.
Additionally, LG Electronics has been announced as the official partner of the Esports World Cup 2024.
With more than 1,500 players taking part in the World Cup, the LG UltraGear OLED gaming monitor (model 32GS95UE) will be prominently featured at the event. And more than 990 UltraGear gaming monitors will be used during league matches and showcased at LG’s booth.
LG UltraGear, the company’s premium gaming brand, will be promoted. Attendees can also take part in coaching sessions run by the LG-sponsored Gen.G Global Academy, and win prizes by taking part in competitions.
In addition to EWC and its predecessor, Gamers8, LG sponsors and participates in other esports competitions such as the League of Legends LCK and LEC.
The League of Legends Esports World Cup runs from July 4th to 7th 2024, with the quarter finals on the 4th and 5th, semi-finals on the 6th and the grand final on the 7th.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
