The Esports World Cup’s Chess tournament will begin on Tuesday, as EWC 2025 enters its fourth week. The event begins following eight months of anticipatory build-up and a prominent marketing campaign that has put Magnus Carlsen front and centre of EWC as a whole.
The winner of the four-day main event will win $250,000 of the $1,500,000 prize pool, in the event that now makes up an official part of the Champions Chess Tour, replacing the previously held Tour Finals. The strategy bears similarities to MLBB, Apex Legends, and others in which EWC has become an official part of the circuits of various esports.
Featuring some of chess’s most well-known names, now in esports jerseys, including Hikaru Nakamura, Anish Giri, and Carlsen himself, Chess at the Esports World Cup has garnered both excitement and criticism from fans.
Chess at Esports World Cup 2025
Chess has been hugely publicised as an event by the team behind the Esports World Cup, with Magnus Carlsen, who is one of the favourites to win the tournament with several Esports Betting Sites, receiving prominent promotion as part of the marketing for the event, for which he was enlisted as the “Global Ambassador” for the Esports World Cup.
The two are inextricably linked, with Carlsen taking centre stage in the announcement of Chess at EWC 2025. In a somewhat defensive statement, the announcement stated: “Yes, chess is an esport” before outlining the format and schedule of the event.
Of course, because Chess is totally an esport and definitely not a board game, the matches will be played on computers on LAN rather than a chessboard.
Chess’s inclusion in the Esports World Cup has been criticised as a way for the Saudi Arabian government to buy legitimacy for the event, in their attempt at “sportswashing” – the practice of utilising sport to improve the reputation of a person, company, or government, typically to take attention away from unethical conduct.
Magnus Carlsen, EWC, and Sportswashing
In this case, the allegation is that the Esports World Cup is to improve Saudi Arabia’s public perception due to human rights abuses, as well as breaking the state’s historic reliance on fossil fuels by becoming a predominant player in several industries and sectors.
Chess’s reputation as ‘The Game of Kings’ brings its own form of legitimacy to the Esports World Cup, and in return, Carlsen is likely to have a significant payday from his ambassador position. According to The New York Times, the global football superstar received a $25million contract from the Saudi tourism authority for a similar partnership, one which forbade him to “tarnish” the country’s image.
A piece in The Guardian by the same author states: “It is a strategy that allows the kingdom to reap the promotional benefits of being associated with some of the world’s most beloved athletes while maintaining full control of the narrative being presented, under penalty of litigation.”
Whether a similar clause applies to Carlsen’s ambassadorial deal is not known; however, Messi’s example shows the strategy of the Kingdom when it comes to using high-level athletes to promote Saudi Arabia.
Chess at EWC format
Chess at the Esports World Cup begins July 28, with four GSL groups competing in a rapid format (10+0) with two games per match.
Playoffs will feature a single-elimination bracket with a third-place decider match. Playoffs format is four games for the quarter-finals, six games in semi-finals, and three sets of four, four, then two (if needed) in the Grand Final.
Darragh Harbinson is an esports writer specialising in Counter-Strike. He has written for Esports News UK, Esports Insider, UKCSGO, Dexerto, and Rush B Media.
