London Esports growth: Does The Mayoral Office really understand its esports policy?
In a conversation with Esports News UK, Howard Dawber (OBE), Deputy Mayor for Business, explained how London esports initiatives are integrated into the city’s growth plan.
However, the Mayoral Office does not seem to be completely aware of key challenges currently affecting UK esports. Although their plans are paved with good intentions, will the London Mayoral Office actually be able to support UK esports development?
Opening the conversation: London Mayoral Office representatives visit BLAST London
During the BLAST Open Fall London Counter-Strike tournament in September, representatives from the London Mayoral Office attended the event to discuss London esports growth and strategy.
Esports News UK spoke to Deputy Mayor for Business and Chair of London and Partners, Howard Dawber (OBE), during his visit.
As the event approached, the London Mayor Sadiq Khan stated that he expected the CS2 BLAST Open to boost the London economy by £30 million.
Dawber further clarified for Esports News UK how this figure is calculated:
“So there’s obviously the ticket sales, the impact of the VAT, the people who’ve come in to play, the people who’ve come in to watch. You’ve got thousands of tickets being sold over the weekend.
You’ve also got 89 million people potentially watching this live on Twitch and YouTube. You have the people who are going to watch the clips. It’s selling London.
There’s an actual spend in terms of hotels, people going out to eat afterwards. It’s a big impact.
Then you have the supply chain, all the stuff they’ve bought in terms of the screens and the power. All supplies for the stage – that all adds up.”
Large-scale events are often touted as the highlights of London esports. However, there is much value to be found in other areas of the esports industry.
Reconciling the Mayoral Office’s desire to create the “London esports capital” with a struggling industry
After recent challenges within the UK and London esports scenes, Esports News UK wanted to hear the perspective of the London Mayoral Office on reassuring those who hear their plans to make London “the esports capital of the world” but suffer insecurity in their work
In response, Dawber began by determining what the Mayoral Office considers to be outside of its control:
“Look, there are some things here that we can’t influence. We can’t influence the global economy. Esports itself is a global business. So, it’s going to be influenced by global factors that are out of our control.
What we can do is put our London-based companies in the best possible position to compete.
That is about ensuring we have simple things like good places for people to develop their skills.”
However, his response then drifted toward the games industry as opposed to esports. The two industries are interconnected. However, they both face unique challenges.
Regarding the games industry, Dawber discussed education and skills building. This included efforts to engage directly with the game development industry to understand which skills are currently most desired.
When refocused to the esports industry rather than game development, Dawber reiterated that London esports is not going to receive direct financial support. Instead, the focus is on creating adequate spaces to attract events.
“We’re not going to pay for a big event to come to London.
Normally, we don’t have to. People want to come to London for its audience and global reach, among other reasons.
But we can work hard to make sure that it’s a place where people know if you do an event here, it’s going to be profitable, it’s going to be a good event.”
Tackling esports visas and making London esports accessible
One of the key issues discussed with Dawber was esports visas. Many locations plague esports teams with visa issues. The London esports scene does not provide an exception.
The London Mayoral Office did not appear aware that pthe opular Counter-Strike team, The MongolZ, missed out on competing at BLAST London due to challenges with their visas.
Issues with UK visas have long been experienced across esports titles and events. For example, Team Falcons were forced to use a stand-in for their first ESL One Birmingham 2024 game after being hit by visa issues.
In a move that may be reassuring to esports fans, Dawber claims that London Mayor Sadiq Khan is lobbying the government for improvements in the visa application process:
“The Mayor has been very clear on this. We want London to be as easy to access for people who are coming here for business purposes, for entertainment purposes, and for cultural purposes as possible.
He has been very firm on having a sensible, pragmatic policy on business and cultural visas and on things like student visas as well. So, he’s been on this for quite a long time and talks regularly to Ministers.
He’s got a new Home Secretary. So, we will continue to make that case.
London is globally open to people to come from all over the world to make things happen, whether that’s musicians, sports players, business people, students, academics, researchers, people in the AI sector, global superstars, or PhDs.
We want them to be able to get in easily and have a predictable, fair and quick system. So, we’re quite prepared to make, and we’ll continue to make, that case.”
The UK and London fall behind other European countries for better provision of esports visas. Germany introduced a dedicated visa for esports tournaments in 2020. Meanwhile, the Mayoral Office is still lobbying for improvements.
In regard to The MongolZ missing BLAST London, he admitted, “Things like that shouldn’t happen, really.”
Discussing the development of spaces for London esports initatives
During the discussion with Howard Dawber, Esports News UK intended to explore other areas of the esports industry outside of large-scale events.
Other European countries are currently surpassing the UK in regularly held broadcasting and tournament opportunities. For example, the European League of Legends Circuit, the LEC, is run from a Berlin Stuido for the majority of the season.
The UK does not have the same status. Even BLAST, the organisers of the tournament that the London Mayoral Office attended, has its permanent studio space in Malta, not near their UK offices.
In response, Dawber immediately returned to reiterating his statement that London esports support from the Mayoral Office does not include assisting directly in producing events. He repeated that London esports is in the city’s “growth plan.”
Then, he went on to discuss the benchmarking of London against other cities:
“If we can create spaces and opportunities for ventilators to come to London, there’s a prize at the end of it, which is part of our agenda of making London the esports capital of Europe.
So let’s look at what other countries are doing and shamelessly match it, beat it.”
Regarding the creation of esports-centred spaces, he explained:
“Spaces are something we’re spending a lot of time on. You know, there are some huge spaces in London that are not currently being used.
I used to be a property developer. From a property development perspective, when you have a big space, people ask, ‘why don’t you put X in it?’
There’s a lot of paperwork.
It’s going to be hard work.
How do we know if they’re going to leave? You know, if we only put them in for three months, it’s too expensive to do it. Well, yeah, I mean, that’s the problem.”
Although clarifying that the London Mayoral Office wants to invest in utilising unused spaces, his response did not clarify how London would compete with established hubs for esports.
Discovering the London Mayoral Office had no awareness of current industry fears: approaching the Guild Esports’ collapse
At the end of August 2025, London esports organisation Guild Esports announced its closure, leaving many freelancers and workers unpaid.
The highly publicised company collapse sent waves of uncertainty and outrage through the UK esports community, particularly after highly respected industry figures were left with no indication of whether they would receive the money they owed.
During Esports News UK’s discussion with Dawber about the provision of non-tournament-centric London esports spaces, it became apparent that the London Mayoral Office had no awareness of the incident or its significance for the UK esports industry.
When Esports News UK explained that Guild Esports was financially backed by iconic UK footballer David Beckham in its early years, Dawber admitted, “I should know that.”
Returning to the issue of direct government support and navigating the aggressive investment from Saudi Arabia
Seemingly avoiding directly addressing the uncertainty introduced by Guild Esports, Dawber redirected the conversation toward the support other governments provide to esports.
“I was with Tencent in China earlier this year who obviously own a few things.
A few big games studios. Not least League of Legends. And they are making a lot of money.
A lot of money out of games.”
Esports News UK then pointed out that both China and heavy esports investors, Saudi Arabia, receive very direct government involvement.
Dawber’s response was that this involvement is not what was driving revenue. Instead, it is those who play the game. This seemingly denies that direct funding is channelled from the Chinese government to companies like Tencent.
Any claims that China does not directly invest in its gaming and esports scenes are false.
Through Vangtou Zhicheng, an entity controlled by the Chinese government, they own significant shares in Tencent Holdings as of October 2023.
Similarly, Saudi Arabia controversially directly invests in esports through the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund. This has attracted criticism for sportswashing.
Even in Europe, the German government recognised esports as a non-profit activity in September 2025. Alongside this, Berlin provided funding for its “Esports Team Berlin” initiative, which helps financially support young esports talent.
When asked how London esports would potentially be lifted on par with these initiatives standing in the way of the Mayoral Office’s “esports capital” ideals, there did not appear to be much clarification.
Dawber reiterated some points about supporting events, but appeared to have no point of reference for how to compare with other national or city initiatives.
In his words, London will look to align with these other initiatives, “not by subsidising it. By providing support for events like this [BLAST London].”
For the London Mayoral Office, “We do it by building up an audience of both gamers and people watching games by developing events like this and continuing to host them and to promote them. Being a place where it’s easy for the world to physically come and watch.”
A little confused, but they’ve got the spirit: The Mayoral Office are on the right track, but lacks awareness
For a political body that is, as identified by Dawber, “incorporating esports into our growth plan,” the London Mayoral Office seems to lack some awareness regarding core industry challenges.
From confusion over government involvement in esports elsewhere to major industry events in the London esports community, there are areas that the London Mayoral Office needs to understand in more depth.
Nevertheless, they do have the right enthusiasm and some direction. Directly integrating esports into the London growth plan demonstrates intent to better support the industry.
London’s governance also clearly has ambitions to attract more high-profile events. These ambitions include an improved visa process for esports athletes.
However, there must be more clarification on how the industry will be supported outside of arena tournaments. There is no identifiable plan for actively encouraging small-scale esports studios, broadcasting, and other vital structures.
Ambitions aside, London esports is still being outpaced.
If London is to “look at what other countries are doing and shamelessly match it,” those in political power need to understand, not just look at, what those countries are doing in the first place.
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