Not even talking about val only, probably the fakest an esports event can feel. Yeah prize pool, partnership programms, I get why teams participate in it, but gosh it's so artificial. Lame ass studios, small crowd (if any). And the members and partners do not help. Even navi, for example made like 8 posts advertizing EWC and the organization itself didn't participate in a single game. It is not even sportswashing that is my main issue (and it is a huge ass elephant in the room), it's just the contrast that EWC themselves, sponsors, Club Partners hype it up as the biggest event in all esports yet the fans do not give a single shit.
EWC
posted in
Off Topic
I ain't really a fan of 100Thieves, I am just testing out my bullshit luck theory, if it's correct they lose to mibr tommorow
this is my issue with ewc too
i attended ewc 2025 in person and the crowd was dead asf
I mean I remember that collapse (team spirit dota 2 offlaner) said that falcons/ewc basically hired fans off the streets of riyadh to come and cheer for Falcons during their Dota Games, so yeah, everything around the event just feels artificial af
half the val crowd didnt know anything abt val
even from the nonpaid fans a lot were just looking to watch something to pass time
very few ppl there genuinely cared about val
yeah cuz the crowds are small and most of them are just invited guests/media personalities and stuff like that, literally the gala of esports. Just a showcase of important people and ''oh look, this nickname or name of a relatively famous person in the esports circle, didn't know he watches vct/dota!''
i will say it was actually much better in the OW crowd (mostly cus saudi has a big OW scene so the crowd was (mostly) actual fans)
but games like val and cs were boring
i think ewc needs to shrink the amount of titles it has and focus on improving the production and fan experience for a smaller set of games
yeah and it begins in august and they teased roster changes by dubbing their cologne major vlog as ''last dance'' but no rumours around them rn :D. So instead of announcing anything about their CS roster (FYI the last time they made changes they announced them on 08.07.2025, when the major ended on 22.06.2025, and the current major ended on 21.06.2026 and still no news or rumours
they didn't qual to both dota and valorant, yet they tweet about it the most. They attend other games afaik, but rn it's just their fatal fury guy playing, yet they made like 7 tweets in 24 hours
I mean they had to hold it at a neutral event considering you know... issues but even then I went to watch the val last year thought it was pretty good. Calling it sportswashing when really it's one tournament a year (an offseason event at that) where you get to watch all the tier 1 teams play that qualified I don't get it. It's more val for us to watch if anything.
When you look at one esports at EWC and treat it as just an offseason event, yeah, it ain't as bad. For CS it's also just ''one random event before/after cologne where teams play for a big prize pool.''. The thing is that EWC exists in like 30+ different games. For esports like cs/val/lol it's just a run of the mill event. even for a decent esports like dota it's the biggest payday. I can't speak for other esports, but I would guess that for most of these niche games it's also the biggest one. Their PR and Marketing teams are correct when they claim they are the biggest esport event in the world, because it's 2 months of non-stop action across 30+ different titles with the biggest teams. But most esports viewers watch like 1-5 different esports so for them it's just a run-of-the-mill esports event. The contrast is too much for me to ignore. It feels fake because of this. You have 30+ titles but the biggest ones simply do not give a shit about EWC.
I mean I don’t really gaf, end of the day I’m trying to watch high level val, and if the teams are trying to win that’s what matters, right? Might not be the actual circuit but it is still a competition.
Discord