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A last minute pivot to Paris brought its own set of
challenges as ESL FACEIT assembles the world’s largest esports event
When the Esports Foundation announced that the third edition
of the Esports World Cup (EWC) would shift from Riyadh to Paris, it marked a
dramatic pivot in the event’s short history. Already scheduled to move from its
Saudi home to international venues at some point in future, disruption in the
Middle East bumped up that timeline giving the team just eight weeks to
relocate the world’s largest esports event.
“It has always been our long‑term intention to take the EWC
to other locations around the world,” says COO Mike McCabe, reflecting on the
decision. “This year simply accelerated that plan. Next time, I would love to
have more than eight weeks to design, build, and prepare.”
The move was prompted after the conflict with the US and
Iran escalated earlier in the year.
“We picked a drop‑dead date for a decision,” McCabe
explains. “If we’d waited until the last minute, it would have only been a
broadcast event. We could have maintained competitive integrity, but not
created a true spectacle.”
Starting July 06 and running over seven weeks, more than
2000 players from 200 clubs, and over 100 countries will compete in 24 games from
Valorant and Rocket League to Chess and Counter-Strike 2 for a record
$75 million dollars in prize money. More than one hundred thousand audience tickets
have been sold in the last few weeks in a country where 11.8 million citizens
identify as esports practitioners and where President Macron has announced a
national esports strategy beginning this autumn from schools level up to grow
the game.
Paris wasn’t the only fallback option though. “Finding a
venue of the scale we operate in, for the duration we need, is extremely
difficult,” McCabe says. “There were very few options that could give us that.
The combination of the venue (Paris Expo Porte de Versailles), the government
helping us accelerate everything, and the transport infrastructure allowing
players and fans to arrive without disruption.”
The city’s cultural weight didn’t hurt either. “Some of the
big French artists were excited to be part of it because they’re passionate
about the industry,” McCabe says of the opening ceremony, which took place at
La Seine Musical headlined by DJ Snake and Aya Nakamura.
Media strategy and co-streamers
The event has grown its global media presence with more than
100 media partners broadcasting the EWC2026 in more than 160 countries, in 40
languages globally.
The Foundation’s strategy is two‑pronged, explains Chief
Commercial Officer Mohammed Al Nimer, “To reach endemic esports audiences while
simultaneously breaking into mainstream media,” he says. In France, that means
daily segments on France Télévisions and partnerships with L’Équipe and NRJ,
the country’s biggest radio station. In the US, Fox Sports will carry the
event. In Saudi Arabia, Tamanya, the broadcaster of the Saudi Pro League, has
taken rights. China, meanwhile, will see non‑exclusive distribution across
Huya, Douyu, Bilibili, and Kuaishou. DAZN, Eurosport and TNT Sports are
covering in different countries in Europe.
“Since mainstream media is a big part of this now we have to
deliver enough content — and the right kind of content — so people who aren’t
core gamers can still understand what’s going on,” McCabe says. “And you have
to celebrate the athletes more. It’s not just about the game; it’s about the
players.”
“We’re always working on finding the right balance between
what’s interesting for people who really know the games, and creating a story
that someone who’s never seen the game before can follow. We want to make sure
we get even more eyes on the product in the future.”
To that end, the most radical expansion is happening online.
“We just launched Creator League, where we’re investing $2
million to support small and medium‑sized streamers,” Al Nimer explains. “We
had more than five thousand people apply, so we’re going to have more than five
thousand co‑streamers who will stream the Esports World Cup in 2026.”
Some will broadcast from Paris; most will stream from home.
“We have extremely good facilities in the arenas where they can be present and
commentate live,” he says. “But obviously, we cannot accommodate all five
thousand on the ground.”
The Foundation sees co‑streamers as essential to global
reach. Al Nimer says, “They allow us to expand into many more languages and
give fans a more personal experience.”
The first two weeks of EWC compete for attention with the
FIFA World Cup. Al Nimer is unfazed.
“Their matches are happening at different times than ours,”
he says. “Our broadcast times are earlier in Europe, and their matches come
later. So we don’t see any overlap for now.”
In fact, viewership is rising. “Our group stages and our
last‑chance qualifiers have recorded historic viewership for us in terms of
peak numbers,” he says. “We haven’t seen any negative impact.”
The 2026 edition will feature the same number of games —
Fortnite is in, StarCraft is out — but the infrastructure is evolving. ESL
FACEIT’s modular production system allowed the Foundation to reverse equipment
shipments within hours. “It was literally an eleven‑hour decision,” McCabe
says. “These systems are modular they’re always moving around the world.”
Diving into technical production
The Foundation hopes to maintain around 7,000 hours of
content during the tournament and surpass last year’s 750 million audience
reach.
The production occupies a vast temporary broadcast compound
inside the Expo Porte de Versailles, built almost entirely from flypacks. Four
main broadcast stages, three smaller group‑play stages, and a public gameplay
zone feeds into a central engineering hub.
“We don’t have a fixed control room building,” says
Sebastian Fjellström, Technical Manager at esports production company ESL
FACEIT Group (EFG). “A lot of our equipment is purpose built for us, but it
lives in flight cases because we need to be flexible.”
The sudden move limited some of the innovation planned for
Riyadh. “We focused on delivering the best content we could rather than pushing
innovation further. But we still improved game capture, graphical elements, and
API integration.”
Paris’s RF‑dense environment added another layer of
complexity. “We’re squeezing hundreds of RF devices into a limited spectrum
while avoiding interference with cameras, wireless mics, and game related RF
systems.”
Stage designs were rebuilt to suit the venue’s height and
weight limits, with each stage using a different camera configuration. ARRI
Alexa 35 Live systems headline Stage 1, while Sony system cameras and handheld
RF units cover Stage 4. “We use long shots to get good close ups without
disturbing the players. Player integrity is really important. We don’t want to
affect the game by getting too close with camera angles, but we still want to
capture all the emotion.”
RF Steadicams are used selectively. “Depending on the game,
we can have them walking on stage during play, but a little bit away so they
don’t disturb the players. As soon as players come on stage or during walk ins,
you really want to be there to capture better footage. Player entries,
celebrations — that’s where the RF and long lens combo is perfect.”
Other toys include a technocrane, a four‑point wire-cam to
capture the audience on the main stage, a rail cam and PTZ units on each
gamer’s PC from Chinese firm Obsbot.
Across all stages, the production team is constantly
refining how esports is presented. “We have a lot of creative ideas about how
we want to present play and how we want to present events.”
“We always produce broadcast first,” Fjellström says. “The
big screens in the arena get additional stage integration elements, but the
primary output is the broadcast feed. We create wild feeds for media rights
holders so they can put their own coverage on top for local markets.”
EVS VIA servers power replays across all stages, including
expanded use of XtraMotion which delivers AI-derived slo-mos. “Last year it was
on one stage; this year it’s on every stage,” he says. “It lets us do super
slow mo on player reactions without needing high speed cameras.”
Real‑time game data is central to the production. “We work
much more with computer sources and real time game data. We can grab stats
directly from the game server and integrate them into graphics packages, stage
elements, and triggers.” Keeping servers local is essential: “The challenge is
balancing innovation with the real time sensitivity of esports. The game
servers must be local to minimise delay for players.”
The team’s deep game knowledge helps smooth transitions. “We
have a people internally who have a lot of knowledge about every game so the
transition of adding or removing games has been super smooth. Our team of games
specialists are able to work really close with both the publisher and players
to make sure that we have the best coverage.
“It's amazing project to work on because there's so many
challenges that you would normally not see in traditional sports and to be able
to push what we can do is always interesting,” Fjellström says.
I
ask him which game is the most difficult or complex to produce.
“I think you can see it from two different angles,” he replies. “We have the
complexity of Battle Royale titles (like Fortnite) because it’s a very big game
with a lot of teams to follow. But we also have complexity with certain games
where they’re restricted by the publisher in terms of what we’re allowed to
show.
“For some games, you can’t show red blood in certain
countries. So you have to duplicate sources — one version without red, one with
— and make sure they look the same, have the same cohesive style, and the
production works the same. That means two different game clients, two different
pipelines. That’s a different kind of challenge.
“But for me on this event, the biggest challenge is just the
massive scale of everything. When you do one stage, it’s usually fine. When you
do two stages the complexity multiplies fast.
“We’re changing the stage design because the venue is
different. We need to change cameras, rethink where we’re placing 125 Micron
nodes, and adjust depending on what type of camera system each stage uses.”
Riedel’s MediorNet Micron is the high-density signal
interface that is the baseband network for this production. Last year’s event
in Riyadh used a full SMPTE 2110 core.
There are 110 physical encoders processing around 280
streams concurrently for distribution to different platforms and media partners
and also for monitoring and remote production.
“We’re producing almost 10–12 live hours per stage, four to
five days a week,” he says. “On top of that, we produce in multiple languages
and there are dedicated Chinese, French and English studios on site.
“In our facility in Stockholm, we have a team working with
different remote tools to control, either the gear here, or do stuff on their
own and send it to here. So we can, for example, have graphic editors working
remote and sending the packages to us, and we can have operators sitting in one
of our facilities and physically controlling devices here.”
Setup began on June 1 with remote testing beforehand, some
of it in Poland.
Building a Nation‑based esports ecosystem
Beyond the logistics and broadcast strategy, McCabe is
focused on the long‑term evolution of esports and particularly the debut of the
Esports Nations Cup (ENC) this December in Saudi.
“ENC is a different property,” he says. “The reason we
created these national competitions is to lean into the national fandom — the
celebration of fans who may not follow endemic esports, but who support their
nation.”
He compares it to football’s global appeal. “A lot of people
who don’t necessarily follow football tune in to support their country. So ENC
is a unique opportunity for us.”
The format brings players from different clubs together to
represent their country — a deliberate contrast to the club‑based EWC. “We
didn’t want it to be duplicative of the club championship,” McCabe says.
“Bringing together players from different teams creates new dynamics and,
hopefully, aligns fans to support together.
“A lot of clubs and players rely on this event. It helps
them with long‑term operational sustainability. If we can help stabilise the
club ecosystem and also help create a nation‑based ecosystem for esports, that
would be our ultimate goal.”
As for whether ENC
will still locate in Riyadh given continuing instability in the Gulf, the
Foundation is monitoring the situation. “Travel and transport safety in Saudi
Arabia are stable,” McCabe says. “We absolutely hope ENC will take place there.
It’s important to us.”
ends
