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The 2026 esports calendar has three events that stand above the rest: the Esports World Cup for money, The International for Dota 2's history, and League of Legends Worlds for audience. Here is how each one went, or is going.

Esports World Cup 2026: $75 million, moved to Paris

The Esports World Cup is the richest event of the year. After its previous editions in Riyadh, the Esports Foundation relocated the 2026 edition to Paris, citing an evaluation "in light of the current regional situation" amid military conflicts in the Middle East. It kept its original dates, July 6 to August 23, with every tournament held at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles.

The numbers:

  • $75 million total prize pool, across 25 tournaments in 24 games, including Counter-Strike 2, VALORANT, Fortnite and Trackmania
  • More than 2,000 players and 200 clubs
  • 850 million viewers and 440 million hours watched, up 13% and 26% on 2025, according to the organizers, with a peak of 4.3 million viewers during the League of Legends tournament
  • 175,000 tickets sold, up 94% on 2025

The Club Championship, the $7 million prize for the best organization across all games, went to AG.AL with 5,300 points, ahead of two-time defending champions Team Falcons (4,600), Team Vitality, Natus Vincere and Team Liquid. French player Gwendal "Gwen" Duparc's Trackmania win sealed it for AG.AL.

The Esports World Cup returns to Riyadh in 2027.

The International 2026: Team Spirit in Shanghai

Dota 2's The International ran from August 13 to 23 in Shanghai. Team Spirit beat Team Vision 3-2 in the grand final. The crowdfunded prize pool grew from a $1.6 million base to nearly $3.4 million by the final, with $1,430,221 going to Team Spirit; supporter bundle sales kept adding to it after the event.

That's far from TI's Battle Pass era, when the 2021 prize pool reached $40 million, but Dota 2 still leads esports history: Esports Earnings lists more than $382 million in Dota 2 prize money across 1,987 tournaments, ahead of Fortnite ($209 million), Counter-Strike: Global Offensive ($163 million) and League of Legends ($122 million).

League of Legends Worlds 2026: underway in the US

The League of Legends World Championship runs from October 15 to November 14, 2026, entirely in the United States: the Play-In in Los Angeles, the Swiss Stage and quarter-finals in Allen, Texas, and the final on November 14 in Brooklyn. Nineteen teams compete for a $5 million prize pool, with $1 million to the winner.

Worlds is about audience more than money. In 2025, T1 beat KT Rolster in the final to become the first team to win three consecutive Worlds titles, and that final peaked at 6,752,585 viewers (excluding Chinese platforms), just short of the 6,856,769 record set by the 2024 final.

What to watch

The Esports World Cup's year in Paris was its biggest yet by its own numbers, and it heads back to Riyadh in 2027. For mobile esports at a multi-sport event, see our coverage of PUBG Mobile and MLBB at the 2026 Asian Games.

Sources

Vostrike Newsroom
Editorial team

Vostrike's editorial desk. Articles are researched from cited sources and checked by a human editor before publication. We don't put our own score on games we haven't played.