Paris, India could emerge as the biggest growth story in global esports, with the Esports World Cup Foundation betting on the country's enormous fan base, improving competitive ecosystem and evolving policy environment to accelerate its presence in the sport.
"There's no country on the planet that has more potential than India when it comes to esports," Mike McCabe, COO and Deputy CEO of the Esports World Cup Foundation, told PTI in an interview on the sidelines of the ongoing Esports World Cup.
"The fandom that we see in India, the passion that we see for the Indian clubs who are competing here is incredible. And so we're obviously investing more. I have dedicated strategies specifically for India growth. It's a personal project of mine that I feel really strongly about.
"And so I think over the next couple of years, with obviously an evolution of government policy that we've seen more recently, it's going to open the door to a period of rapid acceleration."
The Foundation has already worked on EWC qualification events in India with Geoblast, while its executives have been engaging with Indian clubs to understand how they can support both teams and the wider ecosystem.
{{/usCountry}}The Foundation has already worked on EWC qualification events in India with Geoblast, while its executives have been engaging with Indian clubs to understand how they can support both teams and the wider ecosystem.
{{/usCountry}}"For the first few events that we've run in India, we ran some qualification events for EWC with Geoblast partnership there. That's been really, really strong," McCabe said.
"And the performance there has been great. I've been meeting with some of the Indian clubs that have been here over the course of the last couple of weeks with PUBG Mobile.
"And just hearing from them first hand, how can we work together to help support them, but also to support the ecosystem in India as it grows."
The India push comes as the EWC itself has grown into an unusually large multi-game property. The 2026 edition brings more than 2,000 players and 200 clubs from over 100 countries together across 25 tournaments in 24 games, with a record USD 75 million prize pool. More than 1.5 million players participated in 330 qualification events leading into the competition.
However, the organisation's own expansion has also been tested this year. The 2026 EWC was moved to Paris after the organisers concluded that travel disruption and regional volatility made hosting the event in Riyadh too difficult.
McCabe said the decision came after 10 months of planning for Riyadh, but cancellation was never considered.
"...we were very forthright on that with our stakeholders. That if we cancel the event, it would be a significant impact to the clubs and the players who rely on this moment during the annual calendar to be able to really deliver on the biggest stage and generate the most significant amount of prize money."
The seven-week window was also critical because it is when the biggest games in the world allow the EWC to operate.
"Delay wasn't something we could do either because this is the one seven-week period where all of the biggest games in the world give us the window to be able to operate. So we couldn't move. If we moved, we would have lost probably more than half of the tournaments that we have."
The Foundation ultimately chose relocation rather than stripping the event of its live component.
"We could either relocate and just do a broadcast-only event so we would maintain the competitive integrity. We'd maintain the broadcast experience, but we would rob the event of the fans. And that would have been a last resort for us.
"So when we had this opportunity to not just relocate, but relocate and make it a spectacle and build bigger stages than we've ever built in Riyadh. So our Stage 1 has over 7,100 seats. Our biggest venue in Riyadh had 2,000 seats.
"And so this has been incredible to be able to increase the scale as well as relocate."
The Esports Foundation paid approximately 250 million euros to France to organise the event in Paris.
So the difficult question is whether esports can eventually sustain itself through its own commercial revenues?
McCabe said sponsorship has grown significantly over the EWC's three editions, with brands increasingly using esports to reach younger consumers.
"We're seeing more and more big brands are identifying that esports is the way that they're able to connect with a younger demographic.
Interestingly, the 12-year agreement between EWCF and IOC which was signed in 2024 to launch and host the Olympic Esports games was mutually terminated in October last year.
McCabe didn't give up hope of a future collaboration.
"If we can pick up an event and move an event that's bigger than the Winter Olympics in eight weeks and run it at this level, we run at different speeds. And we felt that the nation-based competition is something that's our next big growth factor for esports globally.
"And the IOC were keen to continue to evaluate and be able to identify what is the right moment. They have more than 100 years of heritage. And so for them, we completely understand that the brand is really sensitive... so what we said was, okay, we'll move first and then we'll keep the conversation going."
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