How The Esports World Cup Club Partner Program Is Supporting Orgs

The Esports World Cup is about to hand out a lot of cash to teams.
Credit: Esports World Cup
The Esports World Cup Club Partner Program is one of the biggest opportunities for esports organisations around the world in the current industry landscape. With VC funding significantly drying up, and sponsor interest generally dropping over the last few years, many esports organisations have struggled to keep money coming in at the required rate to meet the high costs of the industry. Meaning, programs that offer the organisations themselves the chance to make money directly from tournaments, rather than splitting prize money with players, have become more important than ever.
The EWC Club Partner Program does exactly that, offering significant financial support to clubs that can help spread the word of the tournament, create content around it and, hopefully, perform well when everything kicks off in Riyadh this summer. The top eight clubs from the Esports World Cup 2024, along with 32 others chosen through an application process, have been selected for the 2025 Club Partner Program, and now their journey to the Esports World Cup really kicks off.
“In 2025, we wanted to build a partnership that, instead of providing competition-related funding, places a dedicated focus on engaging global fans and helping Clubs grow their communities,” said Hans Jagnow, Director of Team and Player Relations at the Esports World Cup Foundation. “It’s all about putting fans at the center, connecting them with the EWC storylines of their favorite Clubs and players, and enabling them to expand their brands through these opportunities. Last but not least, we have more Clubs while maintaining a strong funding level, setting the partnership up for overall growth with our investment.”
For the 40 teams that have made it into the program, they are now guaranteed six figure payouts, providing they meet the requirements of the program, and potentially up to $1 million should their campaigns around the EWC perform particularly well. This isn’t related to competitive performance at all, all partner teams still have to qualify like any other squad for all of the tournaments at EWC, but the better their campaigns around the event, the bigger the payout they could end up with.
“It’s encouraging to see the esports ecosystem evolving to offer more ways for teams to move towards sustainability,” said Sam Mathews, CEO and Founder of Fnatic. “Unlike traditional sports like football [soccer]