The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has officially struck a 12-year partnership with the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of Saudi Arabia to host the first-ever Olympic eSports Games in 2025.

This collaboration will be formally presented at the next general assembly of IOC members (IOC Session) on July 25, a day before the opening of the 2025 Summer Olympic Games in Paris. Plans for the eSports Games were originally announced last October.  

Following the IOC Session, a city, date, venue, lineup of game titles and qualification details will be determined for the inaugural event in Saudi Arabia, and subsequent Olympic eSports Games will be held at regular intervals.

Saudi Arabia’s gaming sector is thriving on the fact that the country is home to more than 23 million gamers (67% of the population), half of which are women, according to Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Faisal, minister of sport and president of the Saudi Arabian Olympic and Paralympic Committee. Last year, Saudi Arabia invested US$38 billion in the games and eSports industry through its Public Investment Fund, and the country hosted the eSports World Cup (EWC) earlier this month, offering a record-breaking prize pool of more than US$60 million. 

For its part, the IOC held its first in-person Olympic eSports Week in Singapore last year, featuring disciplines and game brands such as motorsport (Gran Turismo), shooting (Fortnite), cycling (Zwift), dance (Just Dance), sailing (Virtual Regatta), taekwondo (Virtual Taekwondo), table tennis (VR Table Tennis) and chess (Chess.com). But the massively successful Rocket League vehicular soccer game series attracted the biggest audience, with 22,000 peak viewers tuning in across YouTube and Twitch.

As work gets underway for the the first Olympic eSports Games, controversy is sure to follow the IOC’s selection of Saudi Arabia as the host country, given that it has come under fire for a litany of human rights abuses, including its failure to protect women from gender-based violence, and its stance that homosexuality is illegal and punishable by life imprisonment or death.

Additionally, orgs such as Human Rights Watch have argued that Saudi Arabia has recently upped its investment in high-profile sports leagues (LIV Golf being a prime example) in order to improve its international image (a.k.a. “sports-washing”).

With files from Ryan Tuchow. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.