Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, who is also the Chairman of the Saudi Esports Federation and the president of the International Esports Federation, attended the announcement ceremony of the Esports Asian Champions League, a new multi-genre tournament organized by VSPO.
In an interview with CGTN Sports Scene's Greg Laffradi, Prince Faisal shared his insights into the tournament, the development of esports in Asia, and how esports can enhance ties between Saudi Arabia and China.
"Now, what stands out about the Asian Champions League?" Prince Faisal said. "With esports, so many tournaments are either online or offline. And the innovation here is how do we bring those two worlds together and start to bring together a region that, quite frankly, is the most advanced esports wise in the world and has some of the best players in the world."
"Yet each has their own local leagues. And then you have international leagues. And how do you start to fill that gap in between and get people playing more? So the innovation they have here with, you know, doing everything online, having online arenas, the VR, the AR and the XR, and really bridging that gap in the middle of a season while everything is going on, while everyone has their local leagues, to be able to bring national teams together, and bring that fan experience together, and enhance that by not just simply watching online but actually being a part of an online arena, an online world. I think it is not just innovative, but it is a step towards the future of this as an industry," he added.
Saudi Arabia has been playing an active role in both hosting esports programs and investing in its development in recent years. For example, the inaugural Esports World Cup took place in Riyadh in July and August. The country's Savvy Games Group invested $265 million in Shanghai-based VSPO in 2023. Meanwhile, Chinese clubs have been performing well in multiple esports competitions for nearly a decade. Prince Faisal believes that esports can lead to better cooperation and exchanges between the two countries.
"Esports is one of those things that really bridges different gaps," he said. "It's a sport, so it brings together ministries of sport, it brings together athletes, it brings together events like the Asian Games and, you know, the Olympics and things like that. It's also a fan engagement. It means tourism. So when we host events like the Esports World Cup, we had a huge number of Chinese fans come to watch the Chinese teams play."
"We had over 100,000 Chinese tourists visit Saudi last year in 2023, and we look to increase those numbers. We had 30,000 Saudis visit China last year. We look to increase those numbers. But how do you do that? You have to create an interest. You have to create a spark. What's that first visit? So a lot of these young men and women that came to visit Saudi for esports, maybe they saw something that looked interesting."