Masaa Drops out of Esports World Cup Overwatch Event

Overwatch 2

July 9, 2024

Jordan Ashley

This week Overwatch is gearing up for a huge tournament. Not part of its normal OWCS event, it’s a separate tournament taking place at the Esports World Cup 2024. This tournament is part of the wider EWC which has seen massive expansion this year. Not everyone’s excited about the whole thing though, with one player especially dropping out for moral reasons. Masaa has decided he won’t be taking part in the Overwatch tournament at the Esports World Cup.

Masaa has made it clear he won’t be taking part in this coming event. There are tons of games featured at the Esports World Cup but Overwatch has a big role. The player explained his thinking and why he’ll be dropping out of competition this time.

Masaa Won’t be Playing in Esports World Cup

Source: @Masaa_ow

Masaa has decided to drop out of Overwatch at the Esports World Cup. The player on a recent stream has expressed his views on the event, specifically it’s linked to Saudi Arabia. Masaa has specifically decided to not attempt due to the LGBT rights issues in Saudi Arabia as well as other moral disagreements with the regime.

In recent years, Saudi Arabia has become increasingly intertwined with esports. While dropping out of events like this is a nice gesture, it’s pretty difficult to be in esports without getting involved with Saudi owned events. The main Overwatch competitive league, the OWCS, is even run by FACEIT, owned by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund. Masaa recently competed in an OWCS event ran by FACEIT at the DreamHack event, also owned by the Saudis.

The Esports World Cup in particular is a showpiece for Saudi investment in esports lately. However, their interests in the esports space go much further, owning everything from Orgs to slices of developers of esports games like EA. It’s good that players are trying to bring more attention to these problems with their involvement. In 2024 though, it’s hard to be involved in esports without getting involved with Saudi owned elements. Their investment in the space has become too wide-reaching to avoid.