The Esports Nations Cup Should Be Starting Now. It Was Pushed to 2027
A World Cup for esports, with flags instead of clubs, was due in Riyadh this November. Why the Esports Foundation delayed it a year, what the 16-game event will look like, and how Korea nearly sat it out.
If the calendar had held, this would be the month esports got its version of football's World Cup. Teams in national colours, from more than 100 countries, would be arriving in Riyadh to play 16 games for flags rather than clubs. Instead, the venues are quiet.
On August 18, 2026, the Esports Foundation postponed the first Esports Nations Cup (ENC) from November 2026 to November 2027. Riyadh remains the host. The foundation said the decision followed an ongoing assessment of the regional situation and talks with key stakeholders, the same concerns that had moved the 2026 Esports World Cup to Paris three months earlier.
What the ENC is
The ENC was announced in August 2025 at a sports conference in Riyadh. It is run by the Esports Foundation, the non-profit behind the Esports World Cup (it was previously called the Esports World Cup Foundation), and it is meant to be held every two years with rotating hosts.
The idea is simple: where the Esports World Cup is a club competition, the ENC is for countries. Each nation gets a National Team Partner, usually a federation or association, which picks coaches and players. To stop one club from simply wearing a flag, no roster may have a supermajority of players from a single club.
Sixteen games and the money
The line-up was completed in April 2026 with 16 titles:
- PC and console: Apex Legends, Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, EA Sports FC, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, League of Legends, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Rainbow Six Siege, Rocket League, Street Fighter 6, Trackmania and Valorant
- Mobile: Honor of Kings, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and PUBG Mobile
- And: Chess
Qualification mixes global rankings, regional qualifiers across seven regions, wildcards and solidarity places, with about half the places in each tournament going to automatic qualifiers. Electronic Arts, Krafton, Moonton, SNK, Tencent, Ubisoft and Chess.com signed on as co-developers. Winners are set to receive $50,000 per player per title, with the same placement rewards in every game, from a prize pool reported at $20 million.
The Korea dispute
For a few weeks in spring, it looked as if the best country in esports might not take part. In March 2026 the foundation chose the Korea e-Sports Association (KeSPA) as South Korea's National Team Partner, with full rights over coaches and rosters. In April, the Korean sports outlet Seoul Sports reported that the foundation had asked for certain players to be added to Korea's rosters in some titles. KeSPA said it would keep its own selection process, and the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee warned that athletes not chosen through official channels could not compete under the Korean flag.
By late April the partnership had collapsed and South Korea was reported to be withdrawing. Then, on May 9, KeSPA and the foundation announced they would work together again. KeSPA returned as partner and kept control of selection, and Korean players were to compete as "Team Korea of Esports."
Why it was delayed
The postponement came three months after the Esports World Cup's move to Paris, which the foundation also tied to the regional situation. The foundation's chief executive, Ralf Reichert, said the decision to postpone "was not taken lightly." More than 100 countries and territories already had official partner status, and the foundation said its ENC Development Fund commitments to those partners remain in place.
For players, the delay has a cost. Qualifiers had been due to start in June, and national federations had begun building rosters around players who may have changed teams, form or even games by late 2027.
What's next
The new date, November 2027, gives organisers a year to restart qualifying and confirm partners, including China, whose National Team Partner had not been finalised in May. The questions that matter most are practical: will the 16-game line-up survive a year of publisher deals, and will the regional situation allow a Riyadh event at all?
WGC's take: a national-team event could be the best thing that happens to esports' mainstream profile, because flags are easier to explain to non-fans than franchise logos. But it only works if national bodies, not organisers, pick the teams, which is exactly the principle Korea fought for this spring. For the club side of the story, read our Esports World Cup 2026 review.